The Coconino sun., 1908-04-10
BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES.
The Enormous Output and the Safe.
 guards Against Forgery.

guards Against Forgery.
 The Bank of England refuses to use color for it's notes on account of the fact that the authorities be- lieye that its whiteness and appar- ent simplicity are the greatest safe guards against forgery. The white ness of a Bank of England note is different to that of any other pa- per and is obtained by using only the very finest linen rags in the making.
 At Laverstoke, little village in Hampshire, the paper is prepared, and at the mill there every blank is as zealously guarded as if it were already engraved. Every workman or workwoman employed at the mill is bound to secrecy, and the secrets of the mysterious water mark and texture of the paper are known only by the most tried and trusted of the workmen.
 It is not generally known that ev- cry bank note bears a private water mark, which is constantly being changed in a way known only to tho head officials and which is discern ible through a microscope only And it says much for the vigilance and skill of the Bank of England cashiers that, although they pay OF an average e27,G00 in exchange for notes every day, they have never yet paid a forged note.
 The easiest way to detect a forged note is by dampening q corner with the tongue. If genuine, the water mark appears very distinct In counterfeit notes it almost diSap- pears. On a genuine ''liver" there is a small white dot GIT the right side of the Old English 'I" iu ta5 word Five" The tail of the lette, "F" in the sentence "For the Gov. ernor and Company" is also left in m incomplete state.
 The ink with which bank notes arc printed is made of charred husks and stems of Rhenish vines, and the recipe, like the manufac- turc of the paper, is carefully guarded secret.
 Each bank note costs about q halfpenny to produce and oH an av- craze is in circulation about seventy days. Af'ci being paid the notes are stored by the bank for five years at the end of which time they arc destroyed bv burning in a large fur mace. Eighteen millions of money thus disappear in the course of ev. cry year.
 Once note is returned to the bank it is never rcissued, and after being cancelled by having the sig. nature of the chief cashier torn of it is placed in what is known as the bank noto library for purposes ,f reference. There are no fewer than l20 clerks iu this department, and so perfect is their system of filing that any one of the T7,745,000 notes which form the usual stock on hand can be reached in five min utes.
 Altogether the Bank of Enqland has some ei5,0O0,00O worth of notes in circulation and issues between 50,000 and G0,O00 notes of various denomina ions each day. Therc.are seventy or c:ghty kinds of Bank of Enqlard notes of different va !e' Every year about 5000 of the notos issued are lost or destroyed by the owners. At any rate, they are ney- CT returned to the bank and repre- sent clear profit. While it is true, however, that if note never comes back the bank profits to that amount, they never can tell when these so called missing notes may b. presented.
 Some people possess Q weakness for boarding bank notes, and the re- sult has been that frequently the bank is called upon to cash dirty, | ,rumpled notes which were issued years ago.-London Tit-Bits.
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 She Listened.
 Miss C.'s portrait hung on the wall at the exhibition. Miss c.