CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE BANK OF ENGLAND AND THE MINT.

THE Bank of England is the greatest moneyed institution in the world. It is situated in the very heart of the City of London, opposite the Royal Exchange and the Mansion House, and is composed of an insulated mass of stone buildings and courts covering four acres of ground, bounded by Princes's street, west; Lothbury, north; Bartholomew Lane, east; and Threadneedle street, south. Its exterior measurements are 365 feet south, 410 feet north, 245 feet east, and 440 feet west.

Within this area are nine open courts, a magnificent Rotunda, numerous public offices, court and committee rooms, an armory, engraving and printing offices, a library, apartments for officers' servants, beadles, detectives, porters, and messengers.

During the No-Popery riots of 1780, the Bank was attacked by the mob, when Wilkes rushed out of the building and seized some of the ringleaders. The Bank was defended by the regulars, the City Volunteers, and the Clerks of the establishment, who melted their leaden inkstands into bullets. For ninety years since that terrible night, the bank has been guarded by a company of foot soldiers, detailed in regular rotation from the Horse Guards, under command of one officer, for whom a sumptuous table is set every night, with the privilege of inviting two friends, while servants are provided for him.

[Sidenote: THE BANK ESTABLISHED.]

In the political tumult of November, 1830, provisions were made at the Bank for a state of siege, and when the Chartists made their great demonstrations in 1848, the roof of the Bank was fortified by a company of sappers and miners, cannon were planted, and a strong garrison held every court and passage in the interior.

The number of clerks and porters and other employees who are retained by the Bank, is one thousand or more, and their salaries amount to half a million of pounds, or two and a half millions of dollars annually.

In 1808 an arrangement was made by the English Government with the Bank, by which the latter undertook the management of the English national Debt, at a rate of £340 for each million of the debt up to 600 millions of pounds, and £300 for every additional million.

The Bank of England was established (1694) chiefly by Mr. William Paterson, the projector of the Scotch Colony of Darien, who commenced by founding a National Bank, 1691. To carry on the war with France (1694) Government required a loan of £1,200,000, and imposed new taxes, expected to yield a million and a half. The subscribers to the loan were incorporated under the title of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, and empowered to buy land, to deal in gold and silver, and in bills of exchange. The interest on the loan was 8 per cent., besides which Government agreed to pay £4,000 a year for the cost of management, or £100,000 in all.

In the vicinity of the Bank of England there is a dense traffic, and it is necessary that suitable provender should be found for the large number of bankers and bankers' clerks, who, living in cosy little villas at Brompton, Paddington, and Maida Hill, and are compelled to eat their warm lunches in the city during business hours.

The Poultry, Bucklersbury, King William, Prince and Leadenhall streets, are lined with these comfortable, pleasant looking eating-houses and dining-rooms, where the moneyed men and their smart looking clerks sit back in easy little boxes, with turtle soup, salad, and juicy rump steaks before them, and long necked wine bottles in ice coolers between their feet, chatting about stocks and Change and Turkish Loans.

In the parlor lobby of the Bank is a portrait of Mr. David Race, who was in the service of the institution over fifty years, during which time he amassed a fortune of £200,000.

The Bullion Office, on the western side of the Bank, consists of a public chamber and two vaults--one for the open deposit of bullion free of charge, unless weighed, the other for the private stock of the Bank.

Here are employed a Principal, Deputy Principal, Clerk, Assistant Clerk, and porters.

The gold is kept in solid bars, each bar weighing 16 pounds and valued at £800, or $4,000, and the silver in pigs and bars, while the dollars are kept in bags.

The value of the gold in the vaults of the Bank in 1869 was about twenty millions of pounds, or one hundred millions of dollars.

One day I received an order which was sent me by a friend, giving me full authority to visit the Bank of England. I had not a little curiosity to satisfy, and accordingly I arrived at the Bank as early as eleven o'clock in the day.

[Sidenote: LEDGERS AND MONEY-BAGS.]

