Morning journal and courier., 1892-02-03

was beginning his wonderful career of tri
 umph.
 Fleets and armies were in preparation
 for the invasion of England; Ireland was ripe for rebellion; there was mutiny in the
 fleet: and to crown all, monetary panic
 threatened ruin to all the banks and great
 financial houses throughout the country. On Saturday, the 20th of February, when the Bank of England closed for the day,
 there was only a million and quarter left | in the bank cellars, sum which would
 barely suffice for the demands of another day of panic. The government was as vitslly concerned ss the bank. A cabinet council was hastily summoned and met on the Sunday. On Monday the crowd of people who awaited the opening of the bank doors were met with the announce l ment of an order in council, and 8 royal proclamation went from the press order ing the suspension by the bank of all pay ments in cash. The measure, desperate ss it seemed, actually restored public confi- dence Bank of England notes were eve rywhere accepted and circulated freely as legal tender, but the public convenience demended an immediate supply of smaller notes, and another order in council author ized their issue. In few days one and two-pound notes were engraved and print ed, and st once issued in large quantities. For the next twenty years these one pound notes were the chief circulating me dium throughout England. The country bankers were also permitted to issue their own notes of the game denomination. As for gold, people rarely saw it. The gui- nea, the half-guinea and the seven-shilling pieces, which were then the principal gold coins in use, were carefully hoarded by their possessors, or were only parted with at profit Yet the paper currency WAS never seriously depreciated. The pound note was always good for twenty shillings and no one looked askance at it, unless to make sure that it was not forged.
 Forgery was the great trouble of the time; and the nasty manner in which the original one-pound notes had been en- graved and issued facilitated the opera tions of the forgers. Nothing was easier than to pass 6 one-pound note; at any shop trifiing purchase would afford the means of changing such a note, which would often pass from hand to hand m detected, until scanned by the keen eyes of the bank official. when, of course. the last holder had to bear the loss.
 Up to the time of the introduction of the one-pound note forgery of the banks issues had not been frequent. The bank had exi-ted for more than sixty years be- fore the first forger of it's note was con- victed. More cases occurred when lower denomination of note was issued; and in l773 the countsrfeiting of the wster-mark of the paper was made 8 capital offence, the death penalty having been previously reserved for those connected with the en- graving and printing of the notes. The forgeries of old Patch in lTS4 were the most serious of their time By the inge- nuity of his disguises, and his care in exc | cutting all his forgeries without sccompli- | ces, for & long time he orfied detection. l He was discovered at last by accident. | Having amsssed considerable wealth by | his practices. he was in the habit of giving | dinner parties to his genieel neighbOrs; | and to make good show he would bor- | row a quantity of silver plate from a I neighboring pawnbroker, leaving the full | value in forged bank-notes as security for | its safe return. It happened, however, one day that the pawnbroker was in des- perate need of money, and having lent ont | his plate on the usual terms, he made for | the Bank of England to cash his custom CTS notes. At the bank the forgery was at once detected and the man arrested, when he disclosed the facts of the case, and the Bow street runners made descent | upon Mir. Patch's house and captured him. The man escaped a capital sentence by | hanging himself in his cell.
 With the introduction of small notes | there arose great and sudden increase in | the crime of forgery. Daring the six | years previous to the introduction of the | tones" there had been only one sentence | of death for forging bank notes. In the | year that followed there were eighty five | capital convictions The severity of the | punishment had no effect in checking the | prevalence of the crime. In 1898 8 regu- lar manfactory of forged notes was dis | covered in Birmingham. They were sold II for export, to be used in the countries | where our armies were at once fighting | and paying their way, and where cpmmis- saries and contractors had familiarized Il the natives with English currency. They | were ordered and invoiced under the name | of candlesticks. numbers one, two or five | according to the value represented by | the forged notes, which were sold at the l rate of six shillings in the poand-along | with other hardward. The trouble with | forged notes went on during the whole of | the period of inconvertible issues, and in the twenty years of its duration hundreds | of human victims were sacrificed for the | good of the currency. At Newgate. on | hanging mornings, poor wretches convict | ed of forgery were hung in patches, as many as a dozen at once. Such a sight | was seen by George Croikshank, the great | caricaturist, one morning; there were elev- | en sufferers aligned upon the scaffold; two | of them being women; and it was with | the horror of it working in his brain that | he designed and drew that inimitable | model of a one e-pound note that gives one | a cold shiver even now-the victims on | the fcaffold; Britannia, in the medallion, | busily devouring her children; the { of | the note formed of the hangman's rope; | the manacled prisoners seen in the win | dow of Newgste; letters and irons form | ing the Ornnmsutatiou and the whole suh- scribed, "Jack Ketch." The engaving was | published by William Hone and exhibited | in his shop on Ludgate Hill, close to the | scene of the hangings; it drew crowds | about the window. The bank directors | were furious, and would gladly have pros | ecuted the audacious artist. But public | opinion was on his side, and the print | worked powerfully in aid of the move ment for abolishing the death penalty for | forgery and the like; An object eventually | attained in the year 1892.
 It is not likely, indeed, that the intro | duction of one-pound notes in the present | day will give rise to any such epidemic of | forgery. But the danger Is & serions one, and should be guarded sgains; by the pro- | duction of note which will defy the arts | of the forger to produce a successful I counterfeit. It must be remembered that | the progress of science has given the coun- | terfeitsr many new processes, which re- quire the aid of the chemist, as well as the | mschinist, successfully to counteract.