BANK-NOTES.


EVERY one who thinks about the matter knows that bank-notes are very carefully made; but very few are aware of how much time and labor is spent upon them with the purpose of preventing imitation and forgery. For nearly two hundred years the Bank of England notes have been made at one factory, at Laverstoke in Hampshire, and by the same family. The pulp is made from white linen cuttings alone, no rags that have ever been worn being permitted to be used; and even the number of dips into the pulp-tank made by each workman is registered by a machine; and each sheet, as it is finished, is carefully numbered and booked to the person to whom it is passed.

The notes are printed at the Bank of England, and, by very cleverly-arranged machinery, every note has some slight difference from all that have been printed before, so that no two Bank of England notes can be alike, except by forgery. The number of paid notes in seven years was about 94,000,000; and they fill about 18,000 boxes. If they were placed in a pile, one upon another, they would make a column eight miles high; and if joined end to end, would form a ribbon 15,000 miles long. 

Their value is ±'3,000,000,000, and they weigh more than 112 tons. 





Christian Advocate