XL. THE BANK OF ENGLAND…

XL. THE BANK OF ENGLAND

The Jews and the Lombards--The Goldsmiths the first London Bankers--William Paterson, Founder of the Bank of England--Difficult Parturition of the Bank Bill--Whig Principles of the Bank of England--The Great Company described by Addison--A Crisis at the Bank--Effects of a Silver Re-coinage--Paterson quits the Bank of England--The Ministry resolves that it shall be enlarged--The Credit of the Bank shaken--The Whigs to the Rescue--Effects of the Sacheverell Riots--The South Sea Company--The Cost of a New Charter--Forged Bank Notes--The Foundation of the "Three per Cent. Consols"--Anecdotes relating to the Bank of England and Bank Notes--Description of the Building--Statue of William III.--Bank Clearing House--Dividend Day at the Bank.

The English Jews, that eminently commercial race, were, as we have shown in our chapter on Old Jewry, our first bankers and usurers. To them, in immediate succession, followed the enterprising Lombards, a term including the merchants and goldsmiths of Genoa, Florence, and Venice. Utterly blind to all sense of true liberty and justice, the strong-handed king seems to have resolved to squeeze and crush them, as he had squeezed and crushed their unfortunate predecessors. They were rich and they were strangers--that was enough for a king who wanted money badly. At one fell swoop Edward seized the Lombards' property and estates. Their debtors naturally approved of the king's summary measure. But the Lombards grew and flourished, like the trampled camomile, and in the fifteenth century advanced a loan to the state on the security of the Customs. The Steelyard merchants also advanced loans to our kings, and were always found to be available for national emergencies, and so were the Merchants of the Staple, the Mercers' Company, the Merchant Adventurers, and the traders of Flanders.

Up to a late period in the reign of Charles I. the London merchants seem to have deposited their surplus cash in the Mint, the business of which was carried on in the Tower. But when Charles I., in an agony of impecuniosity, seized like a robber the £200,000 there deposited, calling it a loan, the London goldsmiths, who ever since 1386 had been always more or less bankers, now monopolised the whole banking business. Some merchants, distrustful of the goldsmiths in these stormy times, entrusted their money to their clerks and apprentices, who too often cried, "Boot, saddle and horse, and away!" and at once started with their spoil to join Rupert and his pillaging Cavaliers. About 1645 the citizens returned almost entirely to the goldsmiths, who now gave interest for money placed in their care, bought coins, and sold plate. The Company was not particular. The Parliament, out of plate and old coin, had coined gold, and seven millions of half-crowns. The goldsmiths culled out the heavier pieces, melted them down, and exported them. The merchants' clerks, to whom their masters' ready cash was still sometimes entrusted, actually had frequently the brazen impudence to lend money to the goldsmiths, at fourpence per cent. per diem; so that the merchants were often actually lent their own money, and had to pay for the use of it. The goldsmiths also began now to receive rent and allow interest for it. They gave receipts for the sums they received, and these receipts were to all intents and purposes marketable as bank-notes.

Grown rich by these means, the goldsmiths were often able to help Cromwell with money in advance on the revenues, a patriotic act for which we may be sure they took good care not to suffer. When the great national disgrace occurred--the Dutch sailed up the Medway and burned some of our ships--there was a run upon the goldsmiths, but they stood firm, and met all demands. The infamous seizure by Charles II. of £1,300,000, deposited by the London goldsmiths in the Exchequer, all but ruined these too confiding men, but clamour and pressure compelled the royal embezzler to at last pay six per cent. on the sum appropriated. In the last year of William's reign, interest was granted on the whole sum at three per cent., and the debt still remains undischarged. At last a Bank of England, which had been talked about and wished for by commercial men ever since the year 1678, was actually started, and came into operation.

That great financial genius, William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, was born in 1658, of a good family, at Lochnaber, in Dumfriesshire. He is supposed, in early life, to have preached among the persecuted Covenanters. He lived a good deal in Holland, and is believed to have been a wealthy merchant in New Providence (the Bahamas), and seems to have shared in Sir William Phipps' successful undertaking of raising a Spanish galleon with £300,000 worth of sunken treasure. It is absurdly stated that he was at one time a buccaneer, and so gained a knowledge of Darien and the ports of the Spanish main. That he knew and obtained information from Captains Sharpe, Dampier, Wafer, and Sir Henry Morgan (the taker of Panama), is probable. He worked zealously for the Restoration of 1688, and he was the founder of the Darien scheme. He advocated the union of Scotland, and the establishment of a Board of Trade.

The project of a Bank of England seems to have been often discussed during the Commonwealth, and was seriously proposed at the meeting of the First Council of Trade at Mercers' Hall after the Restoration. Paterson has himself described the first starting of the Bank, in his "Proceedings at the Imaginary Wednesday's Club," 1717. The first proposition of a Bank of England was made in July, 1691, when the Government had contracted £3,000,000 of debt in three years, and the Ministers even stooped, hat in hand, to borrow £100,000 or £200,000 at a time of the Common Council of London, on the first payment of the land-tax, and all payable with the year, the common councillors going round and soliciting from house to house. The first project was badly received, as people expected an immediate peace, and disliked a scheme which had come from Holland--"they had too many Dutch things already." They also doubted the stability of William's Government. The money, at this time, was terribly debased, and the national debt increasing yearly. The ministers preferred ready money by annuities for ninety-nine years, and by a lottery. At last they ventured to try the Bank, on the express condition that if a moiety, £1,200,000, was not collected by August, 1699, there should be no Bank, and the whole £1,200,000 should be struck in halves for the managers to dispose of at their pleasure. So great was the opposition, that the very night before, some City men wagered deeply that one-third of the £1,200,000 would never be subscribed. Nevertheless, the next day £346,000, with a fourth paid in at once, was subscribed, and the remainder in a few days after. The whole subscription was completed in ten days, and paid into the Exchequer in rather more than ten weeks. Paterson expressly tells us that the Bank Act would have been quashed in the Privy Council but for Queen Mary, who, following the wish of her husband, expressed firmly in a letter from Flanders, pressed the commission forward, after a six hours' sitting.

The Bank Bill, timidly brought forward, purported only to impose a new duty on tonnage, for the benefit of such loyal persons as should advance money towards carrying on the war. The plan was for the Government to borrow £1,200,000, at the modest interest of eight per cent. To encourage capitalists, the subscribers were to be incorporated by the name of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. Both Tories and Whigs broke into a fury at the scheme. The goldsmiths and pawnbrokers, says Macaulay, set up a howl of rage. The Tories declared that banks were republican institutions; the Whigs predicted ruin and despotism. The whole wealth of the nation would be in the hands of the "Tonnage Bank," and the Bank would be in the hands of the Sovereign. It was worse than the Star Chamber, worse than Oliver's 50,000 soldiers. The power of the purse would be transferred from the House of Commons to the Governor and Directors of the new Company. Bending to this last objection, a clause was inserted, inhibiting the Bank from advancing money to the House without authority from Parliament. Every infraction of this rule was to be punished by a forfeiture of three times the sum advanced, without the king having power to remit the penalty. Charles Montague, an able man, afterwards First Lord of the Treasury, carried the bill through the House; and Michael Godfrey (the brother of the celebrated Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, supposed to have been murdered by the Papists), an upright merchant and a zealous Whig, propitiated the City. In the Lords (always the more prejudiced and conservative body than the Commons) the bill met with great opposition. Some noblemen imagined that the Bank was intended to exalt the moneyed interest and debase the landed interest; and others imagined the bill was intended to enrich usurers, who would prefer banking their money to lending it on mortgage. "Something was said," says Macaulay, "about the danger of setting up a gigantic corporation, which might soon give laws to the King and the three estates of the realm." Eventually the Lords, afraid to leave the King without money, passed the bill. During several generations the Bank of England was emphatically a Whig body. The Stuarts would at once have repudiated the debt, and the Bank of England, knowing that their return implied ruin, remained loyal to William, Anne, and George. "It is hardly too much to say," writes Macaulay, "that during many years the weight of the Bank, which was constantly in the scale of the Whigs, almost counterbalanced the weight of the Church, which was as constantly in the scale of the Tories." "Seventeen years after the passing of the Tonnage Bill," says the same eminent writer, to show the reliance of the Whigs on the Bank of England, "Addison, in one of his most ingenious and graceful little allegories, described the situation of the great company through which the immense wealth of London was constantly circulating. He saw Public Credit on her throne in Grocers' Hall, the Great Charter over her head, the Act of Settlement full in her view. Her touch turned everything to gold. Behind her seat bags filled with coin were piled up to the ceiling. On her right and on her left the floor was hidden by pyramids of guineas. On a sudden the door flies open, the Pretender rushes in, a sponge in one hand, in the other a sword, which he shakes at the Act of Settlement. The beautiful Queen sinks down fainting; the spell by which she has turned all things around her into treasure is broken; the money-bags shrink like pricked bladders; the piles of gold pieces are turned into bundles of rags, or fagots of wooden tallies."

In 1696 (very soon after its birth) the Bank experienced a crisis. There was a want of money in England. The clipped silver had been called in, and the new money was not ready. Even rich people were living on credit, and issued promissory notes. The stock of the Bank of England had gone rapidly down from 110 to 83. The goldsmiths, who detested the corporation that had broken in on their system of private banking, now tried to destroy the new company. They plotted, and on the same day they crowded to Grocers' Hall, where the Bank was located from 1694 to 1734, and insisted on immediate payment--one goldsmith alone demanding £30,000. The directors paid all their honest creditors, but refused to cash the goldsmiths' notes, and left them their remedy in Westminster Hall. The goldsmiths triumphed in scurrilous pasquinades entitled, "The Last Will and Testament," "The Epitaph," "The Inquest on the Bank of England." The directors, finding it impossible to procure silver enough to pay every claim, had recourse to an expedient. They made a call of 20 per cent. on the proprietors, and thus raised a sum enabling them to pay every applicant 15 per cent. in milled money on what was due to him, and they returned him his note, after making a minute upon it that part had been paid. A few notes thus marked, says Macaulay, are still preserved among the archives of the Bank, as memorials of that terrible year. The alternations were frightful. The discount, at one time 6 per cent., was presently 24. A £10 note, taken for more than £9 in the morning, was before night worth less than £8.

Paterson attributes this danger of the Bank to bad and partial payments, the giving and allowing exorbitant interest, high premiums and discounts, contracting dear and bad bargains; the general debasing and corrupting of coin, and such like, by which means things were brought to such a pass that even 8 per cent. interest on the land-tax, although payable within the year, would not answer. Guineas, he says, on a sudden rose to 30s. per piece, or more; all currency of other money was stopped, hardly any had wherewith to pay; public securities sank to about a moiety of their original values, and buyers were hard to be found even at those prices. No man knew what he was worth; the course of trade and correspondence almost universally stopped; the poorer sort of people were plunged into irrepressible distress, and as it were left perishing, whilst even the richer had hardly wherewith to go to market for obtaining the common conveniences of life.

The King, in Flanders, was in great want of money. The Land Bank could not do much. The Bank, at last, generously offered to advance £200,000 in gold and silver to meet the King's necessities. Sir Isaac Newton, the new Master of the Mint, hastened on the re-coinage. Several of the ministers, immediately after the Bank meeting (over which Sir John Houblon presided), purchased stock, as a proof of their gratitude to the body which had rendered so great a service to the State.

The diminution of the old hammered money continued to increase, and public credit began to be put to a stand. The opposers of Paterson wished to alter the denomination of the money, so that 9d. of silver should pass for 1s., but at last agreed to let sterling silver pass at 5s. 2d. an ounce, being the equivalent of the milled money. The loss of the re-coinage to the nation was about £3,000,000. Paterson, who was one of the first Directors of the Bank of England, upon a qualification of £2,000 stock, disagreed with his colleagues on the question of the Bank's legitimate operations, and sold out in 1695. In 1701, Paterson says, after the peace of Ryswick, he had an audience of King William, and drew his attention to the importance of three great measures--the union with Scotland, the seizing the principal Spanish ports in the West Indies, and the holding a commission of inquiry into the conduct of those who had mismanaged the King's affairs during his absence in Flanders. Paterson died in 1719, on the eve of the fatal South Sea Bubble.

When the notes of the Bank were at 20 per cent. discount, the Government (says Francis) empowered the corporation to add £1,001,171 10s. to their original stock, and public faith was restored by four-fifths of the subscriptions being received in tallies and orders, and one-fifth in bank-notes at their full value, although both were at a heavy discount in the market.

The past services of the Bank were not forgotten. The Ministry resolved that it should be enlarged by new subscriptions; that provision should be made for paying the principal of the tallies subscribed in the Bank; that 8 per cent. should be allowed on all such tallies, to meet which a duty on salt was imposed; that the charter should be prolonged to August, 1710; that before the beginning of the new subscriptions the old capital should be made up to each member 100 per cent.; and what might exceed that value should be divided among the new members; that the Bank might circulate additional notes to the amount subscribed, provided they were payable on demand, and in default they were to be paid by the Exchequer out of the first money due to the Bank; that no other bank should be allowed by Act of Parliament during the continuance of the Bank of England; that it should be exempt from all tax or imposition; and that no contract made for any Bank stock to be bought or sold should be valid unless registered in the Bank books, and transferred within fourteen days. It was also enacted that not above two-thirds of the directors should be re-elected in the succeeding year. These vigorous measures were thoroughly successful.

The charter was at the same time extended to 1710, and not even then to be withdrawn, unless Government paid the full debt. Forgery of the Company's seal, notes, or bills was made felony without benefit of clergy. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, one of the Bank Directors, gained £60,000 by this scheme. The Bank is said to have offered the King at this time the loan of a million without interest for twenty-one years, if the Government would extend the charter for that time. Bank stock, given to the proprietors in exchange for tallies at 50 per cent. discount, rose to 112. The Bank had lowered the interest of money. As early as 1697 it had proposed to have branch Banks in every city and market town of England.

In 1700-1704, the conquests of Louis XIV. alarmed England, and shook the credit of the Bank. In the latter year the Bank Directors were once more obliged to issue sealed bills bearing interest for a large sum, in order to keep up their credit. In 1707 the fears of an invasion threatened by the Pretender brought down stocks 14 or 15 per cent. The goldsmiths then gathered up Bank bills, and tried to press the Directors. Hoare and Child both joined in the attack, and the latter pretended to refuse the bills of the Bank. The loyal Whigs, however, instead of withdrawing their deposits, helped it with all their available cash. The Dukes of Marlborough, Newcastle, and Somerset, with others of the nobility, hurried to the Bank with their coaches brimming with heavy bags of long hoarded guineas. A private individual, who had but £500, carried it to the Bank; and on the story being told to the Queen, she sent him £100, with an obligation on the Treasury to repay the whole £500. Lord Godolphin, seeing the crisis, astutely persuaded Queen Anne to allow the Bank for six months an interest of 6 per cent. on their sealed bills. This, and a call of 20 per cent. on the proprietors, saved the credit of the Bank.

In 1708 the charter was extended to 1732. This concession was again vehemently opposed by the enemies of the Bank. Nathaniel Tench, who wrote a reply for the directors, proved that the Bank had never bought land, or monopolised any other commodity, and had, on the contrary, increased and encouraged trade. He asserted that they had never influenced an elector, and had been the chief cause of lowering the interest of money, even in war time. The Government wishing to circulate Exchequer bills, the Bank raised their capital by new subscriptions to £5,000,000. The new subscriptions were raised in a few hours, and nearly one million more could have been obtained on the same day.

During the absurd Tory riots of 1709 the Bank was in considerable danger. A vain, mischievous High Church clergyman named Sacheverell had been foolishly prosecuted for attacking the Whig Government, and calling the Lord Treasurer Godolphin "Volpone" (a character in a celebrated play written by Ben Jonson). A guard of butchers escorted the firebrand to his trial at Westminster Hall, at which Queen Anne was present. Riots then broke out, and the High Church mob sacked several Dissenting chapels, burning the pews and pulpits in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Holborn, and elsewhere, and even threatened to use a Dissenting preacher as a holocaust. The rioters at last threatened the Bank. The Queen at once sent her guards, horse and foot, to the City, and left herself unprotected. "Am I to preach or fight?" was the first question of Captain Horsey, who led the cavalry. But the question needed no answer, for the rioters at once dispersed.

In 1713 the Bank charter was renewed until 1742. The great catastrophe of the South Sea Bubble in 1720, which we shall sketch fully in another chapter, did not injure the Bank. The directors generously tried to save the fallen company, but (as might have been expected) utterly failed. With prudence, perhaps, gained from this national cataclysm, the Bank, in 1722, commenced keeping a reserve--the "rest"--that rock on which unshakable credit has ever since been proudly built. In 1728 no notes were issued by the Bank for less than £20, and as part of the note only was printed the clerk's pen supplied the remainder.

In 1742, when the charter was renewed till 1762, the loan of £1,600,000, without interest, was required by the Government for the favour. By the act of renewal forging bank-notes, &c., was declared punishable with death.

The Bank was at this time a small and modest building, surrounded by houses, and almost invisible to passers by. There was a church called Christopher le Stocks, afterwards pulled down for fear it should ever be occupied by rioters, and three taverns, too, on the south side, in Bartholomew Lane, just where the chief entrance now is, and about fifteen or twenty private buildings. A few years later visitors used to be shown in the bullion office the original bank chest, no larger than a seamen's, and the original shelves and cases for the books of business, to show the extraordinary rapidity with which the institution had struck root and borne fruit.

In 1746, the capital on which the Bank stock proprietors divided amounted to £10,780,000. It had been more than octupled in little more than half a century. The year 1752 is remarkable as that in which the foundation of the present "Three per Cent. Consols" was laid. "The stock," says Francis, "was thus termed from the balance of some annuities granted by George I. being consolidated into one fund with a Three per Cent. stock formed in 1731."

In 1759 bank-notes of a smaller value than £20 were first circulated. In 1764 the Bank charter was renewed on a gift of £110,000, and an advance of one million for Exchequer bills for two years, at 3 per cent. interest. It was at the same time made felony without benefit of clergy to forge powers of attorney for receiving dividends, transferring or selling stock. The Government, which had won twelve millions before the Seven Years' War, annihilated the navy of France, and wrested India from the French sway, was glad to recruit its treasury by so profitable a bargain with the Bank. In 1773 an Act was passed making it punishable with death to copy the water-mark of the bank-note paper. By an Act of 1775 notes of a less amount than twenty shillings were prohibited, and two years afterwards the amount was limited to £5.

During the formidable riots of 1780 the Bank was in considerable danger. In one night there rose the flames of six-and-thirty fires. The Catholic chapels and the tallow-chandlers' shops were universally destroyed; Newgate was sacked and burned. The mob, half thieves, at last decided to march upon the Bank, but precautions had been taken there. The courts and roof of the building were defended by armed clerks and volunteers, and there were soldiers ready outside. The old pewter inkstands had been melted into bullets. The rioters made two rushes; the first was checked by a volley from the soldiers; at the second, which was less violent, Wilkes rushed out, and with his own hand dragged in some of the ringleaders. Leaving several killed and many wounded, the discomfited mob at last retired.

In 1781, the Bank charter having nearly expired, Lord North proposed a renewal for twenty-five years, the terms being a loan of two millions for three years, at 3 per cent., to pay off the navy debt. In 1783 the notes and bills of the Bank were exempted from the operation of the Stamp Act, on consideration of an annual payment of £12,000. The Government allowance of £562 10s. per million for managing the National Debt was reduced at this time to £450. Five years later our debt was calculated at 242 millions, which, taken in £10 notes, would weigh, it was curiously calculated, 47,265 lbs.

It was about 1784 that the first attempts at forgery on a tremendous scale were discovered by the Bank. A rogue of genius, generally known, from his favourite disguise, as "Old Patch," by a long series of forgeries secured a sum of more than £200,000. He was the son of an old clothes' man in Monmouth Street; and had been a lottery-office keeper, stockbroker, and gambler. At one time he was a partner with Foote, the celebrated comedian, in a brewery. He made his own ink, manufactured his own paper, and with a private press worked off his own notes. His mistress was his only confidante. His disguises were numerous and perfect. His servants or boys, hired from the street, always presented the forged notes. When seized and thrown into prison, Old Patch hung himself in his cell.

