Year: 1861

The Bank OF England must be seen on the
inside as well as ont, and to 60 into the
interior Uf this remarkable building, to OBJ
serve the operations of an institution that
exerts more moral and political power than
any sovereign in Europe, you must have an
order from the Governor OF the Bank. The
building occupies an irregular area of eighty
acres of ground-an edi6ce of no architec-
tural beauty, with not one window toward
the street, being lighted altogether from the
roof of the enclosed area. ....


was led, on presenting my card of adj
mission, into private room, where, after a
delay of few moments, a messenger came
and conducted me through the mighty and
mysterious building. Down we went into
room where the notes of the bank. received
the day before, were now examined, com
pared with the entries in the book, and
slowed away. The Bank of England never
issues the same note second time. 1t re.
ceives, in the ordinary course of business,
about 980O,0OO, or $4,0OO,0OO, daily in
notes; these are put up into parcels accord
ing to their denominations, boxed up with
the date of their reception, and are kept ten
years; at the expiration OF which period
they are taken out and ground up in the
mill which saw running, and made again
into paper. II, in the course of these ten
years, any dispute in business, or lawsuit,
should arise, concerning the payment of any
note, the bank can produce the identical
bill.


To meet the demand for notes 80 con-
stantly used up, the bank has its own pa
per-makers, its own printers, its own en-
gravers, all at work under the seme roof,
and it even makes the machinery by which
most of the work is done. A complicated
but beautiful operation is register, extend.
ing from the printing Office to the banking
Offices, which marks every sheet OF paper
that is struck off from the press, 50 that the
printers cannot manufacture single sheet
of blank notes that is not recorded in the
bank. On the same principal of neatness,
shaft is made to pass from one apartment
to another, connecting a clock in sixteen
business wings of the establishment, and
regulating them with such precision that
the whole of them are always pointing TO
the same second of time. In another room
was machine, exceedingly simple, for de-
tecting light gold com. A row of them is
dropped one by one upon spring scale. Ii
the piece of gold was of the standard weight,
the scale rose to certain height, and the
coin slid off upon one side of the box; if
less than the standard, it rose little higher
and the coin slid off upon the other side.
asked the weigher what was the average
number of light coins that came into his
hands, and strangely enough be said it was
question be was not allowed to answer.


The next room l entered was that in
which the notes are deposited, which are
ready for issue. "We have thirty two mil
lions of pounds sterling in this room,' the
officer remarked to me; "will you take o
little of 2" told him it would be vastly
agreeable, and be handed me million ster-
ling, which l received with many thanks for
his iberality, but be ins sted on my pos.
iting it with him again, as it would hardly
be safe to carry so much money into the
street. l very much fear that shall never
see that money again In the vault beneath
the door were director and a casn Ter,
counting bags of gold, which men were
pitching down to them, each bag contain


ing thousand pounds sterling just from
the mint. This world of money seemed to
realize the fables of eastern wealth, and
gave me new aud strong impressions of the
magnitude of the business done here, and the
extent of the relations of this one institution
to the commerce OF the world