Passing through the central entrance, which is opposite the Mansion House, I found myself in a spacious court well flagged, and here were two boxes in which sat a brace of Old Jewry detectives, who are on duty in this spot from one end of the year to the other. These men receive gratuities from the Bank beside their regular pay. There were also in the yard two big fat beadles in red coats and leggings, their garments being covered with tinsel. These fat, logy looking fellows are the footmen of the Bank, who are employed to watch for suspicious strangers and to guide any visitors who may come.

While an attendant was reading the order which I handed him, I could hear the musical jingle of sovereigns and silver coins, being rattled up and down in the interior of the building.

I was taken by the guide into a large vaulted room with a cupola, in which were a perfect army of clerks, some young and brisk, others old, gray, and ponderous, ranged in long rows behind the desks, making up accounts, weighing gold and paying it over the counters, or writing in huge ledgers.

Outside the circular railings, which run all around this very large room, were stationed a vast crowd of depositors, men and women, or persons drawing money in gold or silver. Continually from the throats of the clerks arose the words:

"How will you have it. Gold or silver? Sovereigns or halves?"

Here is a lady who has traveled very far, perhaps, for her dividends. She has taken a seat and a number of curious eyes are gazing at her as she slowly takes a wing of a chicken and a piece of snowy white bread from a napkin and commences to eat, in the midst of all this wealth and confusion of the richest city in the world.

The number of ledgers and account books behind these bars are enough to frighten one. When the day's business is done all these huge books are stowed away by the porters in the fire-proof room under ground, and brought up again in the morning, for they are fully as valuable as the large sums inscribed on their leaves.

Machinery has been perfected so that these bulky account books may be hoisted and lowered every day.

Look at that young man with his banking case chained under his arm; the rolls of checks and notes he holds in his hands will probably amount to thousands of pounds; he catches the eyes of one of the clerks, calls out the amount, hands the bulky bundle over the brass mounted railing and quits the room, leaving the sum to be counted over at leisure.

See how carelessly the cashier handles that heavy bag of gold; he has no time to count it, but throws it into the scale as a coal heaver would a sack of coals--so long as it is right weight, that's all he cares about; he then shoots it into his large drawer and throws the bag aside as if he did not mind whether a sovereign stuck in the bag or not.

He counts sovereigns by twos and threes at a time; you feel confident that he must have given you either too many or too few, he appears so negligent; you count them, and there they are quite correct, and no mistake whatever.

The guide says to me: "Sometimes, Sir, the clerks are kept in the Bank for hours when there's a sixpence wrong in the balance, and they have to go over and over the books until they make the sixpence right. It's awful work, to have to go over them long columns of figures and no chance of getting away until everything is correct."

"Was there ever any great forgery committed on the Bank?" I asked the guide, who seemed to be a very intelligent man, having been in the Bank forty years.

"Ah, yes Sir, there was two great ones. In old times a great many men were hanged for forging Bank of England notes. In one year, I think it was 1820, there was over a hundred persons convicted of forgery, and nearly nine hundred were convicted for having forged notes in their pockets. Why, Sir, when I was a boy I remember as many as twenty-four hanged in one year for forgery on the Bank. I think the year was 1818. In 1803 there was a great forgery, committed by Mr. Astlett, who was one of the chief cashiers of the Bank. The amount was so large it frightened every body. Astlett done his work so well, by re-issuing Exchequer bills, that he defrauded the Bank out of £320,000 before they knew it. You may imagine what a row there was when it was found out. The old Governor nearly went mad."

"Was any other great forgery ever attempted?" said I, curious to hear those details of forgotten crime.

"Oh yes Sir," said the old man, "the biggest forgery of all was Fauntleroy's, in 1816, that was a great deal bigger than Astlett's, for it was for £360,000, and the way of it was this: You see Mr. Fauntleroy was the head partner of a bank in Berners street that had dealing with the Bank of England, and the bank that he belonged to was in a bad state, so what does Fauntleroy do to keep up its credit, but he goes to work quite cooly and forges powers of attorney of a lot of nobs and he sells out their funds, and all the time he was a-working in the dark this way, he wos a payin' of the divydends to them. Then the crash came at last, and before he was caught, when the police broke into his house, they found a note and on the note was written:--

"The Bank first began to refuse to discount our acceptances, and to destroy the credit of our house; and by G--d the Bank shall smart for it."

