Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1895-10-31


600 in gold being freighted twice across
the ocean, the ten pieces of paper cross
only once. These ten bills for 81 900
each, drawn on the Union bank of Lon
don at six months, in due time are pre-
sented at that bank and are duly ac-
cepted.
Instead of commercial notes or bills
they are now known as acceptances and
are Just as good as a bank note. There
fore if the owner, no matter who he is,
wants the money at once any bank will
discount all or either for the face value,
less the interest. In every commercial
center of the world these accepted bills
are being discounted by banks and
moneyed corporations for enormous
sums, but by no bank in the world in
such huge amounts as by the Bank of
England. Its daily discounts run into
the millions.
What our plan was Will be made clear
later.
The evening of the day of my arrival
in Paris found me on the express speed
ing to Calais. Two hours past midnight
was on the miserable little passenger
steamer that plies across the chopping
channel and which l suppose has seen
more of human misery than all the
fleets that sail the Atlantic, for the
channel has strong countercurrents, and
wind, tide and currents seem ever TO be
in violent opposition, and here
Fer across the main doth float
a sad and solemn swell,
The wild, fantastic, fitful note
OF TritOn's breathing shell.
And Triton (old Neptune's other
name) makes all passers over this part
of his realm pay ample tribute for "his
fantastic, fitful note.
The Paris night express lands one ut
early dawn in London, nearly always
weak ON the legs, however. | breakfast
ed with Mac, and after that took the
bills to the various banks on which they
were drawn, and leaving them for ac-
ceptance l called again the next day and
received them back, bearing across the
face the magic words:
LONDON, Aug. II. 1872.
Accepted for the Union bank of London.
Z. BARCLAY, Manager.
]. WAYLAND, Assistant Manager.
Then hurried to the Grosvenor, and
we all looked at them with curiosity,
for it was upon the imitation of just
such acceptances that our whole plan
was based.
OF course the success or failure of our
whole plan turned upon this point Is
it the custom Of the Bank Of England
(in 1879 to send acceptances offered for
discount to the acceptors for verification
Of signatures?
This is always done in America, and
had this very requisite precaution been
used by the Bank of England our plan
would have been frUitless.
Taking my deposit book and the gem
uine bills, l went to the bank and left
the bills for discount This was at once
done, and the amount placed to my
credit l drew e10, 900, and that night
found me once more one of 500 unfor-
tunates paying tribute to Neptune. This
time ! landed at Ostend aud took the
train for Amsterdam. There | repeated
the Paris operation, securing 91O, 900 in
genuine bills. | returned to London and
as before left them for acceptance. Then
my companion manufactured a lot of
limitations and put them away with
those previously manufactured to be all
ready when the day came to use them.
The genuine bills were then discounted.
All the details of events leading
through the long summer and autumn
days of 1872 up to the hour when the
golden shower began to fall on us are of
intense, even dramatic, interest. | will
not, however, lengthen the narrative by
giving here any further account Of them,
but viii merely relate the story of the
last five days before the actual presenta-
tion Of our home brewed acceptances.
The bank had been discounting for
weeks comparatively large sums for me
Of the genuine article, and our imita
tion was a close copy. Many thousand
pounds of the genuine article discounted
for me had matured and had been paid,
and more thousands We're still in the
vaults awaiting maturity and would fall
due while our home manufactured bills
would be laid away in the vaults, there
to remain for four or five months until
due. OF course full month or two
months before that we could pack our
baggage and be ON the other side of the
world.
But, as the sequel will show, the
reality took on different complexion
from the ideal.
Ny credit at the bank was solid as a
rock. That means l had gone through
the red tape routine. 1t only behooved
us to use circumspection enough to avoid
IN,
fortune was ours. l knew everything
was all right, but George, being thor
ough business man himself, could not
comprehend that it could be quite right,
and he insisted upon one supreme test.
Any single bill of exchange is seldom
drawn for more than e1, 900, rarely for
60, 900, and ono of sc, 900 is almost un
heard Of. But George had made up his
mind that as a test, and TO make an i'm
preston upon the bank manager, |
should go to Paris and get bill on Lon
don from Rothschilds drawn to the or
der of +. A. Warren direct. Could this
be done it would of course make it ap
pear that ] had intimate relations with
the Rothschilds, and as a minor consid
Grafton we could use the Rothschilds' ac-
ceptance-a pretty nervy thing to do, as
Sir Anthony dc Rothschild, the head of
the London house, whose name we pro
posed to offer, was a director of the
Bank Of England and would have to
pass his own paper for discount-that
is, paper bearing his name, manufac-
tured by ourselves
We tried TO talk George out Of this
notion, which Mac and l regarded US a
freak unnecessary in the first place and
impossible anyhow. But he was persist
ent, and | had to start out and try. At
Calais / took my place in what the
French call a coupe-that is, the end
compartment on a car, which, by pay
ing 10 francs extra, you can occupy
alone. / had fallen into q sound sleep
before the train started and was aroused
from it to find myself hurled about the
compartment much rs Il stOut boy would
shake Il mi spse in cage and quite as
helpless.
Our train was off the track My car
riage was near the engine, and the mo-
mentum of the long train forced the car
in the rear of mine up on end, and it
appeared as if it would fall over and
crush me l thought my hour had come,
and cried ont, AT lastH' There was
no fear or terror in it, but merely the
thought that after many months of al
most incessant travel and necessarily of
peril, cat last" my fate had come. 1t
had not How good heaven could have