During the wars with France Pitt was always soliciting the help of the Bank. In 1796, great alarm was felt at the diminution of gold, and Tom Paine wrote a pamphlet to prove that the Bank cellars could not hold more than a million of specie, while there were sixty millions of bank-notes in circulation. It was, however, proved that the specie amounted to about three millions, and the circulation to only nine or ten. Early in 1796, when the specie sank to £1,272,000, the Bank suspended cash payments, and notes under £5 were issued, and dollars prepared for circulation. The Bank Restriction Act was soon after passed, discontinuing cash payments till the conclusion of the war. For the renewal of the charter in 1800, the Bank proposed to lend three millions for six years, without interest, a right being reserved to them of claiming repayment at any time before the expiration of six years, if Consols should be at or above 80 per cent. In 1802, Mr. Addington said in the House of Commons that since 1797 the forgeries of bank-notes had so alarmingly increased as to require seventy additional clerks merely to detect them, and that every year no less than thirty or forty persons had been executed for forgery.

In 1807, the celebrated chief cashier of the Bank, Abraham Newland, the hero of Dibdin's well-known song--

"Sham Abraham you may, But you mustn't sham Abraham Newland,"

retired from his duties, obtained a pension, and the same year died. His property amounted to £200,000, besides £1,000 a year landed estate. He had made large sums by loans during the war, a certain amount of which were always reserved for the cashier's office. It is supposed the faithful old Bank servant had lent large sums to the Goldsmiths, the great stockbrokers, the contractors for many of these loans, as he left them £500 each to buy mourning-rings.

The Bullion Committee of 1809 was moved for by Mr. Horner to ascertain if the rise in the price of gold did not arise from the over-issue of notes. There was a growing feeling that bank-notes did not represent the specified amount of gold, and the committee recommended a speedy return to cash payments. In Parliament Mr. Fuller, that butt of the House, proposed if the guinea was really worth 24s., to raise it at once to that price. Guineas at this time were exported to France in large numbers by smugglers in boats made especially for the purpose. The Bank, which had before issued dollars, now circulated silver tokens for 5s. 6d., 3s., and 1s. 6d.

Peel's currency bill of 1819 secured a gradual return of cash payments, and the old metallic standard was restored. It was Peel's great principle that a national bank should always be prepared to pay specie for its notes on demand, a principle he afterwards worked out in the Bank Charter. The same year a new plan was devised to prevent bank-notes being forged. The Committee's report says:--"A number of squares will appear in chequer-work upon the note, filled with hair lines in elliptic curves of various degrees of eccentricity, the squares to be alternately of red and black lines; the perfect mathematical coincidence of the extremity of the lines of different colours on the sides of the squares will be effected by machinery of singular fidelity. But even with the use of this machinery a person who has not the key to the proper disposition would make millions of experiments to no purpose. Other obstacles to imitation will also be presented in the structure of the note; but this is the one principally relied upon. It is plain that any failure in the imitation will be made manifest to the observation of the most careless, and the most skilful merchants who have seen the operation declare that the note cannot be imitated. The remarkable machine works with three cylinders, and the impression is made by small convex cylindrical plates."

In 1821 the real re-commencement of specie payments took place. In 1822 Turner, a Bank clerk, stole £10,000 by altering the transfer book. The rascal, however, was too clever for the Bank, and escaped. In 1822 Mr. Pascoe Grenfell put the profits of the Bank at twenty-five millions, in twenty-five years, after seven per cent. was divided.

By Fauntleroy's (the banker) forgeries in 1824, the Bank lost £360,000, and the interest alone, which was regularly paid, had amounted to £9,000 or £10,000 a year. Fauntleroy's bank was in Berners Street. He had forged powers of attorney to enable him to sell out stock. An epicure and a voluptuary, he had lived in extraordinary luxury. In a private desk was found a list of his forgeries, ending with these words: "The Bank first began to refuse our acceptances, thereby destroying the credit of our house. The Bank shall smart for it." After Fauntleroy was hung at Newgate there were obscure rumours in the City that he had been saved by a silver tube being placed in his throat, and that he had escaped to Paris.

Having given a summary of the history of the Bank of England, we now propose to select a series of anecdotes, arranged by dates, which will convey a fuller and more detailed notion of the romance and the vicissitudes of banking life.

The Bank was first established (says Francis) in Mercers' Hall, and afterwards in Grocers' Hall, since razed for the erection of a more stately structure. Here, in one room, with almost primitive simplicity, were gathered all who performed the duties of the establishment. "I looked into the great hall where the Bank is kept," says the graceful essayist of the day, "and was not a little pleased to see the directors, secretaries, and clerks, with all the other members of that wealthy corporation, ranged in their several stations according to the parts they hold in that just and regular economy."

Mr. Michael Godfrey, to whose exertions, with those of William Paterson, may be traced the successful establishment of the Bank, met with a somewhat singular fate, on the 17th of July, 1695. At that time the transmission of specie was difficult and full of hazard, and Mr. Godfrey left his peaceful avocations to visit Namur, then vigorously besieged by the English monarch. The deputy-governor, willing to flatter the King, anxious to forward his mission, or possibly imagining the vicinity of the Sovereign to be the safest place he could choose, ventured into the trenches. "As you are no adventurer in the trade of war, Mr. Godfrey," said William, "I think you should not expose yourself to the hazard of it." "Not being more exposed than your Majesty," was the courtly reply, "should I be excusable if I showed more concern?" "Yes," returned William; "I am in my duty, and therefore have a more reasonable claim to preservation." A cannon-ball at this moment answered the "reasonable claim to preservation" by killing Mr. Godfrey; and it requires no great stretch of imagination to fancy a saturnine smile passing over the countenance of the monarch, as he beheld the fate of the citizen who paid so heavy a penalty for playing the courtier in the trenches of Namur.

On the 31st of August, 1731, a scene was presented which strongly marks the infatuation and ignorance of lottery adventurers. The tickets for the State lottery were delivered out to the subscribers at the Bank of England; when the crowd becoming so great as to obstruct the clerks, they told them, "We deliver blanks to-day, but to-morrow we shall deliver the prizes;" upon which many, who were by no means for blanks, retired, and by this bold stratagem the clerks obtained room to proceed in their business. In this lottery, we read, "Her Majesty presented his Royal Highness the Duke with ten tickets."

In 1738 the roads were so infested by highwaymen, and mails were so frequently stopped by the gentlemen in the black masks, that the post-master made a representation to the Bank upon the subject, and the directors in consequence advertised an issue of bills payable at "seven days' sight," that, in case of the mail being robbed, the proprietor of stolen bills might have time to give notice.

The effect of the arrival, in 1745, of Charles Edward at Derby, upon the National Bank, was alarming indeed. Its interests were involved in those of the State, and the creditors flocked in crowds to obtain payment for their notes. The directors, unprepared for such a casualty, had recourse to a justifiable stratagem; and it was only by this that they escaped bankruptcy. Payment was not refused, but the corporation retained its specie, by employing agents to enter with notes, who, to gain time, were paid in sixpences; and as those who came first were entitled to priority of payment, the agents went out at one door with the specie they had received, and brought it back by another, so that the bonâ-fide holders of notes could never get near enough to present them. "By this artifice," says our authority, somewhat quaintly, "the Bank preserved its credit, and literally faced its creditors."

An extraordinary affair happened about the year 1740. One of the directors, a very rich man, had occasion for £30,000, which he was to pay as the price of an estate he had just bought. To facilitate the matter, he carried the sum with him to the Bank, and obtained for it a bank-note. On his return home he was suddenly called out upon particular business; he threw the note carelessly on the chimney, but when he came back a few minutes afterwards to lock it up, it was not to be found. No one had entered the room; he could not, therefore, suspect any person. At last, after much ineffectual search, he was persuaded that it had fallen from the chimney into the fire. The director went to acquaint his colleagues with the misfortune that had happened to him; and as he was known to be a perfectly honourable man, he was readily believed. It was only about twenty-four hours from the time that he had deposited the money; they thought, therefore, that it would be hard to refuse his request for a second bill. He received it upon giving an obligation to restore the first bill, if it should ever be found, or to pay the money himself, if it should be presented by any stranger. About thirty years afterwards (the director having been long dead, and his heirs in possession of his fortune) an unknown person presented the lost bill at the Bank, and demanded payment. It was in vain that they mentioned to this person the transaction by which that bill was annulled; he would not listen to it. He maintained that it came to him from abroad, and insisted upon immediate payment. The note was payable to bearer, and the £30,000 were paid him. The heirs of the director would not listen to any demands of restitution, and the Bank was obliged to sustain the loss. It was discovered afterwards that an architect having purchased the director's house, and taken it down, in order to build another upon the same spot, had found the note in a crevice of the chimney, and made his discovery an engine for robbing the Bank.

In the early part of last century, the practice of bankers was to deliver in exchange for money deposited a receipt, which might be circulated like a modern cheque. Bank-notes were then at a discount; and the Bank of England, jealous of Childs' reputation, secretly collected the receipts of their rivals, determined, when they had procured a very large number, suddenly to demand money for them, hoping that Childs' would not be able to meet their liabilities. Fortunately for the latter, they got scent of this plot; and in great alarm applied to the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough, who gave them a single cheque of £700,000 on their opponents. Thus armed, Childs' waited the arrival of the enemy. It was arranged that this business should be transacted by one of the partners, and that a confidential clerk, on a given signal, should proceed with all speed to the Bank to get the cheque cashed. At last a clerk from the Bank of England appeared, with a full bag, and demanded money for a large number of receipts. The partner was called, who desired him to present them singly. The signal was given; the confidential clerk hurried on his mission; the partner was very deliberate in his movements, and long before he had taken an account of all the receipts, his emissary returned with £700,000; and the whole amount of £500,000 or £600,000 was paid by Childs' in Bank of England notes. In addition to the triumph of this manoeuvre, Childs' must have made a large sum, from Bank paper being at a considerable discount.

The day on which a forged note was first presented at the Bank of England forms a remarkable era in its history; and to Richard William Vaughan, a Stafford linendraper, belongs the melancholy celebrity of having led the van in this new phase of crime, in the year 1758. The records of his life do not show want, beggary, or starvation urging him, but a simple desire to seem greater than he was. By one of the artists employed--and there were several engaged on different parts of the notes--the discovery was made. The criminal had filled up to the number of twenty, and deposited them in the hands of a young lady, to whom he was attached, as a proof of his wealth. There is no calculating how much longer Bank notes might have been free from imitation, had this man not shown with what ease they might be counterfeited. (Francis.)

The circulation of £1 notes led to much forgery, and to a melancholy waste of human life. Considering the advances made in the mechanical arts, small notes were rough, and even rude in their execution. Easily imitated, they were also easily circulated, and from 1797 the executions for forgery augmented to an extent which bore no proportion to any other class of crime. During six years prior to their issue there was but one capital conviction; during the four following years eighty-five occurred. The great increase produced inquiry, which resulted in an Act "For the better prevention of the forgery of the notes and bills of exchange of persons carrying on the business of banker."

In the year 1758 a judgment was given by the Lord Chief Justice in connection with some notes which were stolen from one of the mails. The robber, after stopping the coach and taking out all the money contained in the letters, went boldly to a Mr. Miller, at the Hatfield post-office, who unhesitatingly exchanged one of them. Here he ordered a post-chaise, with four horses, and at several stages passed off the remainder. They were, however, stopped at the Bank, and an action was brought by the possessor to recover the money. The question was an important one, and it was decided by the law authorities, "that any person paying a valuable consideration for a Bank note, payable to bearer, in a fair course of business, has an undoubted right to recover the money of the Bank." The action was maintained upon the plea that the figure 11, denoting the date, had been converted by the robber to a 4.

A new crime was discovered in 1767. The notice of the clerks at the Bank had been attracted by the habit of William Guest, a teller, of picking new from old guineas without assigning any reason. An indefinite suspicion--increased by the knowledge that an ingot of gold had been seen in Guest's possession--arose, and although he asserted that it came from Holland, it was very unlike the regular bars of gold, and had a large quantity of copper at the back. Attention being thus drawn to the behaviour of Guest, he was observed to hand one Richard Still some guineas, which he took from a private drawer, and placed with the others on the table. Still was immediately followed, and on the examination of his money three of the guineas in his possession were deficient in weight. An inquiry was immediately instituted. Forty of the guineas in the charge of Guest looked fresher than the others upon the edges, and weighed much less than the legitimate amount. On searching his house some gold filings were found, with instruments calculated to produce artificial edges. Proofs soon multiplied, and the prisoner was found guilty. The instrument with which he had effected his fraud, of which one of the witnesses asserted it was the greatest improvement he had ever seen, is said to be yet in the Mint.

In 1772 an action interesting to the public was brought against the Bank. It appeared from the evidence that some stock stood in the joint names of a man and his wife; and by the rules of the corporation the signatures of both were required before it could be transferred. To this the husband objected, and claimed the right of selling without his wife's signature or consent. The Court of King's Bench decided in favour of the plaintiff, with full costs of suit, Lord Mansfield believing that "it was highly cruel and oppressive to withhold from the husband his right of transferring."

On the 10th of June, 1772, Neale and Co., bankers, in Threadneedle Street, stopped payment; other failures resulted in consequence, and throughout the City there was a general consternation. The timely interposition of the Bank, and the generous assistance of the merchants, prevented many of the expected stoppages, and trade appeared restored to its former security. It was, however, only an appearance; for on Monday, the 22nd of the same month, may be read, in a contemporary authority, a description of the prevailing agitation, which forcibly reminds us of a few years ago. "It is beyond the power of words to describe the general consternation of the metropolis at this instant. No event for fifty years has been remembered to give so fatal a blow to trade and public credit. A universal bankruptcy was expected; the stoppage of almost every banker's house in London was looked for; the whole city was in an uproar; many of the first families were in tears. This melancholy scene began with a rumour that one of the greatest bankers in London had stopped, which afterwards proved true. A report at the same time was propagated that an immediate stoppage of the greatest Bank of all must take place. Happily this proved groundless; the principal merchants assembled, and means were concocted to revive trade and preserve the national credit."

The desire of the directors to discover the makers of forged notes produced a considerable amount of anxiety to one whose name is indelibly associated with British art. George Morland--a name rarely mentioned but with feelings of pity and regret--had, in his eagerness to avoid incarceration for debt, retired to an obscure hiding-place in the suburbs of London. "On one occasion," says Allan Cunningham, "he hid himself in Hackney, where his anxious looks and secluded manner of life induced some of his charitable neighbours to believe him a maker of forged notes. The directors of the Bank dispatched two of their most dexterous emissaries to inquire, reconnoitre, search and seize. The men arrived, and began to draw lines of circumvallation round the painter's retreat. He was not, however, to be surprised: mistaking those agents of evil mien for bailiffs, he escaped from behind as they approached in front, fled into Hoxton, and never halted till he had hid himself in London. Nothing was found to justify suspicion; and when Mrs. Morland, who was his companion in this retreat, told them who her husband was, and showed them some unfinished pictures, they made such a report at the Bank, that the directors presented him with a couple of Bank notes of £20 each, by way of compensation for the alarm they had given him."

The proclamation of peace in 1783, says Francis, was indirectly an expense to the Bank, although hailed with enthusiasm by the populace. The war with America had assumed an aspect which, with all thinking men, crushed every hope of conquest. It was therefore amid a general shout of joy that on Monday, the 1st of October, 1783, the ceremonial took place. A vast multitude attended, and the people were delighted with the suspension of war. The concourse was so great that Temple Bar was opened with difficulty, and the Lord Mayor's coachman was kept one hour before he was able to turn his vehicle. The Bank only had reason to regret, or at least not to sympathise so freely with the public joy. During the hurry attendant on the proclamation at the Royal Exchange, when it may be supposed the sound of the music and the noise of the trumpet occupied the attention of the clerk more than was beneficial for the interests of his employers, fourteen notes of £50 each were presented at the office and cash paid for them. The next day they were found to be forged.

In 1783 Mathison's celebrated forgeries were committed. John Mathison was a man of great mechanical capacity, who, becoming acquainted with an engraver, unhappily acquired that art which ultimately proved his ruin. A yet more dangerous qualification was his of imitating signatures with remarkable accuracy. Tempted by the hope of sudden wealth, his first forgeries were the notes of the Darlington Bank. This fraud was soon discovered, and a reward being offered, with a description of his person, he escaped to Scotland. There, scorning to let his talents lie idle, he counterfeited the notes of the Royal Bank of Edinburgh, amused himself by negotiating them during a pleasure excursion through the country, and reached London, supported by his imitative talent. Here a fine sphere opened for his genius, which was so active, that in twelve days he had bought the copper, engraved it, fabricated notes, forged the water-mark, printed and negotiated several. When he had a sufficient number, he travelled from one end of the kingdom to the other, disposing of them. Having been in the habit of procuring notes from the Bank (the more accurately to copy them), he chanced to be there when a clerk from the Excise Office paid in 7,000 guineas, one of which was scrupled. Mathison, from a distance, said it was a good one; "then," said the Bank clerk, on the trial, "I recollected him." The frequent visits of Mathison, who was very incautious, together with other circumstances, created some suspicion that he might be connected with those notes, which, since his first appearance, had been presented at the Bank. On another occasion, when Mathison was there, a forged note of his own was presented, and the teller, half in jest and half in earnest, charged Maxwell, the name by which he was known, with some knowledge of the forgeries. Further suspicion was excited, and directions were given to detain him at some future period. The following day the teller was informed that "his friend Maxwell," as he was styled ironically, was in Cornhill. The clerk instantly went, and under pretence of having paid Mathison a guinea too much on a previous occasion, and of losing his situation if the mistake were not rectified in the books, induced him to return with him to the hall; from which place he was taken before the directors, and afterwards to Sir John Fielding. To all the inquiries he replied, "He had a reason for declining to answer. He was a citizen of the world, and knew not how he had come into it, or how he should go out of it." Being detained during a consultation with the Bank solicitor, he suddenly lifted up the sash and jumped out of the window. On being taken and asked his motive, if innocent, he said, "It was his humour."

In the progress of the inquiry, the Darlington paper, containing his description, was read to him, when he turned pale, burst into tears, and saying he was a dead man, added, "Now I will confess all." He was, indeed, found guilty only on his own acknowledgment, which stated he could accomplish the whole of a note in one day. It was asserted at the time, that, had it not been for his confession, he could not have been convicted. He offered to explain the secret of his discovery of the method of imitating the water-mark, on the condition that the corporation would spare his life; but his proposal was rejected, and he subsequently paid the full penalty of his crime.

The conviction that some check was necessary grew more and more peremptory as the evils of the system were exposed. In fourteen years from the first issue of small notes, the number of convictions had been centupled. In the first ten years of the present century, £101,061 were refused payment, on the plea of forgery. In the two years preceding the appointment of the commission directed by Government to inquire into the facts connected with forging notes, nearly £60,000 were presented, being an increase of 300 per cent. In 1797, the entire cost of prosecutions for forgeries was £1,500, and in the last three months of 1818 it was near £20,000. Sir Samuel Romilly said that "pardons were sometimes found necessary; but few were granted except under circumstances of peculiar qualification and mitigation. He believed the sense and feeling of the people of England were against the punishment of death for forgery. It was clear the severity of the punishment had not prevented the crimes."

The first instance of fraud, to a great amount, was perpetrated by one of the confidential servants of the corporation. In the year 1803, Mr. Bish, a member of the Stock Exchange, was applied to by Mr. Robert Astlett, cashier of the Bank of England, to dispose of some Exchequer bills. When they were delivered into Mr. Bish's hands, he was greatly astonished to find not only that these bills had been previously in his possession, but that they had been also delivered to the Bank. Surprised at this, he immediately opened a communication with the directors, which led to the discovery of the fraud and the apprehension of Robert Astlett. By the evidence produced on the trial, it appeared that the prisoner had been placed in charge of all the Exchequer bills brought into the Bank, and when a certain number were collected, it was his duty to arrange them in bundles, and deliver them to the directors in the parlour, where they were counted and a receipt given to the cashier. This practice had been strictly adhered to; but the prisoner, from his acquaintance with business, had induced the directors to believe that he had handed them bills to the amount of £700,000, when they were only in possession of £500,000. So completely had he deceived these gentlemen, that two of the body vouched by their signatures for the delivery of the larger amount.

