evidence of the Bank Inspector; but was
afterwards released on bail to appear when
called on. He was not called on; and, at the
expiration of twelvemonths (having kept the
note all that time), he brought an action
against the Bank for false imprisonment. On
the trial the note was proved to be genuine!
and the plaintiff was awarded damages of one
hundred pounds.

It is a fact sufficiently dreadful that three
hundred and thirty human lives should have
been sacrificed in twenty-one years; but
when we relate a circumstance which admits
the merest probability that some––even one
––of those lives may have been sacrificed in
innocence of the offence for which they suffered,
the consideration becomes appalling.

Some time after the frequency of the crime
had, in other respects subsided, there was a
sort of bloody assize at Haverfordwest, in
Wales; several prisoners were tried for
forging and uttering, and thirteen were
convicted; chiefly on the evidence of Mr.
Christmas, a Bank Inspector, who swore
positively, in one case, that the document
named in the indictment "was not an
impression from a Bank of England plate; was
not printed on the paper with the ink or
watermark of the Bank; neither was it in
the handwriting of the signing clerk." Upon
this testimony the prisoner, together with
twelve participators in similar crimes, were
condemned to be hanged!

The morning after the trial, Mr. Christmas
was leaving his lodging, when an acquaintance
stepped up and asked him, as a friend, to give
his opinion on a note he had that morning
received. It was a bright day; Mr. Christmas
put on his spectacles, and carefully scrutinised
the document in a business-like and leisurely
manner. He pronounced it to be forged.
The gentleman, a little chagrined, brought it
away with him to town. It is not a little
singular that he happened to know Mr.
Burnett, of Portsmouth, whom he
accidentally met, and to whom he showed the
note. Mr. Burnett was evidently a capital
judge of Bank paper. He said nothing, but
slipping his hand into one pocket, handed to
the astonished gentleman full change, and
put the note into another. "It cannot be a
good note," exclaimed the latter, "for my
friend Christmas told me at Haverfordwest
that it is a forgery!" But as Mr. Burnett
had backed his opinion to the amount of
twenty shillings he declined to retract it; and
lost no time in writing to Mr. Henry Hase
(Abraham Newland's successor) to test its
accuracy.

It was lucky that he did so; for this little
circumstance saved thirteen lives!

Mr. Christmas's co-inspectors at the Bank
of England actually reversed his non-official
judgment that the note was a forgery. It
was officially pronounced to be a good note;
yet upon the evidence of Mr. Christmas as
regards other notes, the thirteen human beings
at Haverfordwest were trembling at the foot
of the gallows. It was promptly and cogently
argued that as Mr. Christmas's judgment had
failed him in the deliberate examination of
one note, it might also err as to others, and
the convicts were respited.

The converse of this sort of mistake often
happened. Bad notes were pronounced to be
genuine by the Bank. Early in January, 1818,
a well-dressed woman entered the shop of Mr.
James Hammond, of 40, Bishopsgate Street
Without, and having purchased three pounds
worth of goods, tendered in payment a ten-
pound note. There was something hesitating
and odd in her manner; and, although Mr.
Hammond could see nothing the matter
with the note, yet he was ungallant enough
to suspect––from the uncomfortable
demeanour of his customer––that all was not
right. He hoped she was not in a hurry,
for he had no change; he must send
to a neighbour for it. He immediately
dispatched his shopman to the most affluent of
all his neighbours––to her of Threadneedle
Street. The delay occasioned the lady to
remark, "I suppose he is gone to the Bank?"
Mr. Hammond having answered in the affirmative,
engaged his customer in conversation,
and they freely discussed the current topics of
the day; till the young man returned with
ten one pound Bank of England Notes. Mr.
Hammond felt a little remorse at having
suspected his patroness; who departed with the
purchases with the utmost despatch. She had
not been gone half an hour before two gentle-
men rushed into the shop in a state of grievous
chagrin; one was the Bank clerk who had
changed the note. He begged Mr. Hammond
would be good enough to give him another
for it. "Why?" asked the puzzled shop-
keeper. "Why, Sir," replied the distressed
clerk, "it is forged!" Of course his request
was not complied with. The clerk declared
that his dismissal was highly probable; but
Mr. Hammond was inexorable.

The arguments in favour of death punishments
never fail so signally as when brought
to the test of the scaffold and its effect on
Bank Forgeries. When these were most
numerous, although from twenty to thirty
persons were put to death in one year, the
gallows was never deprived of an equal share
of prey during the next. As long as simulated
notes could be passed with ease, and
detected with difficulty, the Old Bailey had
no terrors for clever engravers and dexterous
imitators of the hieroglyphic autographs of
the Bank of England signers.

At length public alarm at the prevalence
of forgeries, and the difficulty of knowing
them as such, arose to the height of demanding
some sort of relief. In 1819 a committee
was appointed by the Government to enquire
into the best means of prevention. One
hundred and eighty projects were submitted.
They mostly consisted of intricate designs
such as rendered great expense necessary to