The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC J OURNA.LS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.-As far as regards the further circulation
of the forgeries, all apprehension may now cease ; for
there are but three ways in which the Exchequer Bills
now outstanding can be passed. First, by sale in the
public market, where, of course,none will be bought ex-
cept from respectable parties, who will be personally re-
sponsible for the validity of the documents. Secondly,
by paying them into the Bank of England in part of the
recent funding—in which case, by the adoption of the
suggestion in our paper of yesterday, arid the well known
vigilance of the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England,
who is now empowered to withhold the scrip until
the genuineness of the subscribed bills has been tested,
there will be no diffiCulty in stopping all that are for-
geries. There is a third method by which they may
be passed, namelys by presenting them for renewal
in March or June, at the office of the Paymaster of
Exchequer Bills ; but here, by comparison with the
counterfoils, there will be an easy test of their validity.
Upon the discovery being first made, all parties who
brought forged bills to the office were allowed to take
them away, it being merely intimated that the instru-
ments were invalid ; but Lord Monteaole has now
most properly decided that all the documents presented
at his department, which are found to be fraudulent,
shall be retained ; and the decision of the Government,
acting, of course, under legal advice, will guide his
Lordship in the use to he hereafter made of them. The
greatest attention is showteehy the Comptroller-General
and his subordinates to ail parties applying for aid or
advice, and Lord Monteagle is indefatigable in his per-
sonal exertions to investigate the whole transaction, as
well as to remedy as far as possible the inconvenience that
must arise from it. It is true that some of the bills paid
in during the week for the recent funding are ascertained
to be forged ; but this circumstance is matter of congratu-
!alien rather than regret, because,by the present arrange-
ment of withholding the scrip until the validity of the sub-
sceibed Bills is proved, those that arc spurious will fall into
the proper hands—the hands of the Governtrient. The
reason why Mr. Smith selected all the higher numbers
for his forgeries is this,—that it is customary at the
Exchequer Bill-office to give out the lower numbers
to individuals, and to take the supply for the Bank
of England from the documents on which the dis-
tinguishing figures are of the largest amount ; and as
the latter are merely deposited, never finding their
way into the market, it was very unlikely that :forged
bill would come into collision with another of its own
number—for the valid Bill would most probably be
lying in the chest of the establishment alluded tn. Mr.
Smith was aware of the practice of the Exchequer
office, as well as of the custom pursued at the Bank of
England,-and his knowledge, of course, enabled him to
carry on his system with greater facility.
STANDARD.—It woiild be worse than idle to
attempt to contradict in detail the malicious falsehoods
which form the style of the articles which appear from
day to day in the morning and evening organs of
the late Government. We had hoped. that their viru-
lence had nearly worn itself out, but we find thet we
have reckoned without our host. There never was
a period when a Sovereign of these realms so nom-
pietely occupied the minds and hearts of a people
as does her Majesty Queen Victoria at the present
moment. At no time within our recollection has the
affectionate loyalty of the people of England been more
strikingly demonstrated ; and we cordially respond
to the suggestion of our esteemed Contempo-
rary, the Morning Herald, that if the hopes of the
nation be realised by the birth of a male heir to
the British Throne, an event so auspicious should be
signalised "by the revival of an ancient, but long
disused custom,"—the "proclaiming of liberty to the
captives, and the opening of the prison-doors to them
that are bound." Such is the moment—when mlions
of her loyal and devoted subjects are looking with the
deepest anxiety for the news of her Majesty's delive-
rance from an hour of peril, which she is called upon to
share with the meanest of her subjects—that is selected
by the Globe for dragging, for party purposes, her
Majesty's name into its columns, and associating
with it statements as false and malignant as
they are indecent. There is not a subject of
Conservative principles in her Majesty's dominions
who will not indignantly repudiate the gratuitous
and, we must add, profligate assertion of the Globe
of last evening, that " her Majesty's health is now
dispensed with at Cpnserva,.ive Atli T*1.2,4_45
the occasion setected-Tor tli-e—proriaglition of this
falsehood ? One on which every heart is animated,
we hope and believe, by sentiments of affec-
tionate anxiety for her Majesty's welfare—an anxiety
approaching ;note nearly to the feeling with which her
subjects usually regard approaching pain and peril to
members of their own families, than to any sentiment of
mere abstract loyalty and devotion to a Sovereign. Such
is, we repeat it, the juncture selected by the protege of
the late Government for irreverently mixing up the
Queen's name with the most malignant and groundless
calumnies. Ifthis be loyalty it is of a description to which
Conservatives make, we readily admit, no pretension.