He was tried for the felonious embezzlement of three bills of exchange of £1,000 each. He escaped hanging, but remained a miserable prisoner in Newgate for many years.

In 1808 Vincent Alessi, a native of one of the Italian States, went to Birmingham, to choose some manufactures likely to return a sufficient profit in Spain. Amongst others he sought a brass-founder, who showed him that which he required, and then drew his attention to "another article," which he said he could sell cheaper than any other person in the trade. Mr. Alessi declined purchasing this, as it appeared to be a forged bank-note; upon which he was shown some dollars, as fitter for the Spanish market. These also were declined, though it is not much to the credit of the Italian that he did not at once denounce the dishonesty of the Birmingham brass-founder. It would seem, however, from what followed, that Mr. Alessi was not quite unprepared, as, in the evening, he was called on by one John Nicholls, and after some conversation, he agreed to take a certain quantity of notes, of different values, which were to be paid for at the rate of six shillings in the pound.

Alessi thought this a very profitable business, while it lasted, as he could always procure as many as he liked, by writing for so many dozen candlesticks, calling them Nos. 5, 2, or 1, according to the amount of the note required. The vigilance of the English police, however, was too much even for the subtlety of an Italian; he was taken by them, and allowed to turn king's evidence, it being thought very desirable to discover the manufactory whence the notes emanated.

In December John Nicholls received a letter from Alessi, stating that he was going to America; that he wanted to see Nicholls in London; that he required twenty dozen candlesticks, No. 5; twenty-four dozen, No. 1; and four dozen, No. 2. Mr. Nicholls, unsuspicious of his correspondent's captivity, and consequent frailty, came forthwith to town, to fulfil so important an order. Here an interview was planned, within hearing of the police officers. Nicholls came with the forged notes. Alessi counted up the whole sum he was to pay, at six shillings in the pound, saying, "Well, Mr. Nicholls, you will take all my money from me." "Never mind, sir," was the reply; "it will all be returned in the way of business." Alessi then remarked that it was cold, and put on his hat. This was the signal for the officers. To the dealer's surprise and indignation, he found himself entrapped with the counterfeit notes in his possession, to the precise amount in number and value that had been ordered in the letter.

A curious scene took place in May, 1818, at the Bank. On the 26th of that month, a notice had been posted, stating that books would be opened on the 31st of May, and two following days, for receiving subscriptions to the amount of £7,000,000 from persons desirous of funding Exchequer bills. It was generally thought that the whole of the sum would be immediately subscribed, and great anxiety was shown to obtain an early admission to the office of the chief cashier. Ten o'clock is the usual time for public business; but at two in the morning many persons were assembled outside the building, where they remained for several hours, their numbers gradually augmenting. The opening of the outer door was the signal for a general rush, and the crowd, for it now deserved that name, next established themselves in the passage leading to the chief cashier's office, where they had to wait another hour or two, to cool their collective impatience. When the time arrived, a further contest arose, and they strove lustily for an entrance. The struggle for preference was tremendous; and the door separating them from the chief cashier's room, and which is of a most substantial size, was forced off its hinges. By far the greater part of those who made this effort failed, the whole £7,000,000 being subscribed by the first ten persons who gained admission.

In 1820 a very extraordinary appeal was made to the French tribunals by a man named J. Costel, who was a merchant of Hamburg, while the free city was in the hands of the French. He accused the general commanding there of employing him to get £5,000 worth of English bank-notes changed, which proved to be forged, and he was, in consequence of this discovery, obliged to fly from Hamburg. He also said that Savary, Duke of Rovigo, and Desnouettes, were the fabricators, and that they employed persons to pass them into England, one of whom was seized by the London police, and hanged. Mr. Doubleday asserts that some one had caused a large quantity of French assignats to be forged at Birmingham, with the view of depreciating the credit of the French Republic.

Merchants and bankers now began to declare that they would rather lose their entire fortunes than pour forth the life which it was not theirs to give. A general feeling pervaded the whole interest, that it would be better to peril a great wrong than to suffer an unavailing remorse. One petition against the penalty of death was presented, which bore three names only; but those were an honourable proof of the prevalent feeling. The name of Nathan Meyer Rothschild was the first, "through whose hands," said Mr. Smith, on presenting the petition, "more bills pass than through those of any twenty firms in London." The second was that of Overend, Gurney, and Co., through whom thirty millions passed the preceding year; and the third was that of Mr. Sanderson, ranking among the first in the same profession, and a member of the Legislature.

A principal clerk of one of our bankers having robbed his employer of Bank of England notes to the amount of £20,000, made his escape to Holland. Unable to present them himself, he sold them to a Jew. The price which he received does not appear; but there is no doubt that, under the circumstances, a good bargain was made by the purchaser. In the meantime every plan was exhausted to give publicity to the loss. The numbers of the notes were advertised in the newspapers, with a request that they might be refused, and for about six months no information was received of the lost property. At the end of that period the Jew appeared with the whole of his spoil, and demanded payment, which was at once refused on the plea that the bills had been stolen, and that payment had been stopped.

The owner insisted upon gold, and the Bank persisted in refusing. But the Jew was an energetic man, and was aware of the credit of the corporation. He was known to be possessed of immense wealth, and he went deliberately to the Exchange, where, to the assembled merchants of London, in the presence of her citizens, he related publicly that the Bank had refused to honour their own bills for £20,000; that their credit was gone, their affairs in confusion; and that they had stopped payment. The Exchange wore every appearance of alarm; the Hebrew showed the notes to corroborate his assertion. He declared that they had been remitted to him from Holland, and as his transactions were known to be extensive, there appeared every reason to credit his statement. He then avowed his intention of advertising this refusal of the Bank, and the citizens thought there must be some truth in his bold announcement. Information reached the directors, who grew anxious, and a messenger was sent to inform the holder that he might receive cash in exchange for his notes.

In 1843 the light sovereigns were called in. The total amount of light coin received from the 11th of June to the 28th of July was £4,285,837, and 2-3/4d. was the loss on each, taking an average of 35,000. The large sum of £1,400, in £1 notes, was paid into the Bank this year. They had probably been the hoard of some eccentric person, who evinced his attachment to the obsolete paper at the expense of his interest. A few years afterwards a £20 note came in which had been outstanding for about a century and a quarter, and the loss of interest on which amounted to some thousands.

And now a few anecdotes about bank-notes. An eccentric gentleman in Portland Street, says Mr. Grant, in his "Great Metropolis," framed and exhibited for five years in one of his sitting-rooms a Bank post bill for £30,000. The fifth year he died, and down came the picture double quick, and was cashed by his heirs. Some years ago, at a nobleman's house near the Park, a dispute arose about a certain text, and a dean present denying there was any such text at all, a Bible was called for. A dusty old Bible was produced, which had never been removed from its shelf since the nobleman's mother had died some years before. When it was opened a mark was found in it, which, on examination, turned out to be a Bank post bill for £40,000. It might, it strikes us, have been placed there as a reproof to the son, who perhaps did not consult his Bible as often as his mother could have wished. The author of "The American in England" describes, in 1835, one of the servants of the Bank putting into his hand Bank post bills, which, before being cancelled by having the signatures torn off, had represented the sum of five millions sterling. The whole made a parcel that could with ease be put into the waistcoat pocket.

The largest amount of a bank-note in current circulation in 1827 was £1,000. It is said that two notes for £100,000 each, and two for £50,000, were once engraved and issued. A butcher who had amassed an immense fortune in the war time, went one day with one of these £50,000 notes to a private bank, asking the loan of £5,000, and wishing to deposit the big note as security in the banker's hands, saying that he had kept it for years. The £5,000 were at once handed over, but the banker hinted at the same time to the butcher the folly of hoarding such a sum and losing the interest. "Werry true, sir," replied the butcher, "but I likes the look on't so wery well that I keeps t'other one of the same kind at home."

As the Bank of England pays an annual average sum of £70,000 to the Stamp Office for their notes, while other banks pay a certain sum on every note as stamped, the Bank of England never re-issues its notes, but destroys them on return. A visitor to the Bank was one day shown a heap of cinders, which was the ashes of £40,000,000 of notes recently burned. The letters could here and there be seen. It looked like a piece of laminated larva, and was about three inches long and two inches broad, weighing probably from ten to twelve ounces.

The losses of the Bank are considerable. In 1820 no fewer than 352 persons were convicted, at a great expense, of forging small notes. In 1832 the yearly losses of the Bank from forgeries on the public funds were upwards of £40,000.

It is said that in the large room of the Bank a quarter of a million sovereigns will sometimes change hands in the course of the day. The entire amount of money turned over on an average in the day has been estimated as low as £2,000,000, and as high as £2,500,000. At a rough guess, the number of persons who receive dividends on the first day of every half year exceeds 100,000, and the sum paid away has been estimated at £500,000.

The number of clerks in the Bank of England was computed, in 1837, at 900; the engravers and bank-note printers at thirty-eight. The salaries vary from £700 per annum to £75, and the amount paid to the servants of the entire establishment, about 1,000, upwards of £200,000. Some years ago the proprietors met four times a year. Three directors sat daily in the Bank parlour. On Wednesday a Court of Directors sat to decide on London applications for discount, and on Thursdays the whole court met to consider all notes exceeding £2,000. The directors, twenty-four, exclusive of the Governor and Deputy-Governor, decide by majority all matters of importance.

The Bank of England (says Dodsley's excellent and well-written "Guide to London," 1761) is a noble edifice situated at the east of St. Christopher's Church, near the west end of Threadneedle Street. The front next the street is about 80 feet in length, and is of the Ionic order, raised on a rustic basement, and is of a good style. Through this you pass into the courtyard, in which is the hall. This is one of the Corinthian order, and in the middle is a pediment. The top of the building is adorned with a balustrade and handsome vases, and in the face of the above pediment is engraved in relievo the Company's seal, Britannia sitting with her shield and spear, and at her feet a cornucopia pouring out fruit. The hall, which is in this last building, is 79 feet in length and 40 in breadth; it is wainscoted about 8 feet high, has a fine fretwork ceiling, and is adorned with a statue of King William III., which stands in a niche at the upper end, on the pedestal of which is the following inscription in Latin--in English, thus:--

"For restoring efficiency to the Laws, Authority to the Courts of Justice, Dignity to the Parliament, To all his subjects their Religion and Liberties, And confirming them to Posterity, By the succession of the Illustrious House of Hanover To the British Throne: To the best of Princes, William the Third. Founder of the Bank, This Corporation, from a sense of Gratitude, Has erected this Statue, And dedicated it to his memory, In the Year of our Lord MDCCXXXIV., And the first year of this Building."

Further backward is another quadrangle, with an arcade on the east and west sides of it; and on the north side is the accountant's office, which is 60 feet long and 28 feet broad. Over this, and the other sides of the quadrangle, are handsome apartments, with a fine staircase adorned with fretwork; and under are large vaults, that have strong walls and iron gates, for the preservation of the cash. The back entrance from Bartholomew Lane is by a grand gateway, which opens into a commodious and spacious courtyard for coaches or wagons, that frequently come loaded with gold and silver bullion; and in the room fronting the gate the transfer-office is kept.

The entablature rests on fluted Corinthian columns, supporting statues, which indicate the four quarters of the globe. The intercolumniations are ornamented by allegories representing the Thames and the Ganges, executed by Thomas Banks, Academician, the roses on the vaulting of the arch being copied from the Temple of Mars the Avenger, at Rome.

On the death of Sir John Soane, in 1837, Mr. Cockerell was chosen to succeed him in his important position. The style of this gentleman, in the office he designed for the payment of dividend warrants, now employed as the private drawing-office, is very different to the erections of his predecessor. The taste which produced the elaborate and exquisite ornaments in this room is in strong contrast to the severe simplicity of the works of Sir John Soane.

Stow, speaking of St. Christopher's, the old church removed when the Bank was built, says, "Towards the Stokes Market is the parish church of St. Christopher, but re-edified of new; for Richard Shore, one of the sheriffes, 1506, gave money towards the building of the steeple."

Richard at Lane was collated to this living in the year 1368. "Having seen and observed the said parish church of St. Christopher, with all the gravestones and monuments therein, and finding a faire tombe of touch, wherein lyeth the body of Robert Thorne, Merchant Taylor and a batchelor, buried, having given by his testament in charity 4,445 pounds to pious uses; then looking for some such memory, as might adorne and beautifie the name of another famous batchelor, Mr. John Kendricke; and found none, but only his hatchments and banners." Many of the Houblons were buried in this church.

"The court-room of the Bank," says Francis, "is a noble apartment, by Sir Robert Taylor, of the Composite order, about 60 feet long and 31 feet 6 inches wide, with large Venetian windows on the south, overlooking that which was formerly the churchyard of St. Christopher. The north side is remarkable for three exquisite chimney-pieces of statuary marble, the centre being the most magnificent. The east and west are distinguished by columns detached from the walls, supporting beautiful arches, which again support a ceiling rich with ornament. The west leads by folding doors to an elegant octagonal committee-room, with a fine marble chimney-piece. The Governor's room is square, with various paintings, one of which is a portrait of William III. in armour, an intersected ceiling, and semi-circular windows. This chimney-piece is also of statuary marble; and on the wall is a fine painting, by Marlow, of the Bank, Bank Buildings, Cornhill, and Royal Exchange. An ante-room contains portraits of Mr. Abraham Newland and another of the old cashiers, taken as a testimony of the appreciation of the directors. In the waiting-room are two busts, by Nollekens, of Charles James Fox and William Pitt. The original Rotunda, by Sir Robert Taylor, was roofed in with timber; but when a survey was made, in 1794, it was found advisable to take it down; and in the ensuing year the present Rotunda was built, under the superintendence of Sir John Soane. It measures 57 feet in diameter and about the same in height to the lower part of the lantern. It is formed of incombustible materials, as are all the offices erected under the care of Sir John Soane. For many years this place was a scene of constant confusion, caused by the presence of the stockbrokers and jobbers. In 1838 this annoyance was abolished, the occupants were ejected from the Rotunda, and the space employed in cashing the dividend-warrants of the fundholders. The offices appropriated to the management of the various stocks are all close to or branch out from the Rotunda. The dividends are paid in two rooms devoted to that purpose, and the transfers are kept separate. They are arranged in books, under the various letters of the alphabet, containing the names of the proprietors and the particulars of their property. Some of the stock-offices were originally constructed by Sir Robert Taylor, but it has been found necessary to make great alterations, and most of them are designed from some classical model; thus the Three per Cent. Consol office, which, however, was built by Sir John Soane, is taken from the ancient Roman baths, and is 89 feet 9 inches in length and 50 feet in breadth. The chief cashier's office, an elegant and spacious apartment, is built after the style of the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Rome, and measures 45 feet by 30.

"The fine court which leads into Lothbury presents a magnificent display of Greek and Roman architecture. The buildings on the east and west sides are nearly hidden by open screens of stone, consisting of a lofty entablature, surmounted by vases, and resting on columns of the Corinthian order, the bases of which rest on a double flight of steps. This part of the edifice was copied from the beautiful temple of the Sybils, near Tivoli. A noble arch, after the model of the triumphal arch of Constantine, at Rome, forms the entrance into the bullion yard."

The old Clearing House of 1821 is thus described:--"In a large room is a table, with as numerous drawers as there are City bankers, with the name of each banker on his drawer, having an aperture to introduce the cheque upon him, whereof he retains the key.

"A clerk going with a charge of £99,000, perhaps, upon all the other bankers, puts the cheques through their respective apertures into their drawers at three o'clock. He returns at four, unlocks his own drawer, and finds the others have collectively put into his drawer drafts upon him to the amount, say, of £100,000; consequently he has £1,000, the difference, to pay. He searches for another, who has a larger balance to receive, and gives him a memorandum for this £1,000; he, for another; so that it settles with two, who frequently, with a very few thousands in bank-notes, settle millions bought and sold daily in London, without the immense repetition of receipts and payments that would otherwise ensue, or the immense increase of circulating medium that would be otherwise necessary."

The illustration on page 475 represents the appearance of the present Clearing House. The business done at this establishment daily is enormous, amounting to something like £150,000,000 each day.

"All the sovereigns," says Mr. Wills, "returned from the banking-houses are consigned to a secluded cellar; and, when you enter it, you will possibly fancy yourself on the premises of a clockmaker who works by steam. Your attention is speedily concentrated on a small brass box, not larger than an eight-day pendule, the works of which are impelled by steam. This is a self-acting weighing machine, which, with unerring precision, tells which sovereigns are of standard weight, and which are light, and of its own accord separates the one from the other. Imagine a long trough or spout--half a tube that has been split into two sections--of such a semi-circumference as holds sovereigns edgeways, and of sufficient length to allow of two hundred of them to rest in that position one against another. The trough thus charged is fixed slopingly upon the machine, over a little table, as big as the plate of an ordinary sovereign-balance. The coin nearest to the Lilliputian platform drops upon it, being pushed forward by the weight of those behind. Its own weight presses the table down; but how far down? Upon that hangs the whole merit and discriminating power of the machine. At the back and on each side of this small table, two little hammers move by steam backwards and forwards at different elevations. If the sovereign be full weight, down sinks the table too low for the higher hammer to hit it, but the lower one strikes the edge, and off the sovereign tumbles into a receiver to the left. The table pops up again, receiving, perhaps, a light sovereign, and the higher hammer, having always first strike, knocks it into a receiver to the right, time enough to escape its colleague, which, when it comes forward, has nothing to hit, and returns, to allow the table to be elevated again. In this way the reputation of thirty-three sovereigns is established or destroyed every minute. The light weights are taken to a clipping machine, slit at the rate of two hundred a minute, weighed in a lump, the balance of deficiency charged to the banker from whom they were received, and sent to the Mint to be re-coined. Those which have passed muster are re-issued to the public. The inventor of this beautiful little detector was Mr. Cotton, a former Governor. The comparatively few sovereigns brought in by the general public are weighed in ordinary scales by the tellers."

The Bank water-mark--or, more properly, the wire-mark--is obtained by twisting wires to the desired form or design, and sticking them on the face of the mould; therefore the design is above the level face of the mould by the thickness of the wires it is composed of. Hence the pulp, in settling down on the mould, must of necessity be thinner on the wire design than on the other parts of the sheet. When the water has run off through the sieve-like face of the mould, the new-born sheet of paper is "couched," the mould gently but firmly pressed upon a blanket, to which the spongy sheet clings. Sizing is a subsequent process, and, when dry, the water-mark is plainly discernible, being, of course, transparent where the substance is thinnest. The paper is then dried, and made up into reams of 500 sheets each, ready for press. The water-mark in the notes of the Bank of England is secured to that establishment by virtue of a special Act of Parliament. It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader that imitation of anything whatever connected with a bank-note is an extremely unsafe experiment.

This curious sort of paper is unique. There is nothing like it in the world of sheets. Tested by the touch, it gives out a crisp, crackling, sharp music, which resounds from no other quires. To the eye it shows a colour belonging neither to blue-wove, nor yellow-wove, nor cream-laid, but a white, like no other white, either in paper and pulp. The three rough fringy edges are called the "deckelled" edges, being the natural boundary of the pulp when first moulded; the fourth is left smooth by the knife, which eventually cuts the two notes in twain. This paper is so thin that, when printed, there is much difficulty in making erasures; yet it is so strong, that "a water-leaf" (a leaf before the application of size) will support thirty-six pounds, and, with the addition of one grain of size, will hold half a hundredweight, without tearing. Yet the quantity of fibre of which it consists is no more than eighteen grains and a half.

