"I promise," secondly, on the words, "or
bearer." Sometimes the figures cover the
whole of those words; sometimes they only
partly obscure them. No. 99066 now lies
before us. Suppose we wished to substitute
the "0" of another note for the first "9" of
the one now under our eye; we see that the
"9" covers a little bit of the " P," and
intersects in three places the "r,"' in "Promise."
Now, to give this alteration the smallest
chance, we must look through hundreds of
other notes till we find an "0" which not
only covers a part of the "P" and
intersects the "r " in three places, but in
precisely the same places as the "9" on our
note does; else the strokes of those letters
would not meet when the "0" was let in, and
instant detection would ensue. But even then
the job would only be half done. The second
initial "9" stands upon the "or" in "or
bearer," and we should have to investigate
several hundred more notes, to find an "0"
that intersected that little word exactly in
the same manner, and then let it in with
such mathematical nicety, that not the
hundredth part of a hair's breadth of the
transferred paper should fail to range with the
rest of the letters and figures on the altered
note; to say nothing of hiding the joins in
the paper. This is the triumph of ambi-
dexterity; it is a species of patch-work far
beyond the most sublime achievements of
"Old Patch "himself.

Time has proved that the steady perseverance
of the Bank––despite the most furious
clamour––in gradually improving their original
note and thus preserving those most essential
qualities, simplicity and uniformity––has been
a better preventive to forgery than any one
of the hundreds of plans, pictures, complications,
chemicals, and colours, which have,
been forced upon the Directors' notice,
Whole-note forgery is nearly extinct. The
lives of Eminent Forgers need only wait for
a single addendum; for only one man is left
who can claim superiority over Mathieson,
and he was, unfortunately for the Bank of
England, born a little too late, to trip up his
heels, or those of the late Mr. Charles Price.
He can do everything with a note that the
patchers, and alterers, and simulators, can do,
and a great deal more. Flimsy as a Bank note
is to a proverb, he can split it into three per-
fect continuous, flat, and even leaves. He has
forged more than one design sent into the
Bank as an infallible preventive to forgery.
You may, if you like, lend him a hundred
pound note: he will undertake to discharge
every trace of ink from it, and return it to
you perfectly uninjured and a perfect blank.
We are not quite sure that if you were to burn
a Bank note and hand him the black cinders,
that he would not bleach it, and join it, and
conjure it back again into a very good-looking,
payable piece of currency. But we are sure
of the truth of the following story, which we
have from our friend the transcendant forger
referred to; and who is no other than the
chief of the Engraving and Engineering
department of the Bank of England:

Some years ago––in the days of the thirty-
shilling notes––a certain Irishman saved up
the sum of eighty-seven pounds ten, in notes
of the Bank of Ireland. As a sure means of
securing this valuable property, he put it in
the foot of an old stocking, and buried it in his
garden, where Bank note paper couldn't fail
to keep dry, and to come out, when wanted,
in the best preservation.

After leaving his treasure in this excellent
place of deposit for some months, it occurred
to the depositor to take a look at it, and see
how it was getting on. He found the stocking-
foot apparently full of the fragments of
mildewed and broken mushrooms. No other
shadow of a shade of eighty-seven pounds ten.

In the midst of his despair, the man had
the sense not to disturb the ashes of his
property. He took the stocking-foot in his hand,
posted off to the Bank in Dublin, entered it
one morning as soon as it was opened, and,
staring at the clerk with a most extraordinary
absence of all expression in his face, said:

"Ah, look at that. Sir! Can ye do anything
for me?"

"What do you call this?" said the clerk.

"Eighty-sivin pound ten, praise the Lord,
as I 'm a sinner! Ohone! There was a
twenty as was paid to me by Mr. Phalim
O'Dowd, Sir, and a ten as was changed by
Pat Reilly, and a five as was owen by Tim;
and Ted Connor, ses he to ould Phillips"

"Well! Never mind old Phillips. You
have done it, my friend!"

"Oh Lord, Sir, and it's done it I have, most
corn-plate! Oh, good luck to you, Sir, can
you do nothing for me?"

"I don't know what's to be done with such
a mess as this. Tell me, first of all, what you
put in the stocking, you unfortunate
blunderer?"

"Oh yes, Sir, and tell you true as if it was
the last word I had to spake entirely, and the
Lord be good to you, and Ted Connor ses he
to ould Phillips, regarden the five as was
owen by Tim, and not includen of the ten
which was changed by Pat Reilly––"

"You didn't put Pat Reilly, or ould
Phillips into the stocking, did you?"

"Is it Pat or ould Phillips as was ever the
valy of eighty-sivin pound ten, lost and gone,
and includen the five as was owen by Tim,
and Ted Connor––"

"Then tell me what you did put in the
stocking, and let me take it down. And then
hold your tongue, if you can, and go your
way, and come back to-morrow."

The particulars of the notes were taken,
without any reference to ould Phillips: who
could not, however, by any means be kept
out of the story; and the man departed.

When he was gone, the stocking-foot was
shown to the then Chief Engraver of the notes,
who said that if anybody could settle the