"So, that's the way he did it, but he was hanged for it, and I saw him swing. I never saw so many people in my life as was at that hanging. All London was there, Sir, and when he got off the cart you would have thought he was going to a party, he was so blessed cool."

[Sidenote: THE GREAT PANIC OF 1825.]

There was a "Great Panic" in the Bank of England in December, 1825, caused by the redemption of interest on £215,000,000 of stock held by the public. The Bank of England was acting as banker for the Nation, and offered to advance money to holders of stock to pay off their principal investment. This was an era of mad speculation, and no less than £372,000,000 was invested in all kinds of bogus stock projects. In some of these schemes shares of £100 on which only £5 had been paid, rose to a premium of £40, yielding a profit of eight times the amount of money paid. Everything went merry as a marriage bell for a time, and large sums had been withdrawn from the Bank of England, reducing the gold in its vaults from £8,750,000, in October, 1824, to £3,624,320 in February, 1825.

The panic began on the 5th of December, 1825, when a London bank failed, at which the agency of above forty country banks was transacted, and such a re-action was the necessary result of the previous madness of speculation. Lombard street, and the vicinity of the Bank, were filled with excited men and women, who were waiting eagerly to withdraw their investments. Next day, a number of other banks failed. The rush on the Bank of England was terrific, but the clerks kept paying away gold in bags of twenty-five sovereigns each. From nine until five, each day, twenty-five clerks were engaged, counting out gold, and as it would take that number of clerks to count out £50,000 in sovereigns, if counted by hand, a plan was made by which the tellers counted 25 sovereigns into one scale and 25 into another, and if the scales balanced, they continued until there were 200 sovereigns in each scale. In this way £1,000 were paid out in a few minutes, the weight of one thousand sovereigns being 21 pounds, while 512 bank notes only weigh one pound. In this way £307,000, in gold, was paid out in nine hours to the clamorous people.

[Sidenote: THE PANIC CEASES.]

Instead of contracting their issues the Directors of the Bank boldly extended them. In one day they discounted 4,200 bills. December 8th, the discounts at the Bank amounted to £7,500,000; on the 15th, they were £11,500,000, and on the 29th, £15,000,000. December 3d, the circulation of the Bank was £17,500,000, and the day before Christmas, December 24th, it was £25,500,000, or, $127,500,000. Any kind of paper that was not absolutely worthless, was discounted. Tremendous advances on deposits of bills of exchange were made by the Bank, stock was entered as security, and exchequer bills were purchased. The gallant old institution weathered the storm, and, on the 26th of December, gold began to come in slowly. During the latter part of the panic week a forgotten box of one-pound notes, containing £700,000, was discovered, and these were immediately issued, and the Directors acknowledged that the forgotten box saved the commercial credit of the Bank and of England. There was only £601,000 in bullion and £426,000 in coin when the rush stopped. In February, 1797, when the Bank suspended cash payments, there was £1,086,170 in coin and bullion remaining in the vaults.

I saw, in a glass case, a bank note for one million of pounds (canceled,) which had passed between the Bank and the government in some transaction or another. Think of it, a piece of paper five by two and a half inches in size, which was good on its face any place in the world for Five Millions of Dollars. I saw also here, several other bank bills for large amounts, such as ten, fifty, one hundred, and two hundred and fifty thousand pounds each. These were the most valuable strips of printed paper I ever saw.

It must be recollected, that inside of the walls of the Bank of England, which covers four acres, as I have observed, everything is made, excepting the paper of which the bank notes are manufactured. The gold, of course, is coined in the Mint on Tower Hill, but everything else is done inside of the Bank walls, including paper staining, engraving, making the steel plates from which the notes are transferred, and other useful arts. Printer's ink is also made, the ink having to be of a peculiar shade so as to prevent counterfeiting. Then there are book binderies, where the ledgers and accounts are bound, and a number of other rooms devoted to various purposes.

It is a noticeable fact, that every Bank official whom we meet on our journey through all these lofty apartments, halls and saloons, wears full evening dress though it is not yet noonday. Swallow-tail coats, white neck-cloths, and white vests, of the most spotless hues, seem to be the Bank uniform.

