64 



Bank of England. 



Vol. VIII. 



Uank of England. 



Mr. Weed, editor of the Albany Journal, 

 is now in England, and properly engaged in 

 informing his readers of what he sees, hears 

 and feels. The following will be interest- 

 ing. — U. S. Gazette. 



July 18th, 1843. 



"We availed ourselves this morning, of 

 the permission obtained by Mr. Wiggin, to 

 visit the Bank of England. An official, 

 (Macer or Usher) with laced dress-coat and 

 three-cornered hat, escorted us to another 

 servant of the Bank, who took us leisurely 

 through an Institution that is so potent in 

 controlling and regulating the money pulsa- 

 tions of Europe. It is situated on Thread- 

 needle street, but fronts upon half a dozen 

 others, and occupies an irregular area of 

 eight acres. Thefe are no windows through 

 the e.xterior of the building, light being sup- 

 plied by sky-lights and open courts within. 

 There is a clock hy which Bank time is 

 kept, with dials indicating the time, in six- 

 teen different offices. The Bank, with its 

 various offices, is open from 9 A. M., till 

 5 P. M. It has also, its printing office, 

 book-bindery, engraving office, &c., &c. 

 Checks, blank books, &c., &ic., are all print- 

 ed within the Bank, as are the Bank notes. 

 In the room where the circulating notes are 

 printed, there are eight presses, all constant- 

 ly employed, and which throw off about 8U00 

 impressions daily. We saw two presses 

 rolling off £5 notes, and others upon the 

 various denominations, up to JEIOOO, which 

 is the largest note the Bank issues. The 

 dates and numbers of the notes, are supplied 

 by smaller presses in another room. The 

 paper is delivered to the presses counted — 

 a hundred sheets at a time — and when 

 worked and returned, another hundred 

 sheets are given. Pressmen work five 

 hours, and earn from two to three guineas 

 a week. In the office where redeemed 

 notes are examined, cancelled, &c., one 

 hundred and thirty-six clerks are constantly 

 employed. When we entered this room our 

 attendant was sharply reprimanded for bring- 

 ing strangers there, but upon being informed 

 that it was by " the Governor's order," we 

 were allowed to pass. Forty thousand dif- 

 ferent notes are frequently sent to this office 

 to be cancelled in a day. The Bank, you 

 know, never re-issues a note. When re- 

 turned to its counter for payment, the note 

 is cancelled, filed away, to be burnt at the 

 expiration often years. The armory of the 

 Bank contains an hundred stand of muskets, 

 with pistols, cutlasses, hand-grenades, &c., 

 &-C., and has a night-guard thirty-eight 



strong. In the office where the Bank notes 

 are counted into parcels, tied with twine 

 and placed in pigeon holes, we found five 

 staid, methodical, matter-of-fact looking 

 clerks, whom ye would trust for their faces. 

 One of these old chaps, with the precision 

 of ' Old Owen,' and the good nature of 'Tim 

 Linkinwater,' took his keys and unlocked 

 the depositories of paper wealth. The ' rags' 

 of each denomination were in separate par- 

 cels. When we came to the 'high number,' 

 he placed four packages in my hand, and re- 

 marked, ' You now hold £4,000,000 sterling 

 in your hand, sir !' Yes, I actually was in 

 possession of twenty millions of dollars, a 

 sum much larger than the whole estate of 

 John Jacob Astor! But it all returned to 

 its pigeon hole, and left me a far happier 

 man than those who are encumbered with 

 such overgrown fortunes. Another of the 

 old clerks opened the golden dormitories, 

 where repose an endless number of bags, 

 each containing eight hundred sovereigns. 

 We were next and finally conducted to a 

 subterranean region, enriched by gold and 

 silver bullion. Here bars of the precious 

 metals were as plentifully heaped as those 

 of iron and steel are in the stores of our 

 friends, Benedict, Townsend & Corning. 

 The silver we did not meddle with, but we 

 handled bars of gold, each weighing eight 

 thousand pounds sterling, that were piled in 

 barrow-loads of seventy thousand pounds 

 sterling each. Much of this bullion was 

 recently received from China, as an instal- 

 ment upon the sum John Bull makes the 

 celestials pay for their obstinate refusal to 

 'take opium.' The Bank of England has 

 now in paper and specie, nearly thirty-eight 

 millions of pounds steiling. There are eight 

 hundred persons in its various departments, 

 constantly employed within its walls." 



The Orange Worm. — An insect has at- 

 tacked the orange trees of Florida, which is 

 doing a great deal of damage. The St. Au- 

 gustine News, says, "Already this vegeta- 

 ble, one of the most useful of the best fruits 

 produced in the troprical countries, has been 

 persecuted by a plague, which destroys, lit- 

 tle by little, its beautiful verdue, from the 

 trunk to the branches, until it is annihilated 

 completely. The proprietor sees with sor- 

 row, the orange trees of his estate die, leav- 

 ing him deprived of the benefits which would 

 be produced by the sale of a fruit that com- 

 petes in consumption and pleasant taste, 

 with the pine apple. — North American. 



Laziness travels slow and poverty thumps 

 his heels. • 



