The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-04-29

The exhibition visitor will see Immediate
ly why the silver dollar question is so inn
portant in France Here there are no small
notes. The French unit is the franc worth
20 cents The trearusy issues silver coins
of one franc, two francs, five francs and,
descending, a 50-centime piece, whose value
is 10 cents. The franc being theoretically
made up of 100 confines, there are copper
coins of five centimes Zone cent? AMI 10
centimes. Even tiny little copper centime
pieces are struck. They do not enter in
TO general circulation. and are held only,
like English farthiugs, by great financial
houses for the sake of making exact
change. The gold pieces of the French
treasury are of 10 francs go, 20 francs, 40
francs and 100 francs, the latetr two, how
ever, rarely being seen, except at the Mon
te Carlo gambling tables, where, under the
slang name Of plaques-we would say
''plunks"--they serve conveniently to
throw about instead of notes. Even at
Monte Carlo the mass of these hig gold
pieces are not French, but of the princi-
pality of Monaco, being struck off by the
French mint for the Prince ard the conve-
nience of his customers.
The fact that there are no French bank
notes of the equivalent value of 81, s. AMI
50 EACH is the cause of the importance of
the silver dollar, or five-franc piece.
Counting in sous-as cafe wal ers cabmen
and all of the lower classes sill do count
the American should have Little d'fficu t.
in mastering the French system. TW5 MY
sous Gents make the Unit of franc (act-
ually called 1.-The pieces of 20 sous" o
cents. One hundred sous make five
frame piece, or silver dollar actually call
ed "the piece of 100 sous, , After the five
franc silver piece come The two gold pi c
of 10 and 20 francs each. And with these
all small buying and selling must be done.
The ordinary imam in the crowd" has only
god and silver in his pocket When he has
a note it is at least $40 90 francs). or it
may be $50, or 800 or 500. This is tn L.
lectable billet de mile that floats in osy
dreams when the poor man has fought a
lottery ticket. Pull out a portefeuille fun
of them, and people faint all around you
| knew the cashier of a famous American
corporation doing business in France at
the epoch when he was so chasm d w tn
this effect. that he produced il nightly in
the restaurants de files. Ii was not his
own roll-but they did not know the differ
ence. AT last he came to fall into the
same error. He is no longer in the gay
French capital.
AS a matter of fact. the French govern
ment itself issues nothing but silver and
gold. All notes in France as in England,
are mere promises to pay in French gold
and silver, promises to pay made by pri-
Vate corporations-in France, the bank of
France, as in England the Bank of Eng
land. Put simply, the bank of France
obliges itself to maintain in gold and sill
yer in its vaults the nations reserve
fund, averaging four milliards in francs,
$500 coo, 600. In return, the Bank of France
has the monopoly of issuing bank notes.
The Bank of France has just celebrated
the centenary of its foundation. Founded
on the IS Pluviose (the rainy month" of
the republican calendar), of the year VIII
(of the republic), it received, on the "A
Germinal of the year XII april IA, 1909,
the exclusive privilege of creating bank
notes in Paris. The privilege was to
pire in 1878. So young and tender they
had pity for her when that date came
round. and her life was prolonged till
1913. A great discussion arose in 1910. Many
statesmen were against the monopoly, as
now, but she found no difficulty in get
ting her privilege renewed in 1857, and
again in 1897 On the breaking out of the
war in 1870 she was able TO hand over to
the government one milliard, 425 millions,
and on Aug. %. 1899. her total cash on
hand amounted to the enormous sum of
Of three milliards, of which two milliards
was in gold.
The greater the gold and silver encaisse
Gin money drawer'O of the Bank OF
France the greater is the amount Of notes
she may and does issue At the present
moment this Judiciary circulation" foots
up to four milliards, 40 millions of francs.
French people-whose idea of money Is
always and only connected with gold and
slver-look on this printed paper as a
great convenience only. Each bank note,
in their mind, stands for so much gold
the real money. The French government,
therefore defends its gold and silver from
counterfeiters-and leaves to the bank of
France the task of defending her own
notes.
1t is said that the immunity of Bank of
England notes from counterfeiting is based
on the holy fear of counterfeiters, who
know that the bank makes it a principle
never to give up pursuit. Without enjoy
ing this proud distinction, Bank of France
notes are fairly safe, as things go, and
the constant replacing of old notes with
new ones contributes to the result. You
never see dirty, crumpled bank of
France note. They are clean pink. blue
and white with gracefully traced female
figures and delicate watermarks. The
system of giving to every note three indiv
ual marks-these marks continually chang
ing notes are isSued-is relied on
by the public as a proof the note Is reg
ular," though 1t is not clear at first glance
why counterfeiters could not print them
properly on their own productions There
is number preceded by letter in the up
per right-hand corner of each note, and n
number without a letter in the upper left
hand corner. They are also reproduced [
the bottom. Take the number preceded
by the letter-say ~ 553'-and multiply
1t by Is, the number Of letters of the all
phabet, counting "I" and 81" as one. The
product being 1885, count back from the
last letter of the alphabet to u" the key
letter as above. "J' being the 18th letter
counting backward, subtract II. and you
have 10 S0S Add to the right of this the
number found in the upper left-hand cor
ner of the note-say 414-and you have
IS, sos 414, the correct number of the bill.
Look on the bank note and you will find
this number in very small figures in its
lower center above the article of the penal
code against counterfeiting. They say
that counterfeters have not the machin-
cry to print these complicated numbers;
and as a fact, they do without them, imi-
tating a single bill and number, which
soon becomes known.
l have known agents de change to re-
fuse our own national bank notes, On the
ground that they were not issued by the
government. / asked the man on one oc-
casion what notes he considered good Oh
he said he would receive any United
States treasury note. but actually seemed
to have the Tea hat the bills of Ameri-
can national banks were not on the same