And what pleasant surprises there are in this institution. Now the guide leading, and I following, we emerge into an open court-yard, of very good size, which has lawns, shrubberies, and dainty little grass plots, with the most cheering flower-beds, the colors of which are very refreshing to the eye. Here are well-shaded and sanded paths, and lofty, leafy trees, and all these rural delights are concentrated in a space of one and a half acres, the dimensions of the grounds walled in by the Bank. Here, in the heart of mighty London, is a green oasis, like a diamond set in a pig's nose.

These detached buildings, with white steps leading to their doors, and neatly-ornamented porticoes, are the residences of the Governor and Directors, and here they hold receptions, and levees, and the questions and inquiries of angry stockholders are heard and answered at quarterly meetings. The guide asks me if "I would like to see the workshops of the Bank." I agree at once to his proposition, and on ascending a flight of narrow stone steps, we find ourselves in a large room which is used by the Bank mechanics to prepare the steel plates upon which the Bank notes are engraved.

A very powerful steam engine, which is used for other mechanical and artistic purposes in the Bank, is the motive power by which the work is done in this room. I can hear the sharp steel wedge scraping and polishing the already bright sheets of steel, and the noise is a most disagreeable one. All the workman has to do, however, is simply to place the plate and spindle in the exact spot, when the machine, like a stroke of vengeance seizes it, and in a second it is bright as silver.

[Sidenote: MAKING INK FOR BANK NOTES.]

Now we are in the room in which the printer's ink is manufactured with which the Bank notes are printed. The ink has to be of a very peculiar black shade, as counterfeiting would be easy were the materials used to be the same as in other inks.

Masses of black matter are being ground into a fine powder by rollers, I think that the guide told me it was nutgalls; large lumps are placed beneath the rollers, the cylinder revolves, and the powder is crushed to a fine paste.

The guide says, "If there's a bit of sand left in the paste, why then the grinding hasn't been done right." The rollers are of strong steel, and the smallest substance would be ground under them. A grain of sand will cause the two rollers as they meet to recede from each other, so sensitive are they to the finest hard substance.

Now we are out in a court again and we can see the engine room, and the huge coal fires burning, and the big boiler sweltering and steaming away at a great rate. The man who attends the engine is in his shirt-sleeves, and a little blackened, and I believe that, not excepting the Beadle, this was the only man whom I saw inside of the Bank who was not in full dress.

Here is a large room where the Bank-paper is cut to the proper size for notes, and a thousand pound note is exactly the same size as one for five pounds, which is the smallest denomination issued by the Bank.

Then there is the room for the compositors and binders, and in the latter apartment, all the account books which the vast business of the Bank make necessary, are paged, lined, and bound. Of ledgers alone, one thousand are used yearly, in this fountain head of finance, and check books innumerable are also printed and bound here.

Now I am again in the court-yard, which is paved very neatly--but no, I have not been here before. This fact I recognize as I look around me. This _another_ court-yard.

"This is the Library, Sir," said the guide.

I began to think that the Bank officials were indeed a very literary set of people, who could find time in business hours to read books, but I was presently made aware of my mistake.

The guide knocks quietly at a small iron door, which revolves on its hinges with a noise, and a man in that same inevitable dress-coat, cravat, and neck-tie, opens the door, and I gain an entrance to a place which looks to me very like the casemate of a Monitor, or a sally-port in a stone fortress. Iron doors, iron hinges, and iron windows, shaped in a circular form, and embayed in the wall, are the most significant signs around me.

Although it is broad daylight outside, there is utter darkness within, but for the single gas jet which burns as if suffering from some defect in the pipe.

I feel that some mystery is to be explained, or some strange sight shown me--or else why this change from sunlight to this cribbed and dungeon-like casemate.

It would be impossible to break into this room; and to get out of it, if the doors were locked, would be equally difficult, I imagine.

Now the gentleman who has opened the door goes behind an iron railing, and says:

"This is the Library of the Bank, Sir, and these are the volumes that compose the Library," he says to the writer, at the same time taking a large package of notes from a shelf--on which there are many hundred packages of like description--"we keep here the canceled notes which are called in, and therefore they can never be used again. We keep these old notes for twenty-five years, in case a forgery has been committed, and when it becomes necessary to produce the notes for evidence--why, here they are--we have notes here for millions of pounds," said he, turning over bundle after bundle of ragged looking papers, that had once been of incalculable value.

