As with the plates, the paper, and the ink,
so with the printing; the change from one
system to another involved a wholly new
arrangement of apparatus. At first it could
not be easily decided whether the presses
should be hand-presses or others combining
modern applications of machinery; and it
was not until after numerous experiments
and a large outlay, that the present plan was
adopted—a plan in which many inventions
by many ingenious men have been combined.
The counting of the sheets or notes before
they leave the paper-mill, and after and
before every single process at the bank, is as
sedulously attended to as before; it could
scarcely be more so; for the biography of a
bank-note, so to speak, is recorded from the
very earliest stage of its existence to the very
latest.

Some changes, too, have been effected in
the numbering of the notes; but not to such
an extent as to depart from the general
principle before acted on; a principle of singular
beauty and exactness. The dates and
numbers are still the same mystic symbols as
before, having a meaning which the public
believe they understand, but which are really
understood by none but the Bank authorities
themselves. The never-ending, very
comprehensive, clearly declaratory, I promise to
pay, in connection with the name of Mr.
Matthew Marshall, or whoever may happen
to be Cashier of the Bank, is as decisive on
the modern notes as on those of past days;
but the promise is hedged round with quite
as many safeguards, or more. If we have
two genuine notes of the same number, they
will have different dates; if two of the same
date, they will have different numbers; so
that every circulated note is unlike every
other, in some one or more particulars.

It may be very safely assumed that the
Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, in these
costly and long-continued experiments
concerning bank-note manufacture, is influenced
rather by a wish to baffle the forgers than to
cheapen the cost of production. This latter
may be a very proper and judicious object,
but becomes trifling when compared with
the former. The venerable lady has many
little secrets known, only within her official
house, for testing the genuineness of notes.
The public, not admitted to these secret
councils, are left to guard themselves as best
they may. When the Anastatic process, and
the Selbst-drück process, and the electrotype
process, and the photographic process,
successively burst upon the eyes of a wondering
world, the bank-note family felt a little
nervous, and prophesied dire misfortune and
dark roguery in the future; but our
commercial circles do not appear to be troubled
with any large increase, if any increase at all,
in forged notes. Whatever 'graphy is adopted,
there is probably some one characteristic or
other which it will fail to imitate, and which
will serve as a test of its spuriousness.

It would be a useful thing if clever men
would give us a set of simple rules, pointing
out what the 'graphies cannot do in way
of imitation. Thus, in eighteen hundred and
fifty-three, an alarm was spread that
photography was about to be employed in imitating
bank-notes; whereupon a writer in the
Times pointed out that photography could
not well imitate the water-mark, whatever it
might do with the inked device. His wisdom
assumed the following form: " The water-
mark of a bank-note results from a difference
in the substance of the paper, and is only
visible by transmitted light,—that is, when
the note is held up so that the light may pass
through it,—it being in the body of the pulp.
Now the imitated water-mark would be on
the surface only, and would be produced by
a slight darkening of the front of the note,
corresponding exactly with the thicker
portions of the paper of the note it was copied
from; it would therefore be visible by
reflected as well as by transmitted light, and
would be only on the front, but not on the
back. Consequently, by doubling a note so
produced, in such a way as to see at the
same time part of the back and part of the
front, the fraud would be at once detected, as
the counter-mark would not be on both."

It is only fair that, while the Old Lady is
entrenching herself within a fortress of tests
and detectives, the public should have some
such elucidations as the above (supposing it
to be correct) of the means whereby they
could measure the genuineness of their bank-
notes—those flimsy but mighty precursors of
so much joy, sorrow, benevolence, roguery,
commerce, speculation, invention, discovery.
The parent, if she can, should furnish us
with marks of the legitimacy of her own
children.

THE POOR CLARE.

IN THREE CHAPTERS. CHAPTER THE THIRD.

WHAT was to be done next? was the
question that I asked myself. As for Lucy,
she would fain have submitted to the doom
that lay upon her. Her gentleness and piety,
under the pressure of so horrible a life,
seemed over-passive to me. She never
complained. Mrs. Clarke complained more than
ever. As for me, I was more in love with the
real Lucy than ever; but I shrank from the
false similitude with an intensity proportioned
to my love. I found out by instinct,
that Mrs. Clarke had occasional temptations
to leave Lucy. The good lady's nerves were
shaken, and, from what she said, I could
almost have concluded that the object of
the Double was to drive away from Lucy
this last and almost earliest friend. At
times, I could scarcely bear to own it, but
I myself felt inclined to turn recreant; and I
would accuse Lucy of being too patient—
too resigned. One after another, she won
the little children of Coldholme. (Mrs.
Clarke and she had resolved to stay there,