VALUABLE BANK NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 878, 28 December 1888, Page 30

VALUABLE BANK NOTES.

The largest amount of a bank note in circulation in 1827 was LIOOO. It is said that two notes for LIOO,OOO each, and; two for L 50,000, wore once engraved and issued. A butcher, who had amassed an immense fortune in the timo of war, went one day with one of these L 50,000 notes, to a private banker, asking the loan of LSOOO, and wishing to deposit the -big note as security in the banker’s hands,, saying that he had kept it for years. The LSOOO was at once handed over, but the banker hinted at the same time to the butcher the folly of hoarding such a sum and losing the interest. “ Wary true, sir,” replied the butcher, “but I like’s the look on’t so wery well that I have t’other one of the same kind at hopio.” An eccentric gentleman in London framed a bank post bill for L 30,000, and exhibited it for five years in one of his sitting rooms. The fifth year he died, when the “ picture ” was at once taken down and cashed by liis heirs. Some years ago at a nobloman’s house near Hyde Park a dispute arose about a" certain passage in Scripture, and a dean who was present, denying that there was any such text at all, a Binle was called for. A dusty old Bible was accordingly produced, which had never been removed from its shelf siuco the death of the nobleman’s mother, several years before. When it was opened a mark was found in it, which on examination proved to be a bank'post bill fpr L 40.000. It might possibly have fieen placed there as a reproof to the son, who perhaps did not consult ; the Bible so o,ften as his mother would liaye wished.