The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1866-12-01
'2oilI1'


A correspondent writes:
The Bank Of England 10 IN inmense affair.
covering IN area Of eight acrss, cad EMPLOYED
upwards Of 1000 clerks, &c., in it, vast op.
erations By the kindness q q friend We
were admitted 70 the parts Of 1t from which
the public are excluded. We FIRST went to
the bullion vsnlts. There " sa~x pile Of
bags filed with American gold, containing
about S4.0O0, 600, and some twelve or fiAeen
sacks, on each of which lay bar Of gold,
each one of which contained about 5000
worth of the metal. By rough calculation
Of mine, reckoned the gold on the trucks to
we saw bags, boxes and kegs OF silver to .
very large amount sa 49, aasssA
We then went 10 the cancelled note room.
You mnst remember that every Bank of
England note Is printed in duplicate, and one
copy repaid out twice from the bank, but ev-
cry one that comes are then recorded in
books for the purpose, tied up in bundles and
stored away for seven wears, and then burned.
Hence, if any legal question arises shout any
note, it can be traced and found i 3 few min
utes, so perfect are their arrangements
When you remember that a Bank Of England
note is about twice q wide as . Aereenbeck, y
and that between E40, 600 and CSC, 900 often
come in during the day, yon see how vast the
We were in one room that had the receipts
of two years, and there we're about 50 900,
000, 900, sum that bewilders one to imagine
A package containing c ], O00, 600 Was placed
in my hands, so that for about half = minute
i was . millionaire, but like all other million
aires, had to give up my treasures. only /
had not quite as much trouble with mine ~
many of the others, not having 70 take care
of it SO long; but perhaps it. did me quite as
much good az theirs often do. I saw one
note that was issued in 1899, and had been
out of the bank for nearly one hundred and
fifty years, and others nearly O. old ~ that
one.
We then went to the printing and binding
rooms, for they do all their own work Of that
kind, and saw all the various processes. The
printing machines number each note - it is
struck off, by curious arrangement in the
press, and every note is registered by the ma
chine itself as it is printed, so that none can
be stolen by the workmen. The paper is also
manufactured here, and it is the water marks
of the paper that the difficulty in counterfeit
ing lies The notes are signed also by the
machinery, and the whole process is very Gu
rioug.
The testing room for coin was also interest
ing. The gold sovereigns, as they come in,
are put in large hopper, which distributes
them into tubes. These tubes are then placed
on weighing machine so delcately adjusted
that it Will register the one-hundredth part Of
a grain. The sovereigns slide slowly from the
tube into little channel, where they are
weighed as they pass. If full weight, the ma.
chine drops them on one side; If light, it
losses them over to the other with an slmost
contemptuous fling, and they are taken to an.
other machine, and there cut through the
edge, so that they cannot 60 into circulation
again. About tbirty>fve thousand per day
may be tossed in this way. In the coin room
we were shown bags on bags Of various coin,
and enc containing e., 900 was put into my
hands. giving me command Of more gold than
/ am likely to handle again. These details
will be enough to enable You to see what a
vast concern is this great Bank Of England.