These notes, after a certain time, are reduced to pulp, and again are made into paper, from which in turn fresh bank notes are made, so that these old rags have the property which Ponce de Leon's fountain gave, of renewing their youth.

Into another room now, where the notes are printed from the plates, and to insure honesty in the printer--the machine registers the number of each note printed--the registering being done in a distant part of the establishment.

[Sidenote: IN THE VAULTS.]

And now we are in the Vaults, where the precious metals are kept, and where I saw and handled riches such as would have bewildered Pizzaro, or Cortez, even in their wildest imaginings.

Here are the Bullion Vaults, in which are kept bars of gold and silver. The gold bars weigh sixteen pounds each, while the silver bar varies.

The Bank pays for gold seventy-eight shillings an ounce, while silver is generally valued at about five shillings and two pence an ounce.

It is enough to dazzle the eyes of a miser, or render him blind, to look at the show of gold bars piled up behind the railings, in those large glass presses. Thousands of them! And they are piled up just as I have often seen the stacks of solder in a plumber or gas-fitter's shop in America, without any seeming care as to how they are laid.

Here a couple of men entered with kegs, and one of them, stepping up to me, asks:

"Would you like to handle a large sum of money, Sir?"

"I don't care if I do," I said; and the very polite gentleman went to a safe in the corner and opening one of the numerous black doors of iron which ornament every portion of the room, he brought forth four medium sized packages, and laid them on the counter before me, saying:

"Please to hold open your hand. Now, Sir, there are four packages of Bank of England notes, all ready for delivery, and in each package is _one million of pounds_."

I began to perspire and lose my sight and hearing. "Can there be," I said, "so much money in the world?" and then I heard him say again:

"Please to examine the packages--_one--two--three--four--millions_."

I cried out, "stop, stop--give me breath--do you mean to say," said I, "that there are four million of pounds in these four packages--_twenty million_ of dollars?"

"That is what I mean," said the polite official, and he smiled slightly at the excitement which he saw in my features.

At that moment I did not envy C. Vanderbilt, and I despised Jim Fisk.

Dim thoughts of murder flashed across my brain--and yet, no--I banished it from my mind. Twenty million of dollars! But then, the Tower! Ha-ha--away, fell design.

In one week the issue of bank notes amount to twenty-five million of pounds, or one hundred and twenty-five million of dollars. During the last twelve months the Bank has purchased three million and a half pounds' worth of gold bars, and one million eight hundred pounds' worth of silver bars. During the same period it sold six million pounds' worth of gold bars, and a quarter of a million pounds' worth of silver' bars.

[Sidenote: MAKING SOVEREIGNS.]

In the Weighing Office, established in 1842, to detect light gold, is the ingenious machine invented by Mr. W. Cotton, then Deputy-Governor of the Bank. About 80 or 100 light and heavy sovereigns are placed indiscriminately in a round tube; as they descend on the machinery beneath, those which are light receive a slight touch, which moves them into their proper receptacle, and those which are of legitimate weight pass into their appointed place. The light coins are then defaced by a machine, 200 in a minute; and by the weighing-machinery 35,000 may be weighed in one day. There are six of these machines, which from 1844 to 1849 weighed upwards of 48,000,000 pieces without any inaccuracy. The average amount of gold tendered in one year is nine millions, of which more than a quarter is light. The silver is put up into bags, each of one hundred pounds value, and the gold into bags of a thousand; and then these bagsful of bullion are sent through a strongly guarded door, or rather window, into the Treasury, a dark, gloomy apartment, fitted up with iron presses, supplied with huge locks and bolts.

And now I was to behold the process. After leaving the Treasury vaults, where I was shown the Bank notes, I was taken to a very large room on an upper floor, in which was a small and elegant steam engine, with other intricate machines, for weighing and defacing, or marking coins.

There was a large table with a number of coin shovels, and its entire surface was covered with sovereigns, heaped a foot high, the table having a raised rim all around it.

