Quasqueton guardian. (Quasqueton, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1856-1858, 1857-02-07
A PEEP INTO THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

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A PEEP INTO THE BANK OF ENGLAND.
The Bank Of England must be seen on
the inside as well as out, and to get into
the interior of this remarkable building,
to observe the operations of an institution
that exerts more moral and political pow
er than any sovereign in Europe, you
mnst have an order from the Governor of
the Bank. The building occupies an ir-
regular area of eight acres of ground
an edifce of no architectural beauty,
with not one window toward the street,
being lighted altogether from the roof of
the enclosed areas.
was led, on presenting my card of
admission, into private room, where,
after a delay of a few moments, a messen
ger came and conducted me through the
mighty and mysterious building. Down
we went into a room where the notes Of
the Bank received the day before were
now examined, compared with the entries
in the books, and stored away The
Bank of England never issues the same
note a second time. 1t receives, in the
ordinary course of business, about .f80O,
900, or $4,000, 900, daily in notes these
are put up into parcels according to their
denomination, boxed up with the date of
lheir reception. and are kept ten years ;
at the expiration of which period they
are taken out and ground up in the mill
which | saw running, and made again in
TO paper. If, in the course of those ten
years, any dispute in business, or law
suit, should arise concerning the pay
ment of any note, the Bank can produce
the identical bill.
To meet the demand of notes so con-
stantly used up, the Bank has its own
papermakers, its own printers, its own
engravers, all at work under the same
roof, and it even makes the machinery by
which the most of its own work is done.
A complicated but beautiful operation is
register, extending from the printing
office to the banking offices, which marks
every sheet of paper that is struck off
from the press, so that the printers can
not manufacture single sheet of blank
notes that is not recorded in the bank.
On the same principal of exactness a
shaft Is in"de to pass from one apartment
to another, connecting a clock in sixteen
business wings of the establishment and
regulating them with such precision th's,
the whole of them are always pointing to
the same second of time. In another
room was machine, exceedingly simple,
for detecting light gold coins. A row of
them dropped one by one upon spring
scale. If the piece of gold was of the
standard weight, the scale rose to GER
tain height, and the coin slid off upon
the side of the box; ; if less than the
standard, it rose a little higher, and the
coin slid off upon the other side. i asked
the weigher what was the average num-
Der of light coins that came into his
hands, and, strangely enough, he said it
was question he was not allowed to an
swer
The next room | entered was that in
which the notes are deposited which are
ready for issue. 1--WE have thirty two
millions of pounds sterling in this room,"
the officer remarked to me ; "will YOU
take little of it ?" | told him it would
be vastly agreeable, and he handed me a
million sterling, Give millions of dollars J,
which | received with many thanks for
bis liberality, but he insisted on my de-
posting it with him again, as it would be
hardly safe TO carry SO much money into
the street. VERY much fear that shall
never see that money again. In the vault
beneath the door was q director and the
cashier, counting the bags of gold which
men We're pitching down to them, each
bag containing thousand pounds ster-
ling, just from the mint. This world OF
money seemed to realise the fables Of
Eastern wealth, and gave me new and
strong impressions of the magnitude Of
the business done here, and the extent o,