Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1878-11-07
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THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

Few visitors 60 inside the Bank, OF pass
beyond its interior portals. Yet the Bank
contains mine of wondrous information, and
its vast stores of money make impecunious
fingers tingle. Here are machines weighing
with the nicely of hair; machines that au-
tomaticaly separate the good coins from
those of short weight; printing machines of
exquisite finish, for making the notes elec-
tro plates from which the notes are printed,
and curious mechanisms for constructing the
cloths by which the very effective water mark
is put in the Bank note paper, which is the
main reliance in preventing counterteiting
and forgery. You are shown great stores OF
gold and notes, and for once you are made
rich by being permitted to hold in your hand,
at one time, S5,OO0,0O0, though the vanity of
earthly riches is at the same time taught by
the celebrity with which all these millions
slip through your 6ngers-and back into the
vault You are shown great rooms full of
money, with gold perfect drug-piled up in
ingots, hauled around on trucks, earted about
in kegs, and shoveled from one place to an
other, like 80 much coal. My eyes were al
lowed to look upon an accumulation of $780,
100000 of gold coin and bullion, but could
not carry any of it off. was offered sack
if T could lift it, but it seemed fastened to
the floor. Picking up little twenty.pound
ingot, was told to beware lest it fall, and an
attendant who was limping about in slipper
said that one of them, of equal value to his
next years salary, had, the day before, al
most mashed his toe. There were cart loads
of silver in bricks, most of it, like the gold,
coming from America, but there was not in
all this great store single Bland dollar-a
famous coin at home, but which does not
flourish in London as yet.
The Bank does all its own note printing,
and also all the asserting of lightweight
coins 1t is the great corrector of the Brit
ish coinage, returning to the mint for the
melting pot all the light. weight, defective and
defaced coins that come into it, By this
means it keeps the coinage up to the stand
ard, as only the good ones are allowed to 90
into circulation again. The loss on the sill
yer coinage the Government bears, but the
depositors have to bear the loss on the gold
coinage. Every coin that comes in on depos-
it or otherwise is weighed, and the light ones
are Immediately cut almost in two, by an in
genious little machine that works with great
celerty. For every short-weight sovereign
the depositor is charged uniform discount
of eight cents which covers the average loss
from this cause. For gold bullion and for
eign gold coins, the Bank pays up weight, at
the rate of II shillings and 9 pence per ounce
of gold.
The Bank transacts all the Government
business in connection with the Government
debt. and, SO far as this department is con.
cerned, it acts similarly to the Treasury at
Washington in paying interest and making
transfers The debt is all registered stock,
however, and separate accounts are kept with
every holder There are about 100000 of
these debt accounts, some being in very. large
amounts. T was shown a signature of Glyn
& Co., where they had just received interest
On nearly S2,l0000O of one class of the debt.
The business of the Bank is divided into
three great departments-the Government
Debt, the Issue (bank notes), and the Private
Deposits. Each of these is separately con-
lucted, and the deposits aggregate about
Sl30,000,000. I told some of the Bank Of
icials that this sum possibly was not all the
deposits, as several of my countrymen, in
Camden and elsewhere, were inquiring about
$50 or 100 millions on deposit in the Bank
for the Jennings estate, but they did not
seem to be aware of any such deposits, but
they were very sure that the total actual de.
posits footed up what have named.
There are among the great curiosities of
the Bank, its method of tracing the history
of every note it has issued, done with great
labor by means of ingenious indexes. The
smallest note is for FIVE pounds and the larg-
est for one thousand pounds. In their COL
lection of redeemed notes, all Of which are
kept, is a redeemed note that had gone through
the Chicago fire. This note had been burnt
to crisp, yet it had been carefully opened
out and the charred remains spread upon a
glass plate, so that all was restored excepting
small portion. There in the ashes, can be
read the language of the note, its number
and date. This note, which was for ten
pounds, the Bank promptly redeemed, and it
is now carefully preserved as great curiosity.
There is case that shows the gradual
progress of the Bank in making these notes,
by exhibiting specimens. The earliest notes
we're written with pen, and it was custom
ary to change their amounts by erasures and
interlineations. From these they improved
step by step to the almost square white pieces
of paper of to-day, printed in bold German
text, and whilst being twice the size, yet as
unlike the American note as it is possible for
two bank notes to be. Another curious col.
lection contains specimens of attempted for.
geries, alterations, and counterfeiting of notes.
Some of these are by photograpbing, others
by pasting and raising, some being clever and
others poor limitations But whilst the print
ing is initiated, there has been no even ap-
proxmately successful attempt to initiate the
water-marked paper, wherein the Bank places
its main reliance for the safety of the note.
In one case the attempt was made to print
upon stolen genuine paper. gotten surrepti-
tiously from the mill, but the checks are so
admirable that it was at once detected and
the fraud suppressed before the notes had got
into circulation. The Bank is wonderful
place, and not the least famous part is the
Directors Room, looking out upon pretty
little garden, for, even in the heart Of busy
London, land is not 30 valuable that little
cannot be spared for grass and flowers. In
this Bank Parlor the Directors meet and sit
around a large oblong, circular table every
Thursday. Here they raise and lower the
discount rate, and thus give official quotation,
as it were, to the fluctuations of the London
money market, to which all others bear trib-
ute. But though the enormous money power
concentrates here, the Directors who WELD it
are, nevertheless, true Engiishmen. What
ever else they do, they do not forget the in.
ner man, for here smoked sundry joints of
Juicy beef and mutton, and other savory
viands, showing that, even in the Bank of
England, as elsewhere, the stomach still ruled