They were weighing these sovereigns--these officials with the finely starched shirts and white neck-ties; and this was the manner of it:

There were two open square boxes, which had connections with a number of wheels and revolving cylinders, and from each of these boxes projected the mouth of a scoop or highly polished funnel. A roll of sovereigns passed into this box, sliding slowly down through the mouth, and thence into a larger box below on the floor.

The attendants fill the tubes, and at the lower end of the scoop the work is done. Whenever a sovereign of light weight touches this spot in the lower part of the tube, a small brass plate jumps out and pushes the light sovereign into the left-hand aperture, while the full-weight pieces drop without hindrance into the right-hand box. The small brass plate does the business very quietly.

The light sovereigns are then gathered, placed in a bag, and sent back to the Mint to be re-coined. The man who was working the machine pulled a crank and a number, perhaps a thousand, of these marked sovereigns fell into the box. I took some of them in my hand, and found them almost totally defaced, and a number had been slit in two halves by the process, but no gold dust is lost the operation is performed so cleanly.

On the very same spot where once stood the Monastery of the Cistercian Monks, or Gray Friars, the Royal Mint of England is now located, and here all the money in use in England is coined by the "Company of Moneyers," as they are called. The building is situated on Tower Hill, the Mint having for a thousand years been carried on in the Tower itself.

For many hundreds of years the coinage of England had been debased by succeeding money-makers, who were entrusted by the Kings with the coinage, and in the reign of King Edward I, 280 Jews, of both sexes, were charged by this monarch with having debased the silver and gold coins, and were hung in London for the offence. King John, in 1212, ordered all the prisoners in his custody, among whom were some ecclesiastics, to be brought before him for instant judgment, at the same time summoning Cardinal Pandulph, the Papal Legate, to appear also to witness the judgment. Pandulph appeared, and King John thinking to frighten that haughty prelate who had often humbled him, ordered a priest among the prisoners, who had counterfeited money, to be hanged.

Pandulph stepped forward and said:

"Lord King, who so dares lay finger on yon clerk, though he were of royal blood, him shall I excommunicate, and he shall be anathema of Holy Church."

Pandulph, who was indeed a very energetic person, left the apartment to get a candle, so that he might curse John in due form, and the King having been thoroughly frightened, delivered the priest to Pandulph to have that prelate do justice on him, but the legate immediately liberated the offender.

During the reign of the Saxon Edgar, the penny had become scarcely equal to a half-penny in weight, and St. Dunstan, who was a bishop and confessor to the King, became so outraged at the debasement of the coinage, that on Whit-Sunday he refused to celebrate the mass before the King until justice had been done on three officials, or as they were called "moneyers." They were at once taken out of the Church and had their right hands struck off by order of the King.

In those days even the gold coins were of square, longitudinal, and all sorts of irregular and uncouth shapes.

One of the prophecies of the Sage Merlin was to the effect that when the money of England should become round, the Prince of Wales would be crowned in London. Edward I, having ascertained that such a prophecy was believed among the Welsh people, caused the head of their last native Prince, Llewellyn, to be cut off and sent to the Tower in London, where it was crowned with willows in mockery of the prophecy, and since then no native Welshman has held the title of Prince of Wales, with England's consent.

[Sidenote: HENRY VIII A COUNTERFEITER.]

Henry VIII, among his many acts of scoundrelism, was guilty of debasing the coinage of his kingdom, and when his illegitimate daughter, Queen Elizabeth, called in £638,000 of silver and gold money for the purpose of re-coining it, she ascertained on going to the Mint in person, (where she coined with her own hands several pieces of money) that these monies, whose current value on the face had been £638,000, were then only worth in reality £244,000.

On the day that George the Third's first son and successor was born--afterwards George IV--the captured treasure of the Spanish vessel "Hermione," amounting to sixty-five tons of silver and one bag full of gold, was carried in triumphant procession through the streets of London--amid the acclamation of the citizens--borne by twenty wagons. The value of the treasure was one million of pounds. This money was taken to the Mint to be coined.

