Bank of England Notes.

Lake County Press, Issue 906, 12 April 1900, Page 2

Bank of England Notes.

There are nine kinds of Bark of England notes, all of them printed on thin, crisp, white paper. Scottish notes are primed o:i somewhat similar paper, but they are now always in two or three color vs. Curiously enough, the United States Government also has its notes printed on paper made by "a private firm, the pulp being a mixture of linen, cotton, and silk, the silk threads coming into prominence after passing throrgh the printing machine. French notes are of paper that has hair in its pulp, the hairs coming out so strongly when photographed as to render any attempt at forgery on'that line impossible. Some nations use coloured inks : the only iak we use ts black—a wonderfully Hard and dry preparation said to he made from naphtha smoke. Another peculiarity of our notes is that the c:igraving is simple and old-fashion-ed, while foreign notes are mostly elaborately and mechanically engraved by complicated machinery, the designs being difficult of imitation by hand, and the lathes and ruling engines being so costly "as to be beyond the means of any probable Imitator. Over fifty thousand Bank of EDgland notes are Issued a day. their average value, say. £2O, their average life five or six days. They come back from the bankers in parcels, each stating the number and value of the notes in it. and they are sorted first into values, then Into dates and series marks. and then Into numbers, any -hat are found counterfeit being debited to the bank that has paid them In. They are stamped by machine, and ther defaceil by punching out the letters of value and tearing out the signature—the discarded signatures bolus: kept in sacks, and eventually burnt. The notes themselves are for five years. Last time the ftoelc was taken it weighed over r'nety tons, and represented an original value of over 17.~0 millions. Notwithstanding these multitudes, any note can be found in a few minutes if the number and dnte series mark be known, the number without either date or series mark being practically useless, as many good people have found to their cost when they have appealed to the bank to stop a note lost or stolen or strayed in the post. After a lengthy stay in the vaults the notes are burnt, about 400.000 of them at a time. In the bank furnace at dead of night, their ascending smoke passing through a shower of falling water, to be rendered as Innoxious ard inconspicuous as possible. The old ink used to leave their remains as a tiny blue clinker, the new leaves them as a little gray ash. Tt seems rather appalling to think of what was once fifteen thousand millions of paper money have vanished up the bank chimney since the Queen ascended the throne. But paper money, like everything else In this world. Is worthless when it has served Us turn.—" Leisure Hour."