Chap. Vn.] A XEW irOBE OF PRKTIXG BAXK-XOTES. 65 



Tte lecture is to be found in its place ia the Appendix, 

 No. XXI. 



For some time past a considerable part of Alfred Smee's time 

 had been devoted to arranging a new mode of printing the Bank of 

 England notes, which he at last succeeded in effecting with the 

 assistance of Mr. Hensman, the engineer to the Bank of England, 

 and Mr. Coe, the superintendent of the printing department to 

 that establishment, after enormous labour, and after havino- to 

 surmount innumerable diJEculties. A full description of the 

 process will be found iu the Appendix, Xo. XSH., in a paper ' On 

 the Xew Bank of England Xote and the Substitution of Surface 

 Printing and Electrotypes for CJopper-plate Printing,' which was 

 read before the Society of Arts on the 22nd of December, 1854. 



Preyiously to the establishment of this new form of printing 

 the bank-notes by Alfred Smee, the Bank authorities had been 

 thrown into a state of alarm by discovering that some ingenious 

 persons had succeeded in splitting the old form of note — so that 

 two notes were obtained in the place of one. The matter was 

 brought before Alfred Smee, and he soon found that, with a 

 little practice, it was by no means so difficult a process as at first 

 would appear. By the new form of Bank of England note this 

 " splitting " of it could not be effected. 



There was some talk in 1856 about introducing into this 

 country the decimal coinage, and the two following letters will 

 show the interest Mr. Smee took in the subject. 



PEAcncAi Application op the Becihai. Coinage. 

 To the Editor of the Society of Arts' Journal. 



Sib, — Permit me to occupy a short space in the Joumal to detail a 

 piactical plan for introducing decimal coins into our monetary system. 



The difficulty which has to be encountered arises from our penny, 

 which, as the -g^ part of a pound, cannot be converted into a decimal 

 fraction ; and unless some system be adopted, by ■which our present coins 

 shall bear a definite relation to decimal coins, decimals must remain a 

 bugbear to the million, and their use be unpopular if not almost impossible 

 in practice. 



The thought which has occurred to my mind is, to construct our 

 decimal and present systems in definite relations, which shall be evident 

 to the mind through the medium of the senses, so that, on throwing 

 two masses of coins upon the table, they may be either sorted into the 

 decimal or ordinaiy systems, and one may be rendered exactly equal to 

 the other. 



The decimal coinage might consist of the Pound, the Moriii, the 

 Secat, and the MQ. 



F 