In 1804 the English Government having determined to declare war against Spain, some private parties under the leadership of a Captain Moore, fitted out four ships to intercept some Spanish vessels on their way home from the Indies with treasure, and this infamous act of piracy was performed before the capturers of the Spanish galleons had heard of the impending declaration of war, and in fact before war was declared.

Some hundreds of persons were blown up in the Spanish Admiral's vessel, and one rich Spanish merchant who was returning on one of the vessels with his wife and daughters--having accumulated a great fortune--lost their lives by this act of treachery.

In 1804 the ransom payable to the British Government from the Chinese Nation, amounting to sixty-five tons of silver, or two millions of Chinese dollars, the price which China had to pay for not taking her opium quietly, was brought home and transferred to the Mint to be coined.

The money paid by France to Charles II of England for the town of Dunkirk, an immense treasure, was spent by that monarch in the worst kind of debauchery, and the face of Britannia which remains to this day upon English coins, is the likeness of Miss Frances Stewart, afterward Duchess of Richmond, and at one time a mistress of this dissolute King.

Guineas, which are valued at twenty-one shillings, while the sovereign is valued at a pound or twenty shillings, were first coined from the gold brought by the African Company from Guinea, and the coins had an elephant stamped on them.

In the same reign were struck the five guinea, the two guinea piece and the half guinea pieces. The coinage of this monarch's reign, who was only fitted to be the keeper of a bagnio, was so much depreciated, that in the reign of William and Mary, when 572 bags of silver coin were called in of Charles II's reign, it was found to weigh only 9,480 pounds, although the proper weight should have been 18,450 pounds.

The gold quarter guinea was coined by George I, and this coin is remarkable for bearing for the first time the letters "F.D." (_Fidei Defensor_,) or "Defender of the Faith." George III, an old blockhead as the First George was an old blackguard, coined seven shilling pieces, but these have been withdrawn, as have also the guineas and half guineas, which are now replaced by the sovereign, half sovereign, and crown, which latter coin is valued at five shillings.

When the bad money of Henry VIII was called in, the workmen in the Mint declared that it contained arsenic, and many of them "became sick to death with the savor." For this sickness some venerable idiot ordered them to drink from dead men's skulls, and a warrant was actually obtained whereby the heads of several Catholic priests, which then decorated London Bridge, were taken down and drinking cups were made from them for the workmen.

The present building in use by the Company of Moneyers for a Mint, was erected in 1811 on Tower Hill, and cost with the construction of machinery two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. If one hundred thousand pounds worth of gold bars are sent into the Mint one morning, on the next they will be ready for delivery in sovereigns.

[Sidenote: HOW TO MAKE MONEY.]

The gold is melted in pots made of black lead, which will not break in annealing, and then the alloy of copper is added (to gold one part in twelve; to silver eighteen pennyweights to a pound), and the mixed metal cast into small bars. The bars then in a heated state are first passed through the rollers, which are of tremendous power, these reducing them to one fourth of their former thickness and increasing them proportionally in length. Then the sheets of metal are passed through the cold rollers, which laminates them to the required thickness of coin.

Now comes the work of the cutting-out machines. There are fifteen of these elegant engines in the same basement, set apart for them.

The bars having been cut into the required strips and thickness, the protecting rim is next raised in the "Marking Room," and after blanching and annealing, they are ready for coining.

There are twelve presses for this purpose, each of which makes a hundred strokes a minute, and at each stroke, above and below, a blank is made into a perfect coin, stamped on both sides and milled at the edge, each press coining about ten thousand pieces of money in one hour. One little boy is alone needed to feed a press with blanks.

The coin is tested before the Lord Chancellor or Chancellor of the Exchequer and a jury of twelve goldsmiths, who are sworn to give a fair judgment, once a year--this being a trial between the Company of Coiners and the Government who own the coin. In a late trial of two hundred pounds weight of gold coin, the bulk weighed just one pennyweight and fifteen grains less than was correct--which is pretty good workmanship.

In a period of eighteen years the amount of money coined by the Company was as follows:

Gold, £55,000,000 Silver, 12,000,000 Copper, 250,000 ----------- Total, £67,250,000

Profit to the Company for coinage of above amount £214,000.

Amount charged for coining £67,250,000--by the Company of Moneyers--£421,000.