The Bank of England.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 112, 19 April 1883, Page 3

The Bank of England.

} European Mail.j A writer in a contemporary gives the following interesting facts of a visit paid to "The Old Lady ofThreadneedle Street :" — In making a tour of inspection tbe officials give yon a little printed; slip, from which it appears that in the coarse of five years the paid notes amount to 77,745; 000 in number, and that they fill 13,400 boxes, which, if put s:de by side would reach 2£ miles. If the notes were placed in a pile they would reach to a height of 5f miles, or if joined end to end they would form a ribbon of 12,445 miles long. Their original value was over £1,750,626,600. The greatest of rogues might be inclined to find some comfort in the extent and intricacy of such a stow of old paper. Of course, however, they are most sys« tematically arranged, and any note of the seventy-seven millions may be pounced upon with the utmost celerity and.preceision, At the end of five years these old notes are thrown into a furnace specially constructed for the purpose, and burned. It is a fact, however, that so firm in texture is the paper of a genuine Bank of England note that burning* alone can hardly destroy it. The authorities have in a little glazed frame the remnants of a note which was in the great fire of Chicago. Though completely charred and' black, the paper still holds together^ and the printing of the note is said to be sufficiently legible to establish its genuineness and to warrant* its being cashed. There are some other notes here that were cashed after having gone down with the Eurydice a' few years ago, and reduced to little better -than pulp. Indeed, the scraps and fragments whieh sometimes come into the Benk to be cashed have a really ridiculous appearance. On the occasion of a recent visit, for instance, the officials had under examination a number ot fragments of discolored paper, none much bigger than a sixpence, and when put together presenting to the unskilled eye not the slightest resemblance to a note. And yet it wag pretty confidently asserted that the paper would be cashed. It is beneath the dignity ot the Bank of England to take, or even to appear to take, 1 advantage ot accident to their notes, and, if there is any posibility of establishing the identity of one of them, it is sure te be duly . honored. Even where a note is entirely destroyed proper evidence of the fact of destrnc* tion will he accepted and payment made. A lost note will in some cases be paid, and there is one occasion recorded upon which the liberal attitude of the directors in a case of this kind involved them in a loss of £30,000, A bank director declared that he had lost a note for that amount, and, upon his giving an indemnity for the sum in the event of the note ever turning up, the money was paid to him. Many years after his death an unknown person presented the missing note. The paper was undeniably good, and the bank had no alternative but to cash it, as it was payable to bearer on demand, and, as the heirs of the bank director who had lost it repudiated all liability, the money could not be recovered, The collection of forged notes which have been stopped at the counter and have been accumulated in a kind of scrap-book, is very interesting even to those who have no intention of embarking in this line of enterprise. To the great fraternity of forgers — said to have been entirely evolved so far as bank notes are concerned since the year 1758— probably ho volume extant would afford half the interest of Ihisouriom collection.