how many each press has printed. To take an
impression of a note plate "on the sly," is
therefore impossible. By a clever invention
of Mr. Oldham the impression returns to the
printer when made, instead of remaining on
the opposite side of the press, after it has
passed through the rollers, as of old. The
plates are heated, for inking, over steam boxes
instead of charcoal fires.

When a ream, consisting of five hundred
sheets or one thousand notes, have been
printed, they are placed in a tray which is
inserted in a sort of shelf-trap that shuts up
with a spring. No after-abstraction can, therefore,
take place. One such repository is over
the index appertaining to each press, and at
the end of the day it can at once be seen
whether the number of sheets corresponds
with the numerals of the tell-tale. Any sort
of mistake can thus be readily detected. The
average number of "promises to pay" printed
per diem is thirty thousand.

As we cannot allow the dot over an i, or the
cross of a t to escape the focus of our critical
microscope, we now proceed to apply it to the
Bank Ink. Like the liquid of Messrs. Day
and Martin, this inestimable composition, with
half the usual labour, produces the most
brilliant jet-black, fully equal to the highest
Japan varnish, and is warranted to keep in
any climate. It is made from the charred
husks of Rhenish grapes after their juice has
been expressed and bottled for exportation to
the dinner-tables of half the world. When
mixed with pure linseed oil, carefully
prepared by boiling and burning, the vinous
refuse produces a species of blacks so tenacious
that they obstinately refuse to be emancipated
from the paper when once enslaved to it by
the press. It is so intensely nigritious that,
compared with it, all other blacks are musty
browns; and pale beside it. If the word of a
printer's devil may be taken, it is many
degrees darker than the streams of Erebus.
Can deeper praise be awarded?

The note is, when plate-printed, two
processes distant from negotiable; the first being
the numbering and dating—and here we must
point out the grand distinction which exists
between the publication which we have the
satisfaction of stating, now lies before us (but
it is only a "Five") and ordinary prints. When
the types for this miscellany, for instance, are
once set up, every copy struck off from them
by the press is precisely similar. On the
contrary, of those emitted from the Bank
presses no two are alike. They differ either in
date, in number, or in denomination. This
difference constitutes a grand system of check,
extending over every stage of every Bank
Note's career—a system which records its
completion and issue, tracks it through its
public adventures, recognises it when it
returns to the Bank, from among hundreds of
thousands of companions, and finally enables
the proper officers to pounce upon it, in case
of inquiry, at any official half-hour for ten
years after it has returned in fulfilment of its
"promise to pay." To promise an explanation
of what must appear so complicated a
plan, may seem to the reader like a threat of
prolixity. But he may read on in security;
the system is as simple as the alphabet.

Understand then, that the dates of Bank
Notes are arbitrary, and bear no reference to
the day of issue. At the beginning of the
official year (February) the Directors settle
what dates each of the eleven denominations
of Bank Notes shall bear during the ensuing
twelve months, taking care to apportion to
each sort of note a separate date. The table
of dates is then handed to the proper officer,
who prints accordingly. The five-pound Note
which now rejoices our eyes is, for example,
dated February the 2nd. 1850; we therefore
know that there is no genuine note in
existence, for any other sum, which bears that
date; and if a note for ten, twenty, fifty,
hundred, &c., having "2nd Feb., 1850," upon
it were to be offered to us or to a Bank Clerk,
we or he would, without a shadow of further
evidence, impound it as a forgery.

Now, as to the numbering:—It is a rule
that of every date and denomination, one
hundred thousand Notes—no more and no
less—shall be completed and issued at one
time. We know, therefore, that our solitary
five is one of a hundred thousand other fives,
each bearing a different number from 1 * to
100,000—but all dated 2nd Feb., 1850. The
numbers are printed on each Note by
means of a letter-press, the types of which
change with each pull of the press. For the
first Note, the press is set at "00001," and
when that is printed, the "1," by the mere act
of impression, retires to make room for "2,"
which impresses itself on the next Note, and
so on up to "100,000." The system has been
applied to the stamping of railway tickets.
The date, being required for the whole series,
is of course immovable. After this has been
done, the autograph of a cashier is only
requisite to render the Note worth the value
inscribed on it, in gold.

* To prevent fraudulent additions of numerals, less than
five figures are never used. When units, tens,&c., are
required, they are preceded by cyphers. "One" is therefore
expressed on a Bank Note thus:—"00001."

While the printers are at work,
manufacturing each series of Notes, the account-
book makers are getting-up a series of ledgers
so exactly to correspond, that the books of
themselves, without the stroke of a pen, are a
record of the existence of the Note. The book
in which the birth of our own especial and
particular "Five" is registered, is legibly inscribed,
                     "Fives, Feb. 2, 1850."

When you open a page, you find it to
consist of a series of horizontal and perpendicular
lines, like the pattern of a pair of shepherd's
plaid inexpressibles, variegated with columns
of numerals; these figures running on regularly
from No. 1, on the top of the first page, to
No. 100,000 at the bottom of the last. It