Dividend day at the Bank has been admirably described, in the wittiest manner, by a modern essayist in Household Words:--"Another public creditor," says the writer, "appears in the shape of a drover, with a goad, who has run in to present his claim during his short visit from Essex. Near him are a lime-coloured labourer, from some wharf at Bankside, and a painter who has left his scaffolding in the neighbourhood during his dinner hour. Next come several widows--some florid, stout, and young; some lean, yellow, and careworn, followed by a gay-looking lady, in a showy dress, who may have obtained her share of the national debt in another way. An old man, attired in a stained, rusty, black suit, crawls in, supported by a long staff, like a weary pilgrim who has at last reached the golden Mecca. Those who are drawing money from the accumulation of their hard industry, or their patient self-denial, can be distinguished at a glance from those who are receiving the proceeds of unexpected and unearned legacies. The first have a faded, anxious, almost disappointed look, while the second are sprightly, laughing, and observant of their companions.

"Towards the hour of noon, on the first day of the quarterly payment, the crowd of national creditors becomes more dense, and is mixed up with substantial capitalists in high check neckties, double-breasted waistcoats, curly-rimmed hats, narrow trousers, and round-toed boots. Parties of thin, limp, damp-smelling women, come in with mouldy umbrellas and long, chimney-cowl-shaped bonnets, made of greasy black silk, or threadbare black velvet--the worn-out fashions of a past generation. Some go about their business in confidential pairs; some in company with a trusted maid-servant as fossilised as themselves; some under the guidance of eager, ancient-looking girl-children; while some stand alone in corners, suspicious of help or observation. One national creditor is unwilling, not only that the visitors shall know what amount her country owes her, but also what particular funds she holds as security. She stands carelessly in the centre of the Warrant Office, privately scanning the letters and figures nailed all round the walls, which direct the applicant at what desk to apply; her long tunnel of a bonnet, while it conceals her face, moves with the guarded action of her head, like the tube of a telescope when the astronomer is searching for a lost planet. Some of these timid female creditors, when their little claim has been satisfied (for £1,000 in the Consols only produces £7 10s. a quarter), retire to an archway in the Rotunda, where there are two high-backed leathern chairs, behind the shelter of which, with a needle and thread, they stitch the money into some secret part of their antiquated garments. The two private detective officers on duty generally watch these careful proceedings with amusement and interest, and are looked upon by the old fundholders and annuitants as highly dangerous and suspicious characters."

Among the curiosities shown to visitors are the Bank parlour, the counting-room, and the printing-room; the albums containing original £1,000 notes, signed by various illustrious persons; and the Bank-note library, now containing ninety million notes that have been cancelled during the last seven years. There is one note for a million sterling, and a note for £25 that had been out 111 years.

In the early part of the century, when "the Green Man," "the Lady in Black," and other oddities notorious for some peculiarity of dress, were well known in the City, the "White Lady of Threadneedle Street" was a daily visitor to the Bank of England. She was, it is said, the sister of a poor young clerk who had forged the signature to a transfer-warrant, and who was hung in 1809. She had been a needle-worker for an army contractor, and lived with her brother and an old aunt in Windmill Street, Finsbury. Her mind became affected at her brother's disgraceful death, and every day after, at noon, she used to cross the Rotunda to the pay-counter. Her one unvarying question was, "Is my brother, Mr. Frederick, here to-day?" The invariable answer was, "No, miss, not to-day." She seldom remained above five minutes, and her last words always were, "Give my love to him when he returns. I will call to-morrow."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XLI. THE STOCK EXCHANGE

The Kingdom of Change Alley--A William III. Reuter--Stock Exchange Tricks--Bulls and Bears--Thomas Guy, the Hospital Founder--Sir John Barnard, the "Great Commoner"--Sampson Gideon, the famous Jew Broker--Alexander Fordyce--A cruel Quaker Criticism--Stockbrokers and Longevity--The Stock Exchange in 1795--The Money Articles in the London Papers--The Case of Benjamin Walsh, M.P.--The De Berenger Conspiracy--Lord Cochrane unjustly accused--"Ticket Pocketing"--System of Business at the Stock Exchange--"Popgun John"--Nathan Rothschild--Secrecy of his Operations--Rothschild outdone by Stratagem--Grotesque Sketch of Rothschild--Abraham Goldsmid--Vicissitudes of the Stock Exchange--The Spanish Panic of 1835--The Railway Mania--Ricardo's Golden Rules--A Clerical Intruder in Capel Court--Amusements of Stockbrokers--Laws of the Stock Exchange--The Pigeon Express--The "Alley Man"--Purchase of Stock--Eminent Members of the Stock Exchange.

The Royal Exchange, in the reign of William III., being found vexatiously thronged, the money-dealers, in 1698, betook themselves to Change Alley, then an unappropriated area. A writer of the period says:--"The centre of jobbing is in the kingdom of 'Change Alley. You may go over its limits in about a minute and a half. Stepping out of Jonathan's into the Alley, you turn your face full south; moving on a few paces, and then turning to the east, you advance to Garraway's; from thence, going out at the other door, you go on, still east, into Birchin Lane; and then, halting at the Sword-blade Bank, you immediately face to the north, enter Cornhill, visit two or three petty provinces there on your way to the west; and thus, having boxed your compass, and sailed round the stock-jobbing globe, you turn into Jonathan's again."

Sir Henry Furnese, a Bank director, was the Reuter of those times. He paid for constant despatches from Holland, Flanders, France, and Germany. His early intelligence of every battle, and especially of the fall of Namur, swelled his profits amazingly. King William gave him a diamond ring as a reward for early information; yet he condescended to fabricate news, and his plans for influencing the funds were probably the types of similar modern tricks. If Furnese wished to buy, his brokers looked gloomy; and, the alarm spread, completed their bargains. In this manner prices were lowered four or five per cent. in a few hours. The Jew Medina, we are assured, granted Marlborough an annuity of £6,000 for permission to attend his campaigns, and amply repaid himself by the use of the early intelligence he obtained.

When, in 1715, says "Aleph," the Pretender landed in Scotland, after the dispersion of his forces, a carriage and six was seen in the road near Perth, apparently destined for London. Letters reached the metropolis announcing the capture of the discomfited Stuart; the funds rose, and a large profit was realised by the trick. Stock-jobbers must have been highly prosperous at that period, as a Quaker, named Quare, a watchmaker of celebrity, who had made a large fortune by money speculations, had for his guests at his daughter's wedding-feast the famous Duchess of Marlborough and the Princess of Wales, who attended with 300 quality visitors.

During the struggle between the old and new East India Companies, boroughs were sold openly in the Alley to their respective partisans; and in 1720 Parliamentary seats came to market there as commonly as lottery tickets. Towards the close of Anne's reign, a well-dressed horseman rode furiously down the Queen's Road, loudly proclaiming her Majesty's demise. The hoax answered, the funds falling with ominous alacrity; but it was observed, that while the Christian jobbers kept aloof, Sir Manasseh Lopez and the Hebrew brokers bought readily at the reduced rate.

The following extracts from Cibber's play of The Refusal; or, the Ladies' Philosophy, produced in 1720, show the antiquity of the terms "bull" and "bear." This comedy abounds in allusions to the doings in 'Change Alley, and one of the characters, Sir Gilbert Wrangle, is a South Sea director:--

Granger (to Witling, who has been boasting of his gain): And all this out of 'Change Alley?

Witling: Every shilling, sir; all out of stocks, puts, bulls, shams, bears and bubbles.

And again:--

There (in the Alley) you'll see a duke dangling after a director; here a peer and a 'prentice haggling for an eighth; there a Jew and a parson making up differences; there a young woman of quality buying bears of a Quaker; and there an old one selling refusals to a lieutenant of grenadiers.

The following is from an old paper, dated July 15th, 1773: "Yesterday the brokers and others at 'New Jonathan's' came to a resolution, that instead of its being called 'New Jonathan's,' it should be called 'The Stock Exchange,' which is to be wrote over the door. The brokers then collected sixpence each, and christened the House with punch."

One of the great stockbrokers of Queen Anne's reign was Thomas Guy, the founder of one of the noblest hospitals in the world, who died in 1724. He was the son of a lighterman, and for many years stood behind a counter and sold books. Acquiring a small amount of ready cash, he was tempted to employ it in Change Alley; it turned to excellent account, and soon led him to a far more profitable traffic in those tickets with which, from the time of Charles II., our seamen were remunerated. They were paid in paper, not readily convertible, and were forced to part with their wages at any discount which it pleased the money-lenders to fix. Guy made large purchases in these tickets at an immense reduction, and by such not very creditable means, with some windfalls during the South Sea agitation, he realised a fortune of £500,000. Half a million was then almost a fabulous sum, and it was constantly increasing, owing to his penurious habits. He died at the age of eighty-one, leaving by will £240,000 to the hospital which bears his name. His body lay in state at Mercers' Chapel, and was interred in the asylum he raised, where, ten years after his death, a statue was erected to his memory.

Sir John Barnard, a great opponent of stockbrokers, proposed, in 1737, to reduce the interest on the National Debt from four to three per cent., the public being at liberty to receive their principal in full if they preferred. This anticipation of a modern financial change was not adopted. At this period, £10,000,000 were held by foreigners in British funds. In 1750, the reduction from four to three per cent. interest on the funded debt was effected, and though much clamour followed, no reasonable ground for complaint was alleged, as the measure was very cautiously carried out. Sir John Barnard, the Peel of a bygone age, was commonly denominated the "great commoner." Of the stock-jobbers he always spoke with supreme contempt; in return, they hated him most cordially. On the money market it was not unusual to hear the merchants inquire, "What does Sir John say to this? What is Sir John's opinion?" He refused the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1746, and from the moment his statue was set up in Gresham's Exchange he would never enter the building, but carried on his monetary affairs outside. The Barnard blood still warms the veins of some of our wealthiest commercial magnates, since his son married the daughter of a capitalist, known in the City as "the great banker, Sir John Hankey."

Sampson Gideon, the famous Jew broker, died in 1762. Some of his shrewd sayings are preserved. Take a specimen: "Never grant a life annuity to an old woman; they wither, but they never die." If the proposed annuitant coughed, Gideon called out, "Ay, ay, you may cough, but it shan't save you six months' purchase!" In one of his dealings with Snow, a banker alluded to by Dean Swift, Snow lent Gideon £20,000. The "Forty-five" followed, and the banker forwarded a whining epistle to him speaking of stoppage, bankruptcy, and concluding the letter with a passionate request for his money. Gideon procured 21,000 bank-notes, rolled them round a phial of hartshorn, and thus mockingly repaid the loan. Gideon's fortune was made by the advance of the rebels towards London. Stocks fell awfully, but hastening to "Jonathan's," he bought all in the market, spending all his cash, and pledging his name for more. The Pretender retreated, and the sagacious Hebrew became a millionaire. Mr. Gideon had a sovereign contempt for fine clothes; an essayist of the day writes, "Neither Guy nor Gideon ever regarded dress." He educated his children in the Christian faith; "but," said he, "I'm too old to change." "Gideon is dead," says one of his biographers, "worth more than the whole land of Canaan. He has left the reversion of all his milk and honey--after his son and daughter, and their children--to the Duke of Devonshire, without insisting on his assuming his name, or being circumcised!" His views must have been liberal, for he left a legacy of £2,000 to the Sons of the Clergy, and of £1,000 to the London Hospital. He also gave £1,000 to the synagogue, on condition of having his remains interred in the Jewish burying-place.

In 1772, the occurrence of some Scotch failures led to a Change-Alley panic, and the downfall of Alexander Fordyce, who, for years, had been the most thriving jobber in London. He was a hosier in Aberdeen, but came to London to improve his fortunes. The money game was in his favour. He was soon able to purchase a large estate. He built a church at his private cost, and spent thousands in trying to obtain a seat in Parliament. Marrying a lady of title, on whom he made a liberal settlement, he bought several Scotch lairdships, endowed an hospital, and founded several charities. But the lease of his property was short. His speculations suddenly grew desperate; hopeless ruin ensued; and a great number of capitalists were involved in his fall. The consternation was extreme, nor can we wonder, since his bills, to the amount of £4,000,000, were in circulation. He earnestly sought, but in vain, for pecuniary aid. The Bank refused it, and when he applied for help to a wealthy Quaker, "Friend Fordyce," was the answer, "I have known many men ruined by two dice, but I will not be ruined by Four-dice."

In 1785, a stockbroker, named Atkinson, probably from the "North Countree," speculated enormously, but skilfully, we must suppose, for he realised a fortune of £500,000. His habits were eccentric. At a friend's dinner party he abruptly turned to a lady who occupied the next chair, saying, "If you, madam, will entrust me with £1,000 for three years, I will employ it advantageously." The speaker was well known, and his offer accepted; and at the end of the three years, to the very day, Atkinson called on the lady with £10,000, to which, by his adroit management, her deposit had increased.

In general (says "Aleph," in the City Press), a stock-jobber's pursuits tend to shorten life; violent excitement, and the constant alternation of hope and fear, wear out the brain, and soon lead to disease or death. Yet instances of great longevity occur in this class: John Rive, after many active years in the Alley, retired to the Continent, and died at the age of 118.

The author of "The Bank Mirror" (circa 1795) gives a graphic description of the Stock Exchange of that period. "The scene opens," he says, "about twelve, with the call of the prices of stock, the shouting out of names, the recital of news, &c., much in the following manner:--'A mail come in--What news? what news?--Steady, steady--Consols for to-morrow--Here, Consols!--You old Timber-toe, have you got any scrip?--Private advices from--A wicked old peer in disguise sold--What do you do?--Here, Consols! Consols!--Letters from--A great house has stopt--Payment of the Five per Cents commences--Across the Rhine--The Austrians routed--The French pursuing!--Four per Cents for the opening!--Four per Cents--Sir Sydney Smith exchanged for--Short Annuities--Shorts! Shorts! Shorts!--A messenger extraordinary sent to--Gibraltar fortifying against--A Spanish fleet seen in--Reduced Annuities for to-morrow--I'm a seller of--Lame ducks waddling--Under a cloud hanging over--The Cape of Good Hope retaken by--Lottery tickets!--Here, tickets! tickets! tickets!--The Archduke Charles of Austria fled into--India Stock!--Clear the way, there, Moses!--Reduced Annuities for money!--I'm a buyer--Reduced! Reduced! (Rattles spring.) What a d----d noise you make there with the rattles!--Five per Cents!--I'm a seller!--Five per Cents! Five per Cents!--The French in full march for--The Pope on his knees--following the direction of his native meekness into--Consols! Consols!--Smoke the old girl in silk shoes there! Madam, do you want a broker?--Four per Cents--The Dutch fleet skulked into--Short Annuities!--The French army retreating!--The Austrians pursuing!--Consols! Consols! Bravo!--Who's afraid?--Up they go! up they go!--'De Empress de Russia dead!'--You lie, Mordecai! I'll stuff your mouth with pork, you dog!--Long Annuities! Long Annuities! Knock that fellow's hat off, there!--He'll waddle, to-morrow--Here, Long Annuities! Short Annuities--Longs and Shorts!--The Prince of Condé fled!--Consols!--The French bombarding Frankfort!--Reduced Annuities--Down they go! down they go!--You, Levi, you're a thief, and I'm a gentleman--Step to Garraway's, and bid Isaacs come here--Bank Stock!--Consols!--Give me thy hand, Solomon!--Didst thou not hear the guns fire?--Noble news! great news!--Here, Consols! St. Lucia taken!--St. Vincent taken!--French fleets blocked up! English fleets triumphant! Bravo! Up we go! up, up, up!--Imperial Annuities! Imperial! Imperial!--Get out of my sunshine, Moses, you d--d little Israelite!--Consols! Consols! &c.' ... The noise of the screech-owl, the howling of the wolf, the barking of the mastiff, the grunting of the hog, the braying of the ass, the nocturnal wooing of the cat, the hissing of the snake, the croaking of toads, frogs, and grasshoppers--all these in unison could not be more hideous than the noise which these beings make in the Stock Exchange. And as several of them get into the Bank, the beadles are provided with rattles, which they occasionally spring, to drown their noise and give the fair purchaser or seller room and opportunity to transact their business; for that part of the Rotunda to which the avenue from Bartholomew Lane leads is often so crowded with them that people cannot enter."

About 1799, the shares of this old Stock Exchange having fallen into few hands, they boldly attempted, instead of a sixpenny diurnal admission to every person presenting himself at the bar, to make it a close subscription-room of ten guineas per annum for each member, and thereby to shut out all petty or irregular traffickers, to increase the revenues of this their monopolised market. A violent democracy revolted at this imposition and invasion of the rights, privileges, and immunities of a public market for the public stock. They proposed to raise 263 shares of £50 each, creating a fund of £13,150 wherewith to build a new, uninfluenced, unaristocraticised, free, open market. Those shares were never, as in the old conventicle, to condense into a few hands, for fear of a dread aristocracy returning. Mendoza's boxing-room, the debating-forum up Capel Court, and buildings contiguous with the freehold site, were purchased, and the foundation-stone was laid for this temple, to be, when completed, consecrated to free, open traffic.

In 1805 Ambrose Charles, a Bank clerk, publicly charged the Earl of Moira, a cabinet minister, with using official intelligence to aid him in speculating in the funds. The Premier was compelled to investigate the charge, but no truthful evidence could be adduced, and the falsehood of his allegations was made apparent.

Mark Sprat, a remarkable speculator, died in 1808. He came to London with small means, but getting an introduction to the Stock Exchange, was wonderfully successful. In 1799 he contracted for the Lottery; and in 1800 and the three following years he was foremost among those who contracted for the loans. During Lord Melville's trial, he was asked whether he did not act as banker for members of both houses. "I never do business with privileged persons!" was his reply, which might have referred to the following fact:--A broker came to Sprat in great distress. He had acted largely for a principal who, the prices going against him, refused to make up his losses. "Who was the scoundrel?" "A nobleman of immense property." Sprat volunteered to go with him to his dishonest debtor. The great man coolly answered, it was not convenient to pay. The broker declared that unless the account was settled by a fixed hour next day, his lordship would be posted as a defaulter. Long before the time appointed the matter was arranged, and Sprat's friend rescued from ruin.

The history of the money articles in the London papers is thus given by the author of "The City." In 1809 and 1810 (says the writer), the papers had commenced regularly to publish the prices of Consols and the other securities then in the market, but the list was merely furnished by a stockbroker, who was allowed, as a privilege for his services, to append his name and address, thereby receiving the advantages of an advertisement without having to pay for it. A further improvement was effected by inserting small paragraphs, giving an outline of events occurring in relation to City matters, but these occupied no acknowledged position, and only existed as ordinary intelligence. However, from 1810 up to 1817, considerable changes took place in the arrangements of the several daily journals; and a new era almost commenced in City life with the numerous companies started on the joint-stock principle at the more advanced period, and then it was that this department appears to have received serious attention from the heads of the leading journals.

The description of matter comprised in City articles has not been known in its present form more than fifty years. There seems a doubt whether they first originated with the Times or the Herald. Opinion is by some parties given in favour of the last-mentioned paper. Whichever establishment may be entitled to the praise for commencing so useful a compendium of City news, one thing appears very certain--viz., that no sooner was it adopted by the one paper, than the other followed closely in the line chalked out. The regular City article appears only to have had existence since 1824-25, when the first effect of that over-speculating period was felt in the insolvency of public companies, and the breakage of banks. Contributions of this description had been made and published, as already noticed, in separate paragraphs throughout the papers as early as 1811 and 1812; but these took no very prominent position till the more important period of the close of the war, and the declaration of peace with Europe.

