A BANKNOTE'S HISTORY.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XIII, Issue 3569, 23 March 1880, Page 3

A BANKNOTE'S HISTORY.

Not lonfr ago a well known;polleot or of' ■ ■ cariosities in Paris, who had (jey. ted cori«siderable sums of money to the gathering together of banknotes of all countries: and all values, became' tiie possessor of a Bank' of England' %<Hjound note to which aa unusually staanfe story is at- •; tabbed. This note was paid. pool merchant's office in the ordinary way •of business sixty-one years aeo)' audits * recipient, the cashier of the firm, £ holding it up to the light to test its" genuineness, noticed : some faint red [.marks upon it, whioh on closer examination proved to be semi effaced scrawled in blood, between the priniol lines and upon the blank margin of the note. pains were taken to decipher these partly obliterated characters; and eventually the following sentence was made out :-|lf-this note should fall into the hands of John Dean, Long Hill Carlisle, he will learn hereby that his brother is languishing a\prisooer in Algiers." Mr Dean was promptly communicated with by the holder of the note, and ho appealed to the Government of the day for assistance in his endeavour to obtain hia brother's release from captivity ■Tho prisoner, who,) as it subsequently appeared, had traced the above sentence upon the i note with'-a splinter of wood dipped in nis own blood, had been a slave to thoDey of Algiers eleven years whea his strange missive fir3t attracted attention in a Liverpool counting house. His family and friends had long believed him dead. Eventually his brother, with. 1 "* the aid of the British authorities in the Mediterranean, suoeeeded in ransoming him from the. Dey, aud brought him to. England, where, however, ho did not long survive his release, his constitution hav« iug been irreparably injured by exposure, privation, aud forced labour in the Dey's: galleys, : 4 ■