But if loyalty, in the best and truest acceptation of
the term, may be presumed to exist in hearts occupied
at this interesting crisis of a nation's hopes by one feel-
ing of affectionate and anxious solicitude for her welfare,
then we are satisfied that there is not a Conservative in
her dominions who is not entitled to claim credit for it.
COURIER.—The Morning Herald has conferred
a real service on the community interested in the re-
sult of the enormous frauds committed in the Ex-
chequer Bill-office, by its reprint of the ease of Ro-
bert Aslett, tried in the 3e it 1803 at the Old Bailey
Sessions for " embezzling effects," which effects were
Exchequer Bills, the property of the Bank of Eng-
land. The case of Mr. Bowman Smith, the culprit is
the present instance, and the circumstances under which
the Exchequer Bills were prepared and issued by him,
present, in the more important features, a remarkable
analogy with the facts thus detailed in the case of As-
lett. In the first place, as the Herald observes, to whose
article we refer elsewhere, it was held " that Exchequer
Bah, issued as valid bills by the authority of Government,
though signed with the name of the Auditor of the Ex-
chequer, by a person not legally authorised to sign them,
and thereforeJbrgeries, constitute effects in the hands of
bona fide purchasers, and that the innocent holders
have a claim on the justice of the Government fir
their payment." It does not strictly appear as yet that
the bills issued by Bowman Smith are "forgeries," and
we incline to think it will be found they do not
range within that category ; if so, the claim of the
holders is so much the more fortified. In the second
place, it may be contended that they were not issued
by the " authority of Government." But here, again,
how is the " authority of Government" to be in-
terprctated except through the acts of its accredited
agents ? Bowman Smith was that accredited agent,
being described in the Royal kalendar, a work of
authority we presume, as " Senior Clerk in the office
for issuing Exchequer Bills." Here he is connected
direct with the Government in the special depart-
ment from which all Exchequer Bills must ema-
nate, and therefore the department and the
party which represented the connexion and in-
tromission direct between the Government and the
public. We cannot, therefore, but come to the con-
clusion that the holders of Exchequer Bills so issued
and placed in circulation, whether forged or embezzled,
have a legal as well as equitable right of indemnifica-
tion, when held against value bona fide paid, and un-
tainted otherwise with fraud or collusion with fraud.
The stocklambling story of Bowman Smith, the con-
fessed criminal now awaiting trial, is but a repetition in
its main features of the notorious case of Aslett.

MONEY MARKET and CITY NEWS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF YEiTERDAY.
TIMES.—Now that some progress
.has been made in
.Invl infinitely
oru:egrlahnids
the investigation of the "Exchequer Bill" fraud, so as to
disclose at least the general bearings of it, the astonish-
ment becomes universal in the City at the loose system
of business which has left even. the possibility of .so ex-
tensive a fraud, much more of its continuance during so
h
qtUruent.hey.
so e:flel whichteai
entirely
is,
long a period. In the minds of men at all accustomed to
order and regularity, it. amounts to a confession that no
check or control existed over
.the issues from the
p past
that dispute
Exchequer, and almaq to firrnsh. an excuse under
such extraordinary temptation, .if anything could
sstembeevhecnomhe"
among all parties in. politics, that the only effort
mdoittseod,. forThtilsie
isdelain
made is, by one side to. fix the original blame
negligent administratio.n. If it does not now undergo
enuponhow-
everter
ebtdandue
pmoo
ntrh.
office,
ffisr .
pc
re
i,Te
ight enbieeel
becamei e
found
a complete reform, it will be
.the most entire neglect of
a due protection to the public that could possibly be
committed. Any bank clerk accustomed to the checks
impose upon all issues, would in a few hours so organise
the Exchequer Bill dep?xtmen.t, as to make fraud, or
which the forms of business at the Bank
even irree-ularity, quite impossible. The two issues do,
indeed, resemble each other in character much more
than would at a cursory view appear, for an Exchequer
Bill passes from band to hand almost as readily as a
Bank of England note, and is, in ordinary circum-
stances, almost as easily .
converted into money.
Sunly the ridicule of all foreign nations, independently
of our own, must attach to the whole •of this affair,
when it is perceived that a functionary like Lord
Monteagle, called a " Controller " of the Exchequer
whose utmost employment woulti be to attach his signa-
ture to the issues, and who receives for that purpose
2,0001. annually of the public money, performs all this
work by deputies, who sign for him, not by order or
procuration, which would transfer to them some portion
of the responsibility, but who write his name, and en-
deavour to imitate as nearly as they can his real signa-
ture—that is, who commit forgeries by authority ; and
all this extending over a circulation of the unfunded