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Lyttelton Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1266, 21 July 1864, Page 2

The Paper of Baxk Notes.—The paper upon which the notes of the Bank of England are printed is manufactured from the whitest and best of linen rags, by one firm at Laverstoke, in Hampshire. It is made in sheets sixteen inches long and five inches wide, each being designed for the printing of two notes. They are divided in the middie after leaving the press; therefore every note issued by the Bank of England has three rough or deckle edges and one snjooth edge. The paper and wiitemmark have always been the great ditHculty to makers of forged notes, so muQh so, that even experts have been deceived by it) but spurious paper has never up to the present time stood the test. In the recent robbery of bank paper from the mills, which caused so much anxiety to the public, the forgers had au opportunity such as they never had before, and it is to be hoped, never will have again; yet, even with this advantage, they were entirely unsuccessful. The paper appears •to have been taken from the mills unsized; and the aftersizing was badly done, giving a dirty appearance to the notes; in fact, to those \yhose 4uty it is to examine notes nil day long, this appearance gave to these notes au uncomfortable, suspicious look. A quantity of paper (enough for making 999,000 notes) is forwarded to London once a month. It is delivered to the bank-note paper office, where it is counted, and then handed to the print-ing-office. After passing through a machine which prints all but the numbers, dates, and signatures, it is returned to the paper-offlce. In this transition state it is kept in store. As notes are required, it is again passed through a machine for completion. Each sheet is then cut in half, as before stated, making two notes. > They are counted, and carefully examined by cashiers, whose duty it is to reject all notes which are indistinctly printed, or are imperfect, for the Old Lady is very particular on this point—tied up in bundles of one hundred notes each, and five of these bundles in one, making a large bundle of five hundred notes. The average daily nianufac-

ture is about thirty-seven thousand notes, or seventyfour bundles of five hundred notes, each bundle weighing one and a-half pound. The number of notes made in a year will be over eleven and a-half millions, the paper Aveighing more than fifteen tons. Books are printed at the bank, with a record of every note issued. Every note presented at the bank for payment is marked off these ledgers on the day following, the date of payment being stamped on the note and in the ledger. Should a forged note by any chance be passed, the imposter would assuredly be ttjrnetf put ttjo follqwing day, on reference tQ ledger for posting it. About thirty-seven thousand notps ape presented daily for payment. They are cancelled by having the signature torn away, and two holes, the size of gun waddings, punched through the amount in the left hand corner of the note. Every suah note is kept at the bank ten years ; and the boxes contain? ing these notes, if placed end to end, would reach from the bunk to Kew Bridge, or more than nine miles. The authorities take pride in the fact that shouUlrefprenoc to any of these notes be required, by furnishing the number, date, and amount, in ton minutes it would be placed before you. The notes are burned once a month; and the practice novf is to place them in a brick furnace, the sinoke from vfhioli paasps through water, tlpis ayoidiqg all unpleasant? ness. The Old Lady has some curiosities in the way of bank notes. There is a note for one millionj li note for £555, dated 1Q5)9, bearing several receipts qn the front for part payment, as, at that time, payment on account could be taken; a £25 note, which was in circulation 111 years—this amount, at compound interest for the time, would amount to £G000; a £1000 note with which Lorii Cochrane paid hisiine.

-rrChambers' Journal. .. ~ , " The Man in the liion Mask. oris papers notice a work just issued at Boston, " Unedited Cor? resnoiidenco of Benjamin Franklin. _ It contains a recorded conversation of that . i ' l l u ® tr \ o " s Q . the Due de Richelieu (who died m 1,88), the purport of which was to assure the American envoy that the "man in the iron mask was the son of Anne d'Autriche, queen of Louis by adul erous connection with the Duke of Buckingham, pid that secret had been left in the family by Cardinal Richelieu, who was the contriver of this life-lons concealment and vicarious penalty.