sterling; and, clutching it with a strange
tingling, you feel disposed to knock Mr.
Matthew Marshall down, and, like a patriotic
Frenchman, to descend into the streets.

No tyro need be told that these are
representatives of weightier value, and were
invented partly to supersede the necessity of
carrying about ponderous parcels of precious
metal. Hence—to treat of it soberly—four
paper parcels taken out, and placed in
our hands—consisting of four reams of Bank
notes ready for issue, and not much more
bulky than a thick octavo volume—though
they represent gold of the weight of two
tons, and of the value of two millions of
pounds sterling, yet weigh not quite one
pound avoirdupois each, or nearly four pounds
together. The value in gold of what we could
convey away in a couple of side pockets (if
simply permitted by the dear Old Lady in
Threadneedle Street, without proceeding to
extremities upon the person of the Chief
Cashier) would have required, but for her
admirable publications, two of Barclay and
Perkins's strongest horses to draw.*

* One thousand sovereigns weigh twenty-one pounds, and
five hundred and twelve Bank-notes weigh exactly one
pound.

We have already made mention of the
Old Lady's Lodge, Hall, Parlour, Store-room,
and Drawing-room. Her Cellars are not less
curious. In these she keeps neither wine, nor
beer, nor wood, nor coal. They are devoted
solely to the reception of the precious metals.
They are like the caves of Treasures in the
Arabian Nights; the common Lamp that
shows them becomes a Wonderful Lamp in
Mr. Marshall's hands, and Mr. Marshall becomes a
Genie. Yet only by the power of association;
for they are very respectable arched cellars
that would make dry skittle-grounds, and have
nothing rare about them but their glittering
contents. One vault is full of what might
be barrels of oysters—if it were not the
Russian Loan. Another is rich here and
there with piles of gold bars, set cross-wise,
like sandwiches at supper, or rich biscuits
in a confectioner's shop. Another has a
moonlight air from the presence of so much
silver. Dusky avenues branch off, where gold
and silver amicably bide their time in cool
retreats, not looking at all mischievous here,
or anxious to play the Devil with our souls.
Oh for such cellars at home! "Look out
for your young master half a dozen bars of
the ten bin." "Let me have a wedge of
the old crusted." "Another Million before
we part—only one Million more, to finish
with!" The Temperance Cause would make
but slow way, as to such cellars, we have a
shrewd suspicion!

Beauty of colour is here associated with
worth. One of these brilliant bars of gold
weighs sixteen pounds troy, and its value is
eight hundred pounds sterling. A pile of
these, lying in a dark corner—like neglected
cheese, or bars of yellow soap—and which
might be contained in an ordinary tea-chest,
is worth two hundred and ten thousand
pounds. Fortune herself transmuted into
metal seems to repose at our feet. Yet this
is only an eightieth part of the wealth
contained in the Old Lady's cellars.

The future history of this metal is
explained in three sentences; it is coined at the
Mint, distributed to the public, worn by
friction (or "sweated" by Jews) till it becomes
light. What happens to it then we shall see.

By a seldom failing law of monetary attraction
nearly every species of cash, "hard" or
soft, metallic or paper, finds its way some
time or other back to the extraordinary Old
Lady of Threadneedle Street. All the sovereigns
returned from the banking-houses are
consigned to a secluded cellar; and, when you
enter it, you will possibly fancy yourself on the
premises of a clock-maker who works by steam.
Your attention is speedily concentrated to a
small brass box not larger than an eight-day
pendule, the works of which are impelled
by steam. This is a self-acting weighing
machine, which with unerring precision tells
which sovereigns are of standard weight, and
which are light, and of its own accord
separates the one from the other. Imagine a long
trough or spout—half a tube that has been
split into two sections—of such a semi-
circumference as holds sovereigns edgeways,
and of sufficient length to allow of two
hundred of them to rest in that position one
against another. This trough thus charged
is fixed slopingly upon the machine over a
little table as big as that of an ordinary
sovereigns-balance. The coin nearest to the
Lilliputian platform drops upon it, being pushed
forward by the weight of those behind. Its
own weight presses the table down; but how
far down? Upon that hangs the whole merit
and discriminating power of the machine. At
the back, and on each side of this small table,
two little hammers move by steam backwards
and forwards at different elevations. If the
sovereign be full weight, down sinks the table
too low for the higher hammer to hit it; but
the lower one strikes the edge, and off the
sovereign tumbles into a receiver to the left.
The table pops up again, receives, perhaps, a
light sovereign, and the higher hammer having
always first strike, knocks it into a receiver to
the right, time enough to escape its colleague,
which, when it comes forward, has nothing to
hit, and returns to allow the table to be
elevated again. In this way the reputation of
thirty-three sovereigns is established or
destroyed every minute. The light weights are
taken to a clipping machine, slit at the rate of
two hundred a minute, weighed in a lump,
the balance of deficiency charged to the banker
from whom they were received, and sent to
the Mint to be re-coined. Those which have
passed muster are re-issued to the public.
The inventor of this beautiful little detector
was Mr. Cotton, a former governor. The
comparatively few sovereigns brought in by