In 1811, the case of Benjamin Walsh, M.P., a member of the Stock Exchange, occasioned a prodigious sensation. Sir Thomas Plomer employed him as his broker, and, buying an estate, found it necessary to sell stock. Walsh advised him not to sell directly, as the funds were rising; the deeds were not prepared, and the advice was accepted. Soon after, Walsh said the time to sell was come, for the funds would quickly fall. The money being realised, Walsh recommended the purchase of exchequer bills as a good investment. Till the cash was wanted, Sir Thomas gave a cheque for £22,000 to Walsh, who undertook to lodge the notes at Gosling's. In the evening he brought an acknowledgment for £6,000, promising to make up the amount next day. Sir Thomas called at his bankers, and found that a cheque for £16,000 had been sent, but too late for presentation, and in the morning the cheque was refused. In fact, Walsh had disposed of the whole; giving £1,000 to his broker, purchasing £11,000 of American stock, and buying £5,000 worth of Portuguese doubloons. He was tried and declared guilty; but certain legal difficulties were interposed; the judges gave a favourable decision; he was released from Newgate, and formally expelled from the House of Commons. Such crimes seem almost incredible, for such culprits can have no chance of escape; as, even when the verdict of a jury is favourable, their character and position must be absolutely and hopelessly lost.

In these comparatively steady-going times, the funds often remain for months with little or no variation; but during the last years of the French war, a difference of eight or even ten per cent. might happen in an hour, and scripholders might realise eighteen or twenty per cent. by the change in the loans they so eagerly sought. From what a fearful load of ever-increasing expenditure the nation was relieved by the peace resulting from the battle of Waterloo, may be judged from the fact that the decrease of Government charges was at once declared to exceed £2,000,000 per month.

One of the most extraordinary Stock Exchange conspiracies ever devised was that carried out by De Berenger and Cochrane Johnstone in 1814. It was a time when Bonaparte's military operations against the allies had depressed the funds, and great national anxiety prevailed. The conspiracy was dramatically carried out. On the 21st of February, 1824, about one a.m., a violent knocking was heard at the door of the "Ship Inn," then the principal hotel of Dover. On the door being opened, a person in richly embroidered scarlet uniform, wet with spray, announced himself as Lieutenant-Colonel De Bourg, aide-de-camp of Lord Cathcart. He had a star and silver medals on his breast, and wore a dark fur travelling cap, banded with gold. He said he had been brought over by a French vessel from Calais, the master of which, afraid of touching at Dover, had landed him about two miles off, along the coast. He was the bearer of important news--the allies had gained a great victory and had entered Paris. Bonaparte had been overtaken by a detachment of Sachen's Cossacks, who had slain and cut him into a thousand pieces. General Platoff had saved Paris from being reduced to ashes. The white cockade was worn everywhere, and an immediate peace was now certain. He immediately ordered out a post-chaise and four, but first wrote the news to Admiral Foley, the port-admiral at Deal. The letter reached the admiral about four a.m., but the morning proving foggy, the telegraph would not work. Off dashed De Bourg (really De Berenger, an adventurer, afterwards a livery-stable keeper), throwing napoleons to the post-boys every time he changed horses. At Bexley Heath, finding the telegraph could not have worked, he moderated his pace and spread the news of the Cossacks fighting for Napoleon's body. At the Marsh Gate, Lambeth, he entered a hackney coach, telling the post-boys to spread the news on their return. By a little after ten, the rumours reached the Stock Exchange, and the funds rose; but on its being found that the Lord Mayor had had no intelligence, they soon went down again.

In the meantime other artful confederates were at work. The same day, about an hour before daylight, two men, dressed as foreigners, landed from a six-oar galley, and called on a gentleman of Northfleet, and handed him a letter from an old friend, begging him to take the bearers to London, as they had great public news to communicate; they were accordingly taken. About twelve or one the same afternoon, three persons (two of whom were dressed as French officers) drove slowly over London Bridge in a post-chaise, the horses of which were bedecked with laurel. The officers scattered billets to the crowd, announcing the death of Napoleon and the fall of Paris. They then paraded through Cheapside and Fleet Street, passed over Blackfriars Bridge, drove rapidly to the Marsh Gate, Lambeth, got out, changed their cocked hats for round ones, and disappeared as De Bourg had done.

The funds once more rose, and long bargains were made; but still some doubt was felt by the less sanguine, as the ministers as yet denied all knowledge of the news. Hour after hour passed by, and the certainty of the falsity of the news gradually developed itself. "To these scenes of joy," says a witness, "and of greedy expectations of gain, succeeded, in a few hours, disappointment and shame at having been gulled, the clenching of fists, the grinding of teeth, the tearing of hair, all the outward and visible signs of those inward commotions of disappointed avarice in some, consciousness of ruin in others, and in all boiling revenge." A committee was appointed by the Stock Exchange to track out the conspiracy, as on the two days before Consols and Omnium, to the amount of £826,000, had been purchased by persons implicated. Because one of the gang had for a blind called on the celebrated Lord Cochrane, and because a relation of his engaged in the affair had purchased Consols for him, that he might unconsciously benefit by the fraud, the Tories, eager to destroy a bitter political enemy, concentrated all their rage on as high-minded, pure, and chivalrous a man as ever trod a frigate's deck. He was tried June 21, 1817, at the Court of Queen's Bench, fined £1,000, and sentenced ignominiously to stand one hour in the pillory. This latter part of his sentence the Government was, however, afraid to carry out, as Sir Francis Burdett had declared that if it was done, he would stand beside his friend on the scaffold of shame. To crown all, Cochrane's political enemies had him stripped of his knighthood, and the escutcheon of his order disgracefully kicked down the steps of the chapel in Westminster Abbey. For some years this true successor of Nelson remained a branded exile, devoting his courage to the cause of universal liberty, lost to the country which he loved so much. In his old age tardy justice restored to him his unsoiled coronet, and finally awarded him a grave among her heroes.

The ticket pocketing of 1821 is thus described by the author of "An Exposé of the Mysteries of the Stock Exchange:"--"Of all the tricks," he says, "practised against Goldschmidt, the ticket pocketing scheme was, perhaps, the most iniquitous: it was to prevent the buying in on a settling day the balance of the account, and to defeat the consequent rise, thereby making the real bear a fictitious bull account. To give the reader a conception of this, and of the practices as well as the interior of the Stock Exchange, the following attempted delineation is submitted:--The doors open before ten, and at the minute of ten the spirit-stirring rattle grates to action. Consols are, suppose, 69 to 69-1/8--that is, buyers at the lower and sellers at the higher price. Trifling manoeuvres and puffing up till twelve, as neither party wish the Government broker to buy under the highest price; the sinking-fund purchaser being the point of diurnal altitude, as the period before a loan is the annually depressed point of price, when the Stock Exchange have the orbit of these revolutions under their own control.

"At twelve the broker mounts the rostrum and opens: 'Gentlemen, I am a buyer of £60,000 Consols for Government, at 69.' 'At 1/8th, sir,' the jobbers resound; 'ten thousand of me--five of me--two of me,' holding up as many fingers. Nathan, Goldschmidt's agent, says, 'You may have them all of me at your own bidding, 69.' In ten minutes this commission is earned from the public, and this state sinking-fund joint stock jobbed. Nathan is hustled, his hat and wig thrown upon the commissioner's sounding-board, and he must stand bareheaded until the porter can bring a ladder to get it down. Out squalls a ticket-carrier, 'Done at 7/8;' again, 'At 3/4, all a-going;' and the contractors must go, too; they have served the commissioners at 69, when the market was full one-eighth. All must come to market before next omnium payment; they cannot keep it up (yet this operation might have suited the positions of the market). Nathan cries out, 'Where done at 3/4ths?' 'Here--there, there, there!' Mr. Doubleface, going out at the door, meets Mr. Ambush, a brother bear, with a wink, 'Sir, they are 3/4ths, I believe, sellers; you may have £2,000 thereat, and £10,000 at 5/8ths.' This is called fiddling: it is allowable to jobbers thus to bring the turn to 1/16th, or a 32nd, but not to brokers, as thereby the public would not be fleeced 1/8th, to the house benefit. 'Sir, I would not take them at 1/4th,' replies Mr. Ambush. 'Offered at 3/4ths and 5/8ths,' bawls out an urchin scout, holding up his face to the ceiling, that by the re-echo his spot may not be discovered."

The system of business at the Stock Exchange is thus described by an accomplished writer on the subject: "Bargains are made in the presence of a third person. The terms are simply entered in a pocket-book, but are checked the next day; and the jobber's clerk (also a member of the house) pays or receives the money, and sees that the securities are correct. There are but three or four dealers in Exchequer bills. Most members of the Stock Exchange keep their money in convertible securities, so that it can be changed from hand to hand almost at a moment's notice. The brokers execute the orders of bankers, merchants, and private individuals; and the jobbers are the persons with whom they deal. When the broker appears in the market, he is at once surrounded by eager jobbers. One of the cries of the Stock Exchange is, 'Borrow money? borrow money?'--a singular cry to general apprehension, but it of course implies that the credit of the borrower must be first-rate, or his security of the most satisfactory nature, and that it is not the principal who goes into the market, but only the principal's broker. 'Have you money to lend to-day?' is a startling question often asked with perfect nonchalance in the Stock Exchange. If the answer is 'Yes,' the borrower says, 'I want £10,000 or £20,000.'--'At what security?' is the vital question that soon follows.

"Another mode of doing business is to conceal the object of the borrower or lender, who asks, 'What are Exchequer?' The answer may be, 'Forty and forty-two.' That is, the party addressed will buy £1,000 at 40 shillings, and sell £1,000 at 42 shillings. The jobbers cluster round the broker, who perhaps says, 'I must have a price in £5,000.' If it suits them, they will say, 'Five with me,' 'Five with me,' 'Five with me,' making fifteen; or they will say, 'Ten with me;' and it is the broker's business to get these parties pledged to buy of him at 40, or to sell to him at 42, they not knowing whether he is a buyer or a seller. The broker then declares his purpose, saying, for example, 'Gentlemen, I sell to you £20,000 at 40;' and the sum is then apportioned among them. If the money were wanted only for a month, and the Exchequer market remained the same during the time, the buyer would have to give 42 in the market for what he sold at 40, being the difference between the buying and the selling price, besides which he would have to pay the broker 1s. per cent. commission on the sale, and 1s. per cent. on the purchase, again on the bills, which would make altogether 4s. per cent. If the object of the broker be to buy Consols, the jobber offers to buy his £10,000 at 96, or to sell him that amount at 96-1/8, without being at all aware which he is engaging himself to do. The same person may not know on any particular day whether he will be a borrower or a lender. If he has sold stock, and has not re-purchased about one or two o'clock in the day, he would be a lender of money; but if he has bought stock, and not sold, he would be a borrower. Immense sums are lent on condition of being recalled on the short notice of a few hours."

The uninitiated wonder that any man should borrow £10,000 or £20,000 for a day, or at most a fortnight, when it is liable to be called for at the shortest notice. The directors of a railway company, instead of locking up their money, send the £12,000 or £14,000 a week to a broker, to be lent on proper securities. Persons who pay large duties to Government at fixed periods, lend the sums for a week or two. A person intending to lay out his capital in mortgage or real property, lends out the sum till he meets with a suitable offer. The great bankers lend their surplus cash on the Stock Exchange. A jobber, at the close of the day, will lend his money at 1 per cent., rather than not employ it at all. The extraordinary fluctuations in the rate of interest even in a single day are a great temptation to the money-lender to resort to the Stock Exchange. "Instances have occurred," says our authority, "when in the morning everybody has been anxious to lend money at 4 per cent., when about two o'clock money has become so scarce that it could with difficulty be borrowed at 10 per cent. If the price of Consols be low, persons who are desirous of raising money will give a high rate of interest rather than sell stock."

The famous Pop-gun Plot was generally supposed to have been a Stock Exchange trick. A writer on stockbroking says: "The Pop-gun Plot, in Palace Yard, on a memorable occasion of the King going to the Parliament House, was never understood or traced home. It is said to have originated in a Stock Exchange hoax. 'Popgun John' was at the time a low republican in the Stock Exchange, and had a house in or near Palace Yard, from which a missile had been projected. He subsequently grew rich."

The journals of that day described the hot pursuit by the myrmidons being cooled by a well-got-up story that the fugitive suspected had been unfortunately drowned; and in proof, a hat picked up by a waterman at the Nore was brought wet to the police office, and proved to have belonged to the person pursued. The plotter disappeared after this "drowning" for some months, while the hush-money and sinister manoeuvres were baffling the pursuers. Afterwards, the affair dying away, he reappeared, resuscitated, in the Stock Exchange, making very little secret of this extraordinary affair, and would relate it in ordinary conversation on the Stock Exchange benches, as a philosophical experiment, not intended to endanger the king's life, but certainly planned to frighten the public, so as to effect a fall, and realise a profitable bear account; if sufficient to trip up the contractors, the better.

While the dupes of the Cato Street conspiracy were dangling before the "debtor's door," the surviving adept of the former plot, from his villa not ten miles from London, was mounting his carriage to drive to the Stock Exchange, to operate upon the effect this example might produce in the public mind, and, consequently, realising his now large portion of funded property.

"If there are any members now of that standing in the Stock Exchange, they must remember how artlessly the tale of this philosophical experiment used to be told by the contriver of it in a year or two afterwards, in reliance upon Stock Exchange men's honour and confidence.

In the year 1798, Nathan, the third son of Meyer Anselm Rothschild, of Frankfort, intimated to his father that he would go to England, and there commence business. The father knew the intrepidity of Nathan, and had great confidence in his financial skill: he interposed, therefore, no difficulties. The plan was proposed on Tuesday, and on Thursday it was put into execution.

Nathan was entrusted with £20,000, and though perfectly ignorant of the English language, he commenced a most gigantic career, so that in a brief period the above sum increased to the amount of £60,000. Manchester was his starting-point. He took a comprehensive survey of its products, and observed that by proper management a treble harvest might be reaped from them. He secured the three profitable trades in his grasp--viz., the raw material, the dyeing, and the manufacturing--and was consequently able to sell goods cheaper than any one else. His profits were immense, and Manchester soon became too little for his speculative mind. Nevertheless, he would not have left it were it not a private pique against one of his co-religionists, which originated by the dishonouring of a bill which was made payable to him, disgusted him with the Manchester community. In 1800, therefore, he quitted Manchester for the metropolis. With giant strides he progressed in his prosperity. The confused and insecure state of the Continent added to his fortune, and contributed to his fame.

The Prince of Hesse Cassel, in flying from the approach of the republican armies, desired, as he passed through Frankfort, to store a vast amount of wealth, in such a manner as might leave him a chance of recovery after the storm had passed by. He sought out Meyer Anselm Rothschild, and confided all his worldly possessions to the keeping of the Hebrew banker. Meyer Anselm, either from fear of loss or hope of gain, sent the money to his son Nathan, settled in London, and the latter thus alluded to this circumstance: "The Prince of Hesse Cassel gave my father his money; there was no time to be lost; he sent it to me. I had £600,000 arrive by post unexpectedly; and I put it to so good use, that the prince made me a present of all his wine and linen."

"When the late Mr. Rothschild was alive, if business," says the author of "The City," "ever became flat and unprofitable in the Stock Exchange, the brokers and jobbers generally complained, and threw the blame upon this leviathan of the money market. Whatever was wrong, was always alleged to be the effects of Mr. Rothschild's operations, and, according to the views of these parties, he was either bolstering up, or unnecessarily depressing prices for his own object. An anecdote is related of this great speculator, that hearing on one occasion that a broker had given very strong expression to his feelings in the open market on this subject, dealing out the most deadly anathemas against the Jews, and consigning them to the most horrible torments, he sent the broker, through the medium of another party, an order to sell £600,000 Consols, saying, 'As he always so abuses me, they will never suspect he is bearing the market on my account.' Mr. Rothschild employed several brokers to do his business, and hence there was no ascertaining what in reality was the tendency of his operations. While perchance one broker was buying a certain quantity of stock on the order of his principal in the market, another at the same moment would be instructed to sell; so that it was only in the breast of the principal to know the probable result. It is said that Mrs. Rothschild tried her hand in speculating, and endeavoured by all her influence to get at the secret of her husband's dealings. She, however, failed, and was therefore not very successful in her ventures. Long before Mr. Rothschild's death, it was prophesied by many of the brokers that, when the event occurred, the public would be less alarmed at the influence of the firm, and come forward more boldly to engage in stock business. They have, notwithstanding, been very much mistaken."

The chronicler of the "Stock Exchange" says: "One cause of Rothschild's success, was the secrecy with which he shrouded all his transactions, and the tortuous policy with which he misled those the most who watched him the keenest. If he possessed news calculated to make the funds rise, he would commission the broker who acted on his behalf to sell half a million. The shoal of men who usually follow the movements of others, sold with him. The news soon passed through Capel Court that Rothschild was bearing the market, and the funds fell. Men looked doubtingly at one another; a general panic spread; bad news was looked for; and these united agencies sunk the price two or three per cent. This was the result expected; other brokers, not usually employed by him, bought all they could at the reduced rate. By the time this was accomplished the good news had arrived; the pressure ceased, the funds arose instantly, and Mr. Rothschild reaped his reward."

It sometimes happened that notwithstanding Rothschild's profound secrecy, he was overcome by stratagem. The following circumstance, which was related to Mr. Margoliouth by a person who knew Rothschild well, will illustrate the above statement. When the Hebrew financier lived at Stamford Hill, there resided opposite to him another very wealthy dealer in the Stock Exchange, Lucas by name. The latter returning home one night at a late hour from a convivial party, observed a carriage and four standing before Rothschild's gate, upon which he ordered his own carriage out of the way, and commanded his coachman to await in readiness his return. Lucas went stealthily and watched, unobserved, the movements at Rothschild's gate. He did not lie long in ambush before he heard some one leaving the Hebrew millionaire's mansion, and going towards the carriage. He saw Rothschild, accompanied by two muffled figures, step into the carriage, and heard the word of command, "To the City." He followed Rothschild's carriage very closely, but when he reached the top of the street in which Rothschild's office was situated, Lucas ordered his carriage to stop, from which he stepped out, and proceeded, reeling to and fro through the street, feigning to be mortally drunk. He made his way in the same mood as far as Rothschild's office, and sans ceremonie opened the door, to the great consternation and terror of the housekeeper, uttering sundry ejaculations in the broken accents of Bacchus' votaries. Heedless of the affrighted housekeeper's remonstrances, he opened Rothschild's private office, in the same staggering attitude, and fell down flat on the floor.

Rothschild and his friends became very much alarmed. Efforts were made to restore and remove the would-be drunkard, but Lucas was too good an actor, and was therefore in such a fit as to be unable to be moved hither or thither. "Should a physician be sent for?" asked Rothschild. But the housekeeper threw some cold water into Lucas's face, and the patient began to breathe a little more naturally, and fell into a sound snoring sleep. He was covered over, and Rothschild and the strangers proceeded unsuspectingly to business. The strangers brought the good intelligence that the affairs in Spain were all right, respecting which the members of the Exchange were, for a few days previous, very apprehensive, and the funds were therefore in a rapidly sinking condition. The good news could not, however, in the common course of despatch, be publicly known for another day. Rothschild therefore planned to order his brokers to buy up, cautiously, all the stock that should be in the market by twelve o'clock the following day. He sent for his principal broker thus early, in order to entrust him with the important instruction.

The broker was rather tardier than Rothschild's patience could brook; he therefore determined to go himself. As soon as Rothschild was gone, Lucas began to recover, and by degrees was able to get up, though distracted, as he said, "with a violent headache," and insisted, in spite of the housekeeper's expostulations, upon going home. But Lucas went to his broker, and instructed him to buy up all the stock he could get by ten o'clock the following morning. About eleven o'clock Lucas met Rothschild, and inquired satirically how he, Rothschild, was off for stock. Lucas won the day, and Rothschild is said never to have forgiven "the base, dishonest, and nefarious stratagem."

Yet, with all his hoardings, says Mr. Margoliouth, Rothschild was by no means a happy man. Dangers and assassinations seemed to haunt his imagination by day and by night, and not without grounds. Many a time, as he himself said, just before he sat down to dinner, a note would be put into his hand, running thus:--"If you do not send me immediately the sum of five hundred pounds, I will blow your brains out." He affected to despise such threats; they, nevertheless, exercised a direful effect upon the millionaire. He loaded his pistols every night before he went to bed, and put them beside him. He did not think himself more secure in his country house than he did in his bed. One day, while busily engaged in his golden occupation, two foreign gentlemen were announced as desirous to see Baron Rothschild in propriâ personâ. The strangers had not the foresight to have the letters of introduction in readiness. They stood, therefore, before the Baron in the ludicrous attitude of having their eyes fixed upon the Hebrew Croesus, and with their hands rummaging in large European coat-pockets. The fervid and excited imagination of the Baron conjured up a multitudinous array of conspiracies. Fancy eclipsed his reason, and, in a fit of excitement, he seized a huge ledger, which he aimed and hurled at the mustachioed strangers, calling out, at the same time, for additional physical force. The astonished Italians, however, were not long, after that, in finding the important documents they looked for, which explained all. The Baron begged the strangers' pardon for the unintentional insult, and was heard to articulate to himself, "Poor unhappy me! a victim to nervousness and fancy's terrors! and all because of my money!"

Rothschild's mode of doing business when engaging in large transactions (says Mr. Grant) was this. Supposing he possessed exclusively, which he often did, a day or two before it could be generally known, intelligence of some event, which had occurred in any part of the Continent, sufficiently important to cause a rise in the French funds, and through them on the English funds, he would empower the brokers he usually employed to sell out stock, say to the amount of £500,000. The news spread in a moment that Rothschild was selling out, and a general alarm followed. Every one apprehended that he had received intelligence from some foreign part of some important event which would produce a fall in prices. As might, under such circumstances, be expected, all became sellers at once. This, of necessity, caused the funds, to use Stock Exchange phraseology, "to tumble down at a fearful rate." Next day, when they had fallen, perhaps, one or two per cent., he would make purchases, say to the amount of £1,500,000, taking care, however, to employ a number of brokers whom he was not in the habit of employing, and commissioning each to purchase to a certain extent, and giving all of them strict orders to preserve secrecy in the matter. Each of the persons so employed was, by this means, ignorant of the commission given to the others. Had it been known the purchases were made by him, there would have been as great and sudden a rise in the prices as there had been in the fall, so that he could not purchase to the intended extent on such advantageous terms. On the third day, perhaps, the intelligence which had been expected by the jobbers to be unfavourable arrived, and, instead of being so, turned out to be highly favourable. Prices instantaneously rise again, and possibly they may get one and a-half or even two per cent. higher than they were when he sold out his £500,000. He now sells out, at the advanced price, the entire £1,500,000 he had purchased at the reduced prices. The gains by such extensive transactions, when so skilfully managed, will be at once seen to be enormous. By the supposed transaction, assuming the rise to be two per cent., the gain would be £35,000. But this is not the greatest gain which the late leviathian of modern capitalists made by such transactions. He, on more than one occasion, made upwards of £100,000 on one account.

But though no person during the last twelve or fifteen years of Rothschild's life (says Grant) was ever able, for any length of time, to compete with him in the money market, he on several occasions was, in single transactions, outwitted by the superior tactics of others. The gentleman to whom I allude was then and is now the head of one of the largest private banking establishments in town. Abraham Montefiore, Rothschild's brother-in-law, was the principal broker to the great capitalist, and in that capacity was commissioned by the latter to negotiate with Mr. ---- a loan of £1,500,000. The security offered by Rothschild was a proportionate amount of stock in Consols, which were at that time 84. This stock was, of course, to be transferred to the name of the party advancing the money, Rothschild's object being to raise the price of Consols by carrying so large a quantity out of the market. The money was lent, and the conditions of the loan were these--that the interest on the sum advanced should be at the rate of 4-1/2 per cent., and that if the price of Consols should chance to go down to 74, Mr. ---- should have the right of claiming the stock at 70. The Jew, no doubt, laughed at what he conceived his own commercial dexterity in the transaction; but, ere long, he had abundant reason to laugh on the wrong side of his mouth; for, no sooner was the stock poured into the hand of the banker, than the latter sold it, along with an immensely large sum which had been previously standing in his name, amounting altogether to little short of £3,000,000. But even this was not all. Mr. ---- also held powers of attorney from several of the leading Scotch and English banks, as well as from various private individuals, who had large property in the funds, to sell stock on their account. On these powers of attorney he acted, and at the same time advised his friends to follow his example. They at once did so, and the consequence was that the aggregate amount of stock sold by himself and his friends conjointly exceeded £10,000,000. So unusual an extent of sales, all effected in the shortest possible time, necessarily drove down the prices. In an incredibly short time they fell to 74; immediately on which, Mr. ---- claimed of Rothschild his stock at 70. The Jew could not refuse: it was in the bond. This climax being reached, the banker bought in again all the stock he had previously sold out, and advised his friends to re-purchase also. They did so; and the result was, that in a few weeks Consols reached 84 again, their original price, and from that to 86. Rothschild's losses were very great by this transaction; but they were by no means equal to the banker's gains, which could not have been less than £300,000 or £400,000.

The following grotesque sketch of the great Rothschild is from the pen of a clever anonymous writer:--"The thing before you," says the author quoted, "stands cold, motionless, and apparently speculationless, as the pillar of salt into which the avaricious spouse of the patriarch was turned; and while you start with wonder at what it can be or mean, you pursue the association, and think upon the fire and brimstone that were rained down. It is a human being of no very Apollo-like form or face: short, squat, with its shoulders drawn up to its ears, and its hands delved into its breeches'-pockets. The hue of its face is a mixture of brick-dust and saffron; and the texture seems that of the skin of a dead frog. There is a rigidity and tension in the features, too, which would make you fancy, if you did not see that that were not the fact, that some one from behind was pinching it with a pair of hot tongs, and that it were either afraid or ashamed to tell. Eyes are usually denominated the windows of the soul; but here you would conclude that the windows are false ones, or that there is no soul to look out at them. There comes not one pencil of light from the interior, neither is there one scintillation of that which comes from without reflected in any direction. The whole puts you in mind of 'a skin to let;' and you wonder why it stands upright without at least something within. By-and-by another figure comes up to it. It then steps two paces aside, and the most inquisitive glance that ever you saw, and a glance more inquisitive than you would ever have thought of, is drawn out of the erewhile fixed and leaden eye, as if one were drawing a sword from a scabbard. The visiting figure, which has the appearance of coming by accident, and not by design, stops but a second or two, in the course of which looks are exchanged which, though you cannot translate, you feel must be of most important meaning. After these, the eyes are sheathed up again, and the figure resumes its stony posture. During the morning numbers of visitors come, all of whom meet with a similar reception, and vanish in a similar manner; and last of all the figure itself vanishes, leaving you utterly at a loss as to what can be its nature and functions."

Abraham Goldsmid, a liberal and honourable man, who almost rivalled Rothschild as a speculator, was ruined at last by a conspiracy. Goldsmid, in conjunction with a banking establishment, had taken a large Government loan. The leaguers contrived to produce from the collectors and receivers of the revenue so large an amount of floating securities--Exchequer Bills and India Bonds--that the omnium fell to 18 discount. The result was Goldsmid's failure, and eventually his suicide. The conspirators purchased omnium when at its greatest discount, and on the following day it went up to 3 premium, being then a profit of about £2,000,000.

Goldsmid seems to have been a kind-hearted man, not so wholly absorbed in speculation and self as some of the more greedy and vulgar members of the Stock Exchange. One day Mr. Goldsmid observed his favourite waiter at the City of London Tavern very melancholy and abstracted. On being pressed, John confessed that he had just been arrested for a debt of £55, and that he was thinking over the misery of his wife and five children. Goldsmid instantly drew out his chequebook, and wrote a cheque for £100, the sight of which gladdened poor John's heart and brought tears into his eyes. On one occasion, after a carriage accident in Somersetshire, Goldsmid was carried to the house of a poor curate, and there attended for a fortnight with unremitting kindness. Six weeks after the millionaire's departure a letter came from Goldsmid to the curate, saying that, having contracted for a large Government loan, he (the writer) had put down the curate's name for £20,000 omnium. The poor curate, supposing some great outlay was expected from him for this share in the loan, wrote back to say that he had not £20,000, or even £20, in the world. By the next post came a letter enclosing the curate £1,500, the profit on selling out the £20,000 omnium, the premium having risen since the curate's name had been put down.

The vicissitudes of the Stock Exchange are like those of the gambling-table. A story is related specially illustrative of the rapid fortunes made in the old war-time, when the funds ran up and down every time Napoleon mounted his horse. Mr. F., afterwards proprietor of one of the largest estates in the county of Middlesex, had lost a fortune on the Stock Exchange, and had, in due course, been ruthlessly gibbeted on the cruel black board. In a frenzy, as he passed London Bridge, contemplating suicide, F. threw the last shilling he had in the world over the parapet into the water. Just at that moment some one seized him by the hand. It was a French ensign. He was full of a great battle that had been fought (Waterloo), which had just annihilated Bonaparte, and would restore the Bourbons. The French ambassador had told him only an hour before. A gleam of hope, turning the black board white, arose before the miserable man. He hurried off to a firm on the Stock Exchange, and offered most important news on condition that he should receive half of whatever profits they might realise by the operation. He told them of Waterloo. They rushed into the market, and purchased Consols to a large amount. In the meantime F., sharpened by misfortune, instantly proceeded to another firm, and made a second offer, which was also accepted. There were two partners, and the keenest of them whispered the other not to let F. out of his sight, while he sent brokers to purchase Consols. He might tell some one else. Lunch was then brought in, and the key turned on them. Presently the partner returned, red and seething, from the Stock Exchange. Most unaccountably Consols had gone up 3 per cent., and he was afraid to purchase. But F. urged the importance of the victory, and declared the funds would soon rise 10 or 12 per cent. The partners, persuaded, made immense purchases. The day the news of Waterloo arrived the funds rose 15 per cent., the greatest rise they were ever known to experience; and F.'s share of the profits from the two houses in one day exceeded £100,000. He returned next day to the Stock Exchange, and soon, amassed a large fortune; he then wisely purchased an estate, and left the funds alone for ever.

Some terrible failures occurred in the Stock Exchange during the Spanish panic of 1835. A few facts connected with this disastrous time will serve excellently to illustrate the effects of such reactions among the speculators in stocks. A decline of 20 or 30 per cent. in the Peninsular securities within a week or ten days ruined many of the members. They, like card houses in a puff of wind, brought down others; so that in one short month the greater part of the Stock Exchange had fallen into difficulties. The failure of principals out of doors, who had large differences to pay, caused much of this trouble to the brokers. Men with limited means had plunged into what they considered a certain speculation, and when pay-day arrived and the account was against them, they were obliged to confess their inability to scrape together the required funds. For instance, at the time Zumalacarregui was expected to die, a principal, a person who could not command more than £1,000, "stood," as the Stock Exchange phrase runs, to make a "pot of money" by the event. He speculated heavily, and had the Spanish partisan general good-naturedly died during the account, the commercial gambler would have certainly netted nearly £40,000. The general, however, obstinately delayed his death till the next week, and by that time the speculator was ruined, and all he had sold. Many of the dishonest speculators whose names figured on the black board in 1835 had been "bulls" of Spanish stock. When the market gave way and prices fell, the principals attempted to put off the evil day, says a writer of the period, by "carrying over instead of closing their accounts." The weather, however, grew only the more stormy, and at last, when payment could no longer be evaded, they coolly turned round, and with brazen faces refused, although some of them were able to adjust the balances which their luckless brokers exhibited against them. Now a broker is obliged either to make good his principal's losses from his own pocket, or be declared a defaulter and expelled the Stock Exchange. This rule often presses heavily, says an authority on the subject, on honest but not over-opulent brokers, who transact business for other persons, and become liable if they turn out either insolvent or rogues. Brokers are in most cases careful in the choice of principals if they speculate largely, and often adopt the prudent and very justifiable plan of having a certain amount of stock deposited in their "strong box" as security before any important business is undertaken. Every principal who dabbles in rickety stock without a certain reserve as a security is set down by most men as little better than a swindler.

During the rumours of war which prevailed in October, 1840, shortly before the fall of the Thiers administration in France, the fluctuations in Consols were as much as 4 per cent. The result was great ruin to speculators. The speculators for the rise--the "bulls," in fact--of £400,000 Consols sustained a loss of from £10,000 to £15,000, for which more than one broker found it necessary, for sustaining his credit, to pay.

The railway mania produced many changes in the Stock Exchange. The share market, which previously had been occupied by only four or five brokers and a number of small jobbers, now became a focus of vast business. Certain brokers, it is said, made £3,000 or £4,000 a day by their business. One fortunate man outside the house, who held largely of Churnett Valley scrip before the sanction of the Board of Trade was procured, sold at the best price directly the announcement was made, and netted by that coup £27,000. The "Alley men" wrote letters for shares, and when the allotments were obtained made some 10s. on each share. Some of these "dabblers" are known to have made only fifty farthings of fifty shares of a railway now the first in the kingdom. The sellers of letters used to meet in the Royal Exchange before business hours, till the beadle had at last to drive them away to make room for the merchants. There is a story told of an "Alley man" during the mania contriving to sell some rotten shares by bowing to Sir Isaac Goldsmid in the presence of his victim. Sir Isaac returned the bow, and the victim at once believed in the respectability of the gay deceiver.

With the single exception of Mr. David Ricardo, the celebrated political economist, says Mr. Grant, there are few names of any literary distinction connected with the Stock Exchange. Mr. Ricardo is said to have amassed his immense fortune by a scrupulous attention to his own golden rules:--

"Never refuse an option when you can get it; Cut short your losses; Let your profits run on."

By the second rule, which, like the rest, is strictly technical, Mr. Ricardo meant that purchasers of stock ought to re-sell immediately prices fell. By the third he meant that when a person held stock and prices were rising, he ought not to sell until prices had reached their highest, and were beginning to fall.

Gentlemen of the Stock Exchange are rough with intruders. A few years since, says a writer in the City Press, an excellent clergyman of my acquaintance, who had not quite mastered the Christian philosophy of turning the right cheek to those who smote the left, had business in the City, and being anxious to see his broker, strayed into the Stock Exchange, in utter ignorance of the great liberty he was committing. Instantly known as an interloper, he was surrounded and hustled by some dozen of the members. "What did he want?" "How dared he to intrude there?"

"I wish to speak with a member, Mr. A----, and was not aware it was against the rules to enter the building."

"Then we'll make you aware for the future," said a coarse but iron-fisted jobber, prepared to suit the action to the word.

My friend disengaged himself as far as possible, and speaking in a calm but authoritative tone, said, "Sirs, I am quite sure you do not mean to insult, in my person, a minister of the Church of England; but take notice, the first man who dares to molest me shall feel the weight of my fist, which is not a light one. Stand by, and let me leave this inhospitable place." They did stand by, and he rushed into the street without sustaining any actual violence.

Practical joking, says an habitué, relieves the excitement of this feverish gambling. The stockbrokers indulge in practical jokes which would be hardly excusable in a schoolboy. No member can wear a new hat in the arena of bulls and bears without being tormented, and his chapeau irrecoverably spoiled. A new coat cannot be worn without peril; it is almost certain to be ticketed "Moses and Son--dear at 18s. 6d." The pounce-box is a formidable missile, and frequently nearly blinds the unwary. As P. passes K.'s desk, the latter slily extends his foot in order to trip him up; and when K. rises from his stool, he finds his coat-tail pinned to the cushion, and is likely to lose a portion of it before he is extricated. Yet these men are capable of extreme liberality. Some years ago knocking off hats and chalking one another's backs was a favourite amusement on the Stock Exchange, as a vent for surplus excitement, and on the 5th of November a cart-load of crackers was let off during the day, to the destruction of coats. The cry when a stranger is detected is "Fourteen hundred," and the usual test question is, "Will you purchase any new Navy Five per Cents., sir?" The moment after a rough hand drives the novice's hat over his nose, and he is spun from one to another; his coat-tails are often torn off, and he is then jostled into the street. There have been cases, however, where the jobbers have caught a Tartar, who, after half-strangling one and knocking down two or three more, has fairly fought his way out, pretty well unscathed, all but his hat.

The amount of business done at the Stock Exchange in a day is enormous. In a few hours property, including time bargains, to the amount of £10,000,000, has changed hands. Rothschild is known in one day to have made purchases to the extent of £4,000,000. This great speculator never appeared on the Stock Exchange himself, and on special occasions he always employed a new set of brokers to buy or sell. The boldest attempt ever made to overthrow the power of Rothschild in the money market was that made by a Mr. H. He was the son of a wealthy country banker, with money-stock in his own name, though it was really his father's, to the extent of £50,000. He began by buying, as openly as possible, and selling out again to a very large amount in a very short period of time. About this time Consols were as high as 96 or 97, and there were signs of a coming panic. Mr. H. determined to depress the market, and carry on war against Rothschild, the leader of the "bulls." He now struck out a bold game. He bought £200,000 in Consols at 96, and at once offered any part of £100,000 at 94, and at once found purchasers. He then offered more at 93, 92, and eventually as low as 90. The next day he brought them down to 74; a run on the Bank of England began, which almost exhausted it of its specie. He then purchased to a large extent, so that when the reaction took place, the daring adventurer found his gains had exceeded £100,000. Two years after he had another "operation," but Rothschild, guessing his plan, laid a trap, into which he fell, and the day after his name was up on the black board. It was then discovered that the original £50,000 money-stock had been in reality his father's. A deputation from the committee waited upon Mr. H. immediately after his failure, and quietly suggested to him an immediate sale of his furniture and the mortgage of an annuity settled on his wife. He, furious at this, rang the bell for his footman, and ordered him to show the deputation down stairs. He swore at the treatment that he had received, and said, "As for you, you vagabond, 'My son Jack' (the nickname of the spokesman), who has had the audacity to make me such a proposal, if you don't hurry down stairs I'll pitch you out of window."

Nicknames are of frequent occurrence on the Stock Exchange. "My son Jack" we have just mentioned. Another was known as "The Lady's Broker," in consequence of being employed in an unfortunate speculation by a lady who had ventured without the knowledge of her husband. The husband refused to pay a farthing, and the broker, to save himself from the black board, divulged the name of the lady who was unable to meet her obligations.

It is a fact not generally known, says a writer on the subject, that by one of the regulations of the Stock Exchange, any person purchasing stock in the funds, or any of the public companies, has a right to demand of the seller as many transfers as there are even thousand pounds in the amount bought. Suppose, for instance, that any person were to purchase £10,000 stock, then, instead of having the whole made over to him by one ticket of transfer, he has a right to demand, if he so pleases, ten separate transfers from the party or parties of whom he purchased.

The descriptions of English stock which are least generally understood are scrip and omnium. Scrip means the receipt for any instalment or instalments which may have been paid on any given amount which has been purchased on any Government loan. This receipt, or scrip, is marketable, the party purchasing it, either at a premium or discount, as the case chances to be, becoming of course bound to pay up the remainder of the instalments, on pain of forfeiting the money he has given for it. Omnium means the various kinds of stock in which a loan is absorbed, or, to make the thing still more intelligible, a person purchasing a certain quantity of omnium, purchases given proportions of the various descriptions of Government securities.

Bargains made one day are always checked the following day, by the parties themselves or their clerks. This is done by calling over their respective books one against another. In most transactions what is called an option is given, by mutual consent, to each party. This is often of great importance to the speculator. It is said that the business at the Stock Exchange is illegal, since an unrepealed Act of Parliament exists which directs all buying and selling of Bank securities shall take place in the Rotunda of the Bank.

There are about 1,700 members of the Stock Exchange, who pay twelve guineas a year each. The election of members is always by ballot, and every applicant must be recommended by three persons, who have been members of the house for at least two years. Each recommender must engage to pay the sum of £500 to the candidate's creditors in case any such candidate should become a defaulter, either in the Stock Exchange or the Foreign Stock market, within two years from the date of his admission. A foreigner must have been resident in the United Kingdom for five years previous, unless he is recommended by five members of the Stock Exchange, each of whom becomes security for £300. The candidate must not enter into partnership with any of his recommenders for two years after his admission, unless additional security be provided, and one partner cannot recommend another. Bill and discount brokers are excluded from the Stock Exchange, says the same writer, and no applicant's wife can be engaged in any sort of business. No applicant who has been a bankrupt is eligible until two years after he has obtained his certificate, or fulfilled the conditions of his deed of composition, or unless he has paid 6s. 8d. in the pound. No one who has been twice bankrupt is eligible unless on the same very improbable condition.

If a member makes any bargains before or after the regular business hours--ten to four--the bargain is not recognised by the committee. No bonds can be returned as imperfect after three days' detention. If a member comes to private terms with his creditors, he is put upon the black board of the Exchange as a defaulter, and expelled. A further failure can be condoned for, after six months' exile, provided the member pays at least one-third of any loss that may have occurred on his speculations. For dishonourable conduct the committee can also chalk up a member's name.

It is said that a member of the Stock Exchange who fails and gives up his last farthing to his creditors is never thought as well of as the man who takes care to keep a reserve, in order to step back again into business. For instance, a stockbroker once lost on one account £10,000, and paid the whole without a murmur. Being, however, what is called on the Stock Exchange "a little man," he never again recovered his credit, it being suspected that his back was irretrievably broken.

But a still more striking and very interesting illustration of the estimation in which sterling integrity is held among a large proportion of the members was afforded (says Mr. Grant) in the case of the late Mr. L.A. de la Chaumette, a gentleman of foreign extraction. He had previously been in the Manchester trade, but had been unfortunate. Being a man much respected, and extensively known, his friends advised him to go on the Stock Exchange. He adopted their advice, and became a member. He at once established an excellent business as a broker. Not only did he make large sums, in the shape of commissions on the transactions in which he was employed by others, but one of the largest mercantile houses in London, having the highest possible opinion of his judgment and integrity, entrusted him with the sole disposal of an immense sum of money belonging to the French refugees, which was in their hands at the time. He contrived to employ this money so advantageously, both to his constituents and himself, that he acquired a handsome fortune. Before he had been a member three years, he invited his creditors to dine with him on a particular day at the London Tavern, but concealed from them the particular object he had in view in so doing. On entering the room, they severally found their own names on the different plates, which were reversed, and on turning them up, each found a cheque for the amount due to him, with interest. The entire sum which Mr. L.A. de la Chaumette paid away on this occasion, and in this manner, was upwards of £30,000. Next day, he went into the house as usual, and such was the feeling entertained of his conduct, that many members refused to do a bargain with him to the extent of a single thousand. They looked on his payment of the claims of his former creditors as a foolish affair, and fancied that he might have exhausted his resources, never dreaming that, even if he had, a man of such honourable feeling and upright principle was worthy of credit to any amount. He eventually died worth upwards of £500,000.

The locality of the Stock Exchange (says the author of "The Great Babylon," probably the Rev. Dr. Croly) is well chosen, being at a point where intelligence from the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange, and the different coffee-houses where private letters from abroad are received, may be obtained in a few minutes, and thus "news from all nations" may be very speedily manufactured with an air of authenticity. One wide portal gapes toward the Bank, in Bartholomew Lane; and there is a sally-port into Threadneedle Street, for those who do not wish to be seen entering or emerging the other way. From the dull and dingy aspect of these approaches, which, it seems, cannot be whitened, one could form no guess at the mighty deeds of the place; and when the hourly quotations of the price of stocks are the same, the place is silent, and only a few individuals, with faces which grin but cannot smile, are seen crawling in and out, or standing yawning in the court, with their hands in their breeches' pockets. If, however, the quotations fluctuate, and the Royal Exchange, where most of the leading men of the money market lounge, be full of bustling and rumours, and especially if characters, with eyes like basilisks, and faces lined and surfaced like an asparagus bed ere the plants come up, be ever and anon darting in at the north door of the Royal Exchange, bounding toward the chief priests of Mammon, like pith balls to the conductor of an electric machine, and, when they have "got their charge," bounding away again, then you may be sure that the Stock Exchange is worth seeing, if it could be seen with comfort, or even with safety. At those times, however, a stranger might as well jump into a den of lions, or throw himself into the midst of a herd of famishing wolves.

Among the various plans adopted for securing early intelligence for Stock Exchange purposes before the invention of the telegraph, none proved more successful than that of "pigeon expresses." Till about the beginning of the century the ordinary courier brought the news from the Continent; and it was only the Rothschilds, and one or two other important firms, that "ran" intelligence, in anticipation of the regular French mail. However, many years ago, the project was conceived of establishing a communication between London and Paris by means of pigeons, and in the course of two years it was in complete operation. The training of the birds took considerable time before they could be relied on; and the relays and organisation required to perfect the scheme not only involved a vast expenditure of time, but also of money. In the first place, to make the communication of use on both sides of the Channel, it was necessary to get two distinct establishments for the flight of the pigeons--one in England and another in France. It was then necessary that persons in whom reliance could be placed should be stationed in the two capitals, to be in readiness to receive or dispatch the birds that might bring or carry the intelligence, and make it available for the parties interested. Hence it became almost evident that one speculator, without he was a very wealthy man, could not hope to support a pigeon "express." The consequence was, that, the project being mooted, two or three of the speculators, including brokers of the house, themselves joined, and worked it for their own benefit. Through this medium several of the dealers rapidly made large sums of money; but the trade became less profitable, because the success of the first operators induced others to follow the example of establishing this species of communication. The cost of keeping a "pigeon express" has been estimated at £600 or £700 a year; but whether this amount was magnified, with the view of deterring others from venturing into the speculation, is a question which never seems to have been properly explained. It is stated that the daily papers availed themselves of the news brought by these "expresses;" but, in consideration of allowing the speculators to read the despatches first, the proprietors, it is said, bore but a minimum proportion of the expense. The birds generally used were of the Antwerp breed, strong in the wing, and fully feathered. The months in which they were chiefly worked were the latter end of May, June, July, August, and the beginning of September; and, though the news might not be always of importance, a communication was generally kept up daily between London and Paris in this manner.

In 1837-38-39, and 1840, a great deal of money was made by the "pigeon men," as the speculators supposed to have possession of such intelligence were familiarly termed; and their appearance in the market was always indicative of a rise or fall, according to the tendency of their operations. Having the first chance of buying or selling, they, of course, had the market for a while in their own hands; but as time progressed, and it was found that the papers, by their "second editions," would communicate the news, the general brokers refused to do business till the papers reached the City. The pigeons bringing the news occasionally got shot on their passage; but, as a flock of some eight or a dozen were usually started at a time, miscarriage was not of frequent occurrence. At the time of the death of Mr. Rothschild, one was caught at Brighton, having been disabled by a gun-shot wound, and beneath the shoulder-feathers of the left wing was discovered a small note, with the words "Il est mort," followed by a number of hieroglyphics. Each pigeon had a method of communication entirely their own; and the conductors, if they fancied the key to it was in another person's power, immediately varied it. A case of this description occurred worth noting. The parties interested in the scheme fancied that, however soon they received intelligence, there were others in the market who were quite equal with them. In order to arrive at the real state of affairs, the chief proprietor consented, at the advice of a friend, to pay £10 for the early perusal of a supposed rival's "pigeon express." The "express" came to hand, he read it, and was not a little surprised to find that he was in reality paying for the perusal of his own news! The truth soon came out. Somebody had bribed the keepers of his pigeons, who were thus not only making a profit by the sale of his intelligence, but also on the speculations they in consequence conducted. The defect was soon remedied by changing the style of characters employed, and all went right as before.

When a defalcation takes place in the Stock Exchange (says a City writer of 1845), the course pursued is as follows:--At the commencement of the "settling day," should a broker or jobber--the one through the default of his principals, and the other in consequence of unsuccessful speculations--find a heavy balance on the wrong side of his accounts, which he is unfortunately unable to settle, and should an attempt to get the assistance from friends prove unavailing, he must fail. Excluded from the house, the scene of his past labours and speculations, he dispatches a short but unimportant communication to the committee of the Stock Exchange. The other members of the institution being all assembled in the market, busied in arranging and settling their accounts, some of them, interested parties, become nervous and fidgety at the non-appearance of Mr. ---- (the defaulter in question). The doubt is soon explained, for the porter stationed at the door suddenly gives three loud and distinctly repeated knocks with a mallet, and announces that Mr. ---- presents his respects to the house, and regrets to state that he is unable to comply with his "bargains"--Anglicè, to fulfil his engagements.

Visit Bartholomew Lane at any time of the year, says a City writer, and you will be sure to find several people of shabby exterior holding converse at the entrance of Capel Court, or on the steps of the auction mart. These are the "Alley men." You will see one, perhaps, take from his pocket a good-sized parcel of dirty-backed letters, all arranged, and tied round with string or red tape, which he sorts with as much care and attention as if they were bank-notes. That parcel is his stock-in-trade. Perhaps those letters may contain the allotment of shares in various companies, to an amount, if the capital subscribed was paid, of many hundreds of thousands of pounds.

To describe fairly the "Alley man," we must take him from the first of his career. He is generally some broken-down clerk or tradesman, who, having lost every prospect of life, chooses this description of business as a dernier ressort. First started in his calling, he associates with the loiterers at the Stock Exchange, where, by mixing with them, and perhaps making the acquaintance through the introduction of Sir John Barleycorn, at the tap of a tavern, he is initiated by degrees into the secrets of the business, and, perhaps, before long, becomes as great an adept in the sale or purchase of letters as the oldest man on the walk. When he has acquired the necessary information respecting dealing, he can commence letter-writing for shares. This is effected at the expense of a penny only for postage, pen and ink being always attainable, either in the tavern-parlour or coffee-house he frequents. When a new company comes out, and is advertised, he immediately calls for a form of application, fills it up, and dispatches it, with the moderate request to be allotted one hundred or two hundred shares, the amount of call or share being quite immaterial to him, as he never intends to pay upon or keep them, his only aim being to increase his available stock of letters, so that he can make a "deal," and pocket the profit, should they have a price among the fraternity.

The purchase of stock is thus described by an habitué. "Suppose I went," he says, "to buy £100 stock in the Four per Cents. I soon know whether the funds are better, or worse, or steady; for this is the language of the place. If they are better, they are on the rise from the preceding day; if worse, they are lower than on that day; if steady, they have not fluctuated at all, or very little. To render the matter as intelligible as possible, we will suppose the price to be 80-1/8, that is, £80 2s. 6d. sterling for £100 stock. Upon my asking the price of the Four per Cents., the answer probably is, "Buyers at an eighth, and sellers at a quarter;" that is, the jobbers who either buy or sell will have the turn, or 1/8. Now if I leave the purchase to a broker, he probably gives, without the least hesitation, 80-3/8, because he may have a friendly turn to make to his brother broker, for a similar act of kindness the preceding day. Well, but I do not leave the purchase to a broker; I manage it myself. I direct my broker to buy me £100 stock at 80-1/4. He takes my name, profession, and place of residence; he then makes a purchase, and the seller of the stock transfers it to me, my heirs, assigns, &c., and makes his signature. On the same leaf of the same book in which the transfer is made to me, there is a form of acceptance of the stock transferred to me, and to which I also put my signature; the clerk then witnesses the receipt, and the whole business is done. The seller of the stock gives me the receipt, with his signature to it, which I may keep till I receive a dividend, when it is no longer any use. The payment of the dividend is an acknowledgment of my right to the stock; and therefore the receipt then becomes useless."

The usual commission charged by a broker is one-eighth (2s. 6d.) per cent. upon the stock sold or purchased; although of late years the charge has often been reduced fifty per cent., especially in speculators' charges, a reduction ascribed to the influx into the market of a body of brokers who will "do business" almost for nothing, provided they can procure customers. The broker deals with the "jobbers," a class of members, or "middle-men," who remain stationary in the stock market, ready to act upon the orders received from brokers.

There is, moreover, a fund subscribed by the members for their decayed associates, the invested capital of which, exclusive of annual contributions, amounts to upwards of £30,000.

The Stock Exchange has numbered amongst its subscribers some valuable members of society, including David Ricardo and several of his descendants, Francis Baily the astronomer, and many others, down to Charles Stokes, F.R.S., not long ago deceased. Horace Smith and the author of the "Last of the Plantagenets"--himself in his prosperity a munificent patron of literature--also for a long time enlivened its precincts. The writer of the successful play of "The Templar," and other elegant productions, was one of the body.

The managers, in 1854, expended about £6,000 in securing additional space for the Stock Exchange prior to the commencement of the works, and the contract was taken at £10,400, some subsequent alterations respecting ventilation having caused the amount to be already exceeded.

The fabric belongs to a private company, consisting of 400 shareholders, and the shares were originally of £50 each, but are now of uncertain amount, the last addition being a call of £25 per share, made for the construction of the new edifice. The affairs of this company are conducted under a cumbersome and restrictive deed of settlement, by nine "managers," elected for life by the shareholders, no election taking place till there are four vacancies. The members or subscribers, however, entirely conduct their own affairs by a committee of thirty of their own body. Neither members nor committee are elected for more than one year.

The number of members at present exceeds 1,700. The subscription is paid to the "managers," who liquidate all expenses, and adopt alterations in the building, upon the representations of the committee of the members, or even on the application of the subscribers. Of the 400 shares mentioned above, the whole, with scarcely an exception, are held by the members themselves. No one person is allowed to hold, directly or indirectly, more than four.

The present building stands in the centre of the block of buildings fronting Bartholomew Lane, Threadneedle Street, Old Broad Street, and Throgmorton Street. The principal entrance is from Bartholomew Lane through Capel Court. There are also three entrances from Throgmorton Street, and one from Threadneedle Street. The area of the new house is about 75 square yards, and it would contain 1,100 or 1,200 members. There are, however, seldom more than half that number present. The site is very irregular, and has enforced some peculiar construction in covering it, into which iron enters largely.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XLII. THE ROYAL EXCHANGE

The Greshams--Important Negotiations--Building of the Old Exchange--Queen Elizabeth visits it--Its Milliners' Shops--A Resort for Idlers--Access of Nuisances--The various Walks in the Exchange--Shakespeare's Visits to it--Precautions against Fire--Lady Gresham and the Council--The "Eye of London"--Contemporary Allusions--The Royal Exchange during the Plague and the Great Fire--Wren's Design for a New Royal Exchange--The Plan which was ultimately accepted--Addison and Steele upon the Exchange--The Shops of the Second Exchange.

In the year 1563 Sir Thomas Gresham, a munificent merchant of Lombard Street, who traded largely with Antwerp, carrying out a scheme of his father, offered the City to erect a Bourse at his own expense, if they would provide a suitable plot of ground; the great merchant's local pride having been hurt at seeing Antwerp provided with a stately Exchange, and London without one.

A short sketch of the Gresham family is here necessary, to enable us to understand the antecedents of this great benefactor of London. The family derived its name from Gresham, a little village in Norfolk; and one of the early Greshams appears to have been clerk to Sir William Paston, a judge. The family afterwards removed to Holt, near the sea. John Gresham married an heiress, by whom he had four sons, William, Thomas, Richard, and John. Thomas became Chancellor of Lichfield, the other three brothers turned merchants, and two of them were knighted by Henry VIII. Sir Richard, the father of Sir Thomas Gresham, was an eminent London merchant, elected Lord Mayor in 1537. Being a trusty foreign agent of Henry VII., and a friend of Cromwell and Wolsey, he received from the king five several gifts of church lands. Sir Richard died at Bethnal Green, 1548-9. He was buried in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry. Thomas Gresham was sent to Gonville College, Cambridge, and apprenticed probably before that to his uncle Sir John, a Levant merchant, for eight years. In 1543 we find the young merchant applying to Margaret, Regent of the Low Countries, for leave to export gunpowder to England for King Henry, who was then preparing for his attack on France, and the siege of Boulogne. In 1554 Gresham married the daughter of a Suffolk gentleman, and the widow of a London mercer. By her he had several children, none of whom, however, reached maturity.

It was in 1551 or 1552 that Gresham's real fortune commenced, by his appointment as king's merchant factor, or agent, at Antwerp, to raise private loans from German and Low Country merchants to meet the royal necessities, and to keep the privy council informed in the local news. The wise factor borrowed in his own name, and soon raised the exchange from 16s. Flemish for the pound sterling to 22s., at which rate he discharged all the king's debts, and made money plentiful. He says, in a letter to the Duke of Northumberland, that he hoped in one year to save England £20,000. It being forbidden to export further from Antwerp, Gresham had to resort to various stratagems, and in 1553 (Queen Mary) we find him writing to the Privy Council, proposing to send £200 (in heavy Spanish rials), in bags of pepper, four at a time, and the English ambassador at Brussels was to bring over with him £20,000 or £30,000, but he afterwards changed his mind, and sent the money packed up in bales with suits of armour and £3,000 in each, rewarding the searcher at Gravelines with new year presents of black velvet and black cloth. About the time of the Queen's marriage to Philip Gresham went to Spain, to start from Puerto Real fifty cases, each containing 22,000 Spanish ducats. All the time Gresham resided at Antwerp, carrying out these sagacious and important negociations, he was rewarded with the paltry remuneration of £1 a day, of which we often find him seriously complaining. It was in Antwerp, that vast centre of commerce, that Gresham must have gained that great knowledge of business by which he afterwards enriched himself. Antwerp exported to England at this time, says Mr. Burgon, in his excellent life of Gresham, almost every article of luxury required by English people.

Later in Queen Mary's reign Gresham was frequently displaced by rivals. He made trips to England, sharing largely in the dealings of the Mercers' Company, of which he was a member, and shipping vast quantities of cloth to sell to the Italian merchants at Antwerp, in exchange for silks. A few years later the Mercers are described as sending forth, twice a year, a fleet of 50 or 60 ships, laden with cloth, for the Low Countries. Gresham is mentioned, in 1555, as presenting Queen Mary, as a new year's gift, with "a bolt of fine Holland," receiving in return a gilt jug, weighing 16-1/2 ounces. That the Queen considered Gresham a faithful and useful servant there can be no doubt, for she gave him, at different times, a priory, a rectory, and several manors and advowsons.

Gresham, like a prudent courtier, seems to have been one of the first persons of celebrity who visited Queen Elizabeth on her accession. She gave the wise merchant her hand to kiss, and told him that she would always keep one ear ready to hear him; "which," says Gresham, "made me a young man again, and caused me to enter on my present charge with heart and courage."

The young Queen also promised him on her faith that if he served her as well as he had done her brother Edward, and Queen Mary, her sister, she would give him as much land as ever they both had. This gracious promise Gresham reminded the Queen of years after, when he had to complain to his friend Cecil that the Marquis of Winchester had tried to injure him with the Queen.

Gresham soon resumed his visits to Flanders, to procure money, and send over powder, armour, and weapons. He was present at the funeral of Charles V., seems to have foreseen the coming troubles in the Low Countries, and commented on the rash courage of Count Egmont.

The death of Gresham's only son Richard, in the year 1564, was the cause, Mr. Burgon thinks, of Gresham's determining to devote his money to the benefit of his fellow-citizens. Lombard Street had long become too small for the business of London. Men of business were exposed there to all weathers, and had to crowd into small shops, or jostle under the pent-houses. As early as 1534 or 1535 the citizens had deliberated in common council on the necessity of a new place of resort, and Leadenhall Street had been proposed. In the year 1565 certain houses in Cornhill, in the ward of Broad Street, and three alleys--Swan Alley, Cornhill; New Alley, Cornhill, near St. Bartholomew's Lane; and St. Christopher's Alley, comprising in all fourscore householders--were purchased for £3,737 6s. 6d., and the materials sold for £478. The amount was subscribed for in small sums by about 750 citizens, the Ironmongers' Company giving £75. The first brick was laid by Sir Thomas, June 7, 1566. A Flemish architect superintended the sawing of the timber, at Gresham's estate at Ringshall, near Ipswich, and on Battisford Tye (common) traces of the old sawpits can still be seen. The slates were bought at Dort, the wainscoting and glass at Amsterdam, and other materials in Flanders. The building, pushed on too fast for final solidity, was slated in by November, 1567, and shortly after finished. The Bourse, when erected, was thought to resemble that of Antwerp, but there is also reason to believe that Gresham's architect closely followed the Bourse of Venice.

The new Bourse, Flemish in character, was a long four-storeyed building, with a high double balcony. A bell-tower, crowned by a huge grasshopper, stood on one side of the chief entrance. The bell in this tower summoned merchants to the spot at twelve o'clock at noon and six o'clock in the evening. A lofty Corinthian column, crested with a grasshopper, apparently stood outside the north entrance, overlooking the quadrangle. The brick building was afterwards stuccoed over, to imitate stone. Each corner of the building, and the peak of every dormer window, was crowned by a grasshopper. Within Gresham's Bourse were piazzas for wet weather, and the covered walks were adorned with statues of English kings. A statue of Gresham stood near the north end of the western piazza. At the Great Fire of 1666 this statue alone remained there uninjured, as Pepys and Evelyn particularly record. The piazzas were supported by marble pillars, and above were 100 small shops. The vaults dug below, for merchandise, proved dark and damp, and were comparatively valueless. Hentzner, a German traveller who visited England in the year 1598, particularly mentions the stateliness of the building, the assemblage of different nations, and the quantities of merchandise.

Many of the shops in the Bourse remained unlet till Queen Elizabeth's visit, in 1570, which gave them a lustre that tended to make the new building fashionable. Gresham, anxious to have the Bourse worthy of such a visitor, went round twice in one day to all the shopkeepers in "the upper pawn," and offered them all the shops they would furnish and light up with wax rent free for a whole year. The result of this liberality was that in two years Gresham was able to raise the rent from 40s. a year to four marks, and a short time after to £4 10s. The milliners' shops at the Bourse, in Gresham's time, sold mousetraps, birdcages, shoeing-horns, lanthorns, and Jews' trumps. There were also sellers of armour, apothecaries, booksellers, goldsmiths, and glass-sellers; but the shops soon grew richer and more fashionable, so that in 1631 the editor of Stow says, "Unto which place, on January 23, 1570, Queen Elizabeth came from Somerset House through Fleet Street past the north side of the Bourse to Sir Thomas Gresham's house in Bishopsgate Street, and there dined. After the banquet she entered the Bourse on the south side, viewed every part; especially she caused the building, by herald's trumpet, to be proclaimed 'the Royal Exchange,' so to be called from henceforth, and not otherwise."

Such was the vulgar opinion of Gresham's wealth, that Thomas Heywood, in his old play, If You know not Me, You know Nobody, makes Gresham crush an invaluable pearl into the wine-cup in which he drinks his queen's health--

"Here fifteen hundred pounds at one clap goes. Instead of sugar, Gresham drinks the pearl Unto his queen and mistress. Pledge it, lords!"

The new Exchange, like the nave of St. Paul's, soon became a resort for idlers. In the Inquest Book of Cornhill Ward, 1574 (says Mr. Burgon), there is a presentment against the Exchange, because on Sundays and holidays great numbers of boys, children, and "young rogues," meet there, and shout and holloa, so that honest citizens cannot quietly walk there for their recreation, and the parishioners of St. Bartholomew could not hear the sermon. In 1590 we find certain women prosecuted for selling apples and oranges at the Exchange gate in Cornhill, and "amusing themselves in cursing and swearing, to the great annoyance and grief of the inhabitants and passers-by." In 1592 a tavern-keeper, who had vaults under the Exchange, was fined for allowing tippling, and for broiling herrings, sprats, and bacon, to the vexation of worshipful merchants resorting to the Exchange. In 1602 we find that oranges and lemons were allowed to be sold at the gates and passages of the Exchange. In 1622 complaint was made of the rat-catchers, and sellers of dogs, birds, plants, &c., who hung about the south gate of the Bourse, especially at exchange time. It was also seriously complained of that the bear-wards, Shakespeare's noisy neighbours in Southwark, before special bull or bear baitings, used to parade before the Exchange, generally in business hours, and there make proclamation of their entertainments, which caused tumult, and drew together mobs. It was usual on these occasions to have a monkey riding on the bear's back, and several discordant minstrels fiddling, to give additional publicity to the coming festival.

No person frequenting the Bourse was allowed to wear any weapon, and in 1579 it was ordered that no one should walk in the Exchange after ten p.m. in summer, and nine p.m. in winter. Bishop Hall, in his Satires (1598), sketching the idlers of his day, describes "Tattelius, the new-come traveller, with his disguised coat and new-ringed ear [Shakespeare wore earrings], tramping the Bourse's marble twice a day."

And Hayman, in his "Quodlibet" (1628), has the following epigram on a "loafer" of the day, whom he dubs "Sir Pierce Penniless," from Naish's clever pamphlet, and ranks with the moneyless loungers of St. Paul's:--

"Though little coin thy purseless pockets line, Yet with great company thou'rt taken up; For often with Duke Humfray thou dost dine, And often with Sir Thomas Gresham sup."

Here, too, above all, the monarch of English poetry must have often paced, watching the Antonios and Shylocks of his day, the anxious wistful faces of the debtors or the embarrassed, and the greedy anger of the creditors. In the Bourse he may first have thought over to himself the beautiful lines in the "Merchant of Venice" (act i.), where he so wonderfully epitomises the vicissitudes of a merchant's life:--

"My wind, cooling my broth, Would blow me to an ague, when I thought What harm a wind too great might do at sea. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, But I should think of shallows and of flats, And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand, Vailing her high top lower than her ribs, To kiss her burial. Should I go to church, And see the holy edifice of stone, And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks? Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side, Would scatter all her spices on the stream; Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks; And, in a word, but even now worth this, And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought To think on this; and shall I lack the thought, That such a thing, bechanced, would make me sad?"

Gresham seems to have died before the Exchange was thoroughly furnished, for in 1610 (James I.) Mr. Nicholas Leete, Ironmonger, preferred a petition to the Court of Aldermen, lugubriously setting forth that thirty pictures of English kings and queens had been intended to have been placed in the Exchange rooms, and praying that a fine, in future, should be put on every citizen, when elected an alderman, to furnish a portrait of some king or queen at an expense of not exceeding one hundred nobles. The pictures were "to be graven on wood, covered with lead, and then gilded and paynted in oil cullors."

In Gresham's Exchange great precautions were taken against fire. Feather-makers and others were forbidden to keep pans of fire in their shops. Some care was also taken to maintain honesty among the shopkeepers, for they were forbidden to use blinds to their windows, which might obscure the shops, or throw false lights on the articles vended.

On the sudden death of Sir Thomas Gresham, in 1579, it was found that he had left, in accordance with his promise, the Royal Exchange jointly to the City of London and the Mercers' Company after the decease of his wife. Lady Gresham appears not to have been as generous, single-minded, and large-hearted as her husband. She contested the will, and was always repining at the thought of the property passing away from her at death. She received £751 7s. per annum from the rent of the Exchange, but tried hard to be allowed to grant leases for twenty-one years, or three lives, keeping the fines to herself; and this was pronounced by the Council as utterly against both her husband's will and the 23rd Elizabeth, to which she had been privy. She complained querulously that the City did not act well. The City then began to complain with more justice of Lady Gresham's parsimony. The Bourse, badly and hastily built, began to fall out of repair, gratings by the south door gave way in 1582, and the clock was always out of order. Considering Lady Gresham had been left £2,388 a year, these neglects were unworthy of her, but they nevertheless continued till her death, in 1596. As the same lady contributed £100 in 1588 for the defence of the country against the Armada, let us hope that she was influenced not so much by her own love of money as the importunities of some relatives of her first husband's family.

"The Eye of London," as Stow affectionately calls the first Royal Exchange, rapidly became a vast bazaar, where fashionable ladies went to shop, and sometimes to meet their lovers.

Contemporary allusions to Gresham's Exchange are innumerable in old writers. Donald Lupton, in a little work called "London and the Country Carbonadoed and Quartered into Severall Characters," published in 1632, says of the Exchange:--"Here are usually more coaches attendant than at church doors. The merchants should keep their wives from visiting the upper rooms too often, lest they tire their purses by attiring themselves.... There's many gentlewomen come hither that, to help their faces and complexion, break their husbands' backs; who play foul in the country with their land, to be fair and play false in the city."

"I do not look upon the structure of this Exchange to be comparable to that of Sir Thomas Gresham in our City of London," says Evelyn, writing from Amsterdam in 1641; "yet in one respect it exceeds--that ships of considerable burthen ride at the very key contiguous to it." He writes from Paris in the same strain: "I went to the Exchange; the late addition to the buildings is very noble; but the gallerys, where they sell their pretty merchandize, are nothing so stately as ours in London, no more than the place is where they walk below, being only a low vault." Even the associations which the Rialto must have awakened failed to seduce him from his allegiance to the City of London. He writes from Venice, in June, 1645: "I went to their Exchange--a place like ours, frequented by merchants, but nothing so magnificent."

During the Civil War the Exchange statue of Charles I. was thrown down, on the 30th of May, 1648, and the premature inscription, "Exit tyrannorum ultimus," put up in its place, which of course was removed immediately after the Restoration, when a new statue was ordered. The Acts for converting the Monarchy into a Commonwealth were burnt at the Royal Exchange, May 28, 1661, by the hands of the common hangman.

Samuel Rolle, a clergyman who wrote on the Great Fire, has left the following account of this edifice as it appeared in his day:--"How full of riches," he exclaims, "was that Royal Exchange! Rich men in the midst of it, rich goods both above and beneath! There men walked upon the top of a wealthy mine, considering what Eastern treasures, costly spices, and such-like things were laid up in the bowels (I mean the cellars) of that place. As for the upper part of it, was it not the great storehouse whence the nobility and gentry of England were furnished with most of those costly things wherewith they did adorn either their closets or themselves? Here, if anywhere, might a man have seen the glory of the world in a moment. What artificial thing could entertain the senses, the fantasies of men, that was not there to be had? Such was the delight that many gallants took in that magazine of all curious varieties, that they could almost have dwelt there (going from shop to shop like bee from flower to flower), if they had but had a fountain of money that could not have been drawn dry. I doubt not but a Mohamedan (who never expects other than sensual delights) would gladly have availed himself of that place, and the treasures of it, for his heaven, and have thought there was none like it."

In 1665, during the Plague, great fires were made at the north and south entrances of the Exchange, to purify the air. The stoppage of public business was so complete that grass grew within the area of the Royal Exchange. The strange desertion thus indicated is mentioned in Pepys' "Notes." Having visited the Exchange, where he had not been for a good while, the writer exclaims: "How sad a sight it is to see the streets empty of people, and very few upon the 'Change, jealous of every door that one sees shut up, lest it should be the Plague, and about us two shops in three, if not more, generally shut up."

At the Great Fire the King and the Duke of York, afterwards James II., attended to give directions for arresting the calamity. They could think of nothing calculated to be so effectual as blowing up or pulling down houses that stood in its expected way. Such precautions were used in Cornhill; but in the confusion that prevailed, the timbers which they had contained were not removed, and when the flames reached them, "they," says Vincent, who wrote a sermon on the Fire, "quickly cross the way, and so they lick the whole street up as they go; they mount up to the top of the highest houses; they descend down to the bottom of the lowest vaults and cellars, and march along on both sides of the way with such a roaring noise as never was heard in the City of London: no stately building so great as to resist their fury; the Royal Exchange itself, the glory of the merchants, is now invaded with much violence. When the fire was entered, how quickly did it run around the galleries, filling them with flames; then descending the stairs, compasseth the walks, giving forth flaming vollies, and filling the court with sheets of fire. By and by the kings fell all down upon their faces, and the greater part of the stone building after them (the founder's statue alone remaining), with such a noise as was dreadful and astonishing."

In Wren's great scheme for rebuilding London, he proposed to make the Royal Exchange the centre nave of London, from whence the great sixty-feet wide streets should radiate like spokes in a huge wheel. The Exchange was to stand free, in the middle of a great piazza, and was to have double porticoes, as the Forum at Rome had. Evelyn wished the new building to be at Queenhithe, to be nearer the waterside, but eventually both his and Wren's plan fell through, and Mr. Jerman, one of the City surveyors, undertook the design for the new Bourse.

For the east end of the new building the City required to purchase 700 or 800 fresh superficial feet of ground from a Mr. Sweeting, and 1,400 more for a passage. It was afterwards found that the City only required 627 feet, and the improvement of the property would benefit Mr. Sweeting, who, however, resolutely demanded £1,000. The refractory, greedy Sweeting declared that his tenants paid him £246 a year, and in fines £620; and that if the new street cut near St. Benet Fink Church, another £1,000 would not satisfy him for his damage. It is supposed that he eventually took £700 for the 783 feet 4 inches of ground, and for an area 25 feet long by 12 wide.

Jerman's design for the new building being completed, and the royal approbation of it obtained, together with permission to extend the south-west angle of the new Exchange into the street, the building (of which the need was severely felt) was immediately proceeded with; and the foundation was laid on the 6th of May, 1667. On the 23rd of October, Charles II. laid the base of the column on the west side of the north entrance; after which he was plentifully regaled "with a chine of beef, grand dish of fowle, gammons of bacon, dried tongues, anchovies, caviare, &c, and plenty of several sorts of wine. He gave twenty pounds in gold to the workmen. The entertainment was in a shed, built and adorned on purpose, upon the Scotch Walk." Pepys has given some account of this interesting ceremony in his Diary, where we read, "Sir W. Pen and I back to London, and there saw the King with his kettle-drums and trumpets, going to the Exchange, which, the gates being shut, I could not get in to see. So, with Sir W. Pen to Captain Cockes, and thence again towards Westminster; but, in my way, stopped at the Exchange, and got in, the King being nearly gone, and there find the bottom of the first pillar laid. And here was a shed set up, and hung with tapestry, and a canopy of state, and some good victuals, and wine for the King, who, it seems, did it."

James II., then Duke of York, laid the first stone of the eastern column on the 31st of October. He was regaled in the same manner as the King had been; and on the 18th of November following, Prince Rupert laid the first stone of the east side of the south entrance, and was entertained by the City and company in the same place. (Vide "Journals of the House of Commons.")

The ground-plan of Jerman's Exchange, we read in Britton and Pugin's "Public Buildings," presented nearly a regular quadrangle, including a spacious open court with porticoes round it, and also on the north and south sides of the building. The front towards Cornhill was 210 feet in extent. The central part was composed of a lofty archway, opening from the middle intercolumniation of four Corinthian three-quarter columns, supporting a bold entablature, over the centre of which were the royal arms, and on the east side a balustrade, &c., surmounted by statues emblematical of the four quarters of the globe. Within the lateral intercolumniations, over the lesser entrance to the arcade, were niches, containing the statues of Charles I. and II., in Roman habits, by Bushnell. The tower, which rose from the centre of the portico, consisted of three storeys. In front of the lower storey was a niche, containing a statue of Sir Thomas Gresham; and over the cornice, facing each of the cardinal points, a bust of Queen Elizabeth; at the angles were colossal griffins, bearing shields of the City arms. Within the second storey, which was of an octagonal form with trusses at the angles, was an excellent clock with four dials; there were also four wind-dials. The upper storey (which contained the bell) was circular, with eight Corinthian columns supporting an entablature, surmounted by a dome, on which was a lofty vane of gilt brass, shaped like a grasshopper, the crest of the Gresham family. The attic over the columns, in a line with the basement of the tower, was sculptured with two alto-relievos, in panels, one representing Queen Elizabeth, with attendant figures and heralds, proclaiming the original building, and the other Britannia, seated amidst the emblems of commerce, accompanied by the polite arts, manufactures, and agriculture. The height from the basement line to the top of the dome was 128 feet 6 inches.

Within the quadrangle there was a spacious area, measuring 144 feet by 117 feet, surrounded by a wide arcade, which, as well as the area itself, was, for the general accommodation, arranged into several distinct parts, called "walks," where foreign and domestic merchants, and other persons engaged in commercial pursuits, daily met. The area was paved with real Turkey stones, of a small size, the gift, as tradition reports, of a merchant who traded to that country.

In the centre, on a pedestal, surrounded by an iron railing, was a statue of Charles II., in a Roman habit, by Spiller. At the intersections of the groining was a large ornamented shield, displaying either the City arms, the arms of the Mercers' Company, viz., a maiden's head, crowned, with dishevelled hair; or those of Gresham, viz., a chevron, ermine, between three mullets.

On the centre of each cross-rib, also in alternate succession, was a maiden's head, a grasshopper, and a dragon. The piazza was formed by a series of semi-circular arches, springing from columns. In the spandrils were tablets surrounded by festoons, scrolls, and other enrichments. In the wall of the back of the arcade were twenty-eight niches, only two of which were occupied by statues, viz., that toward the north-west, in which was Sir Thomas Gresham, by Cibber; and that toward the south-west, in which was Sir John Barnard, whose figure was placed here, whilst he was yet living, at the expense of his fellow-citizens, "in testimony of his merits as a merchant, a magistrate, and a faithful representative of the City in Parliament."

Over the arches of the portico of the piazza were twenty-five large niches with enrichments, in which were the statues of our sovereigns. Many of these statues were formerly gilt, but the whole were latterly of a plain stone colour. Walpole says that the major part were sculptured by Cibber.

We append a few allusions to the second 'Change in Addison's works, and elsewhere.

In 1683, the following idle verses appeared, forming part of Robin Conscience's "Progress through Court, City, and Country:"--

"Now I being thus abused below, Did walk upstairs, where on a row, Brave shops of ware did make a shew Most sumptious.

"The gallant girls that there sold knacks, Which ladies and brave women lacks, When they did see me, they did wax In choler.

"Quoth they, We ne'er knew Conscience yet, And, if he comes our gains to get, We'll banish him; he'll here not get One scholar."

"There is no place in the town," says that rambling philosopher, Addison, "which I so much love to frequent as the Royal Exchange. It gives me a secret satisfaction, and in some measure gratifies my vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an assembly of countrymen and foreigners consulting together upon the private business of mankind, and making this metropolis a kind of emporium for the whole earth. I must confess I look upon High 'Change to be a great council in which all considerable nations have their representatives. Factors in the trading world are what ambassadors are in the politic world; they negociate affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain a good correspondence between those wealthy societies of men that are divided from one another by seas and oceans, or live on the different extremities of a continent. I have often been pleased to hear disputes adjusted between an inhabitant of Japan and an alderman of London; or to see a subject of the great Mogul entering into a league with one of the Czar of Muscovy. I am infinitely delighted in mixing with these several ministers of commerce, as they are distinguished by their different walks and different languages. Sometimes I am jostled among a body of Armenians; sometimes I am lost in a crowd of Jews; and sometimes make one in a group of Dutchmen. I am a Dane, Swede, or Frenchman at different times; or rather, fancy myself like the old philosopher, who, upon being asked what countryman he was, replied that he was a citizen of the world."

"When I have been upon the 'Change" (such are the concluding words of the paper), "I have often fancied one of our old kings standing in person where he is represented in effigy, and looking down upon the wealthy concourse of people with which that place is every day filled. In this case, how would he be surprised to hear all the languages of Europe spoken in this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so many private men, who in his time would have been the vassals of some powerful baron, negotiating, like princes, for greater sums of money than were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury! Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of additional empire. It has multiplied the number of the rich, made our landed estates infinitely more valuable than they were formerly, and added to them an accession of other estates as valuable as the land themselves." (Spectator, No. 69.)

It appears, from one of Steele's contributions to the Spectator, that so late as the year 1712 the shops continued to present undiminished attraction. They were then 160 in number, and, letting at £20 or £30 each, formed, in all, a yearly rent of £4,000: so, at least, it is stated on a print published in 1712, of which a copy may be seen in Mr. Crowle's "Pennant." Steele, in describing the adventures of a day, relates that, in the course of his rambles, he went to divert himself on 'Change. "It was not the least of my satisfaction in my survey," says he, "to go upstairs and pass the shops of agreeable females; to observe so many pretty hands busy in the folding of ribbons, and the utmost eagerness of agreeable faces in the sale of patches, pins, and wires, on each side of the counters, was an amusement in which I could longer have indulged myself, had not the dear creatures called to me, to ask what I wanted."

"On evening 'Change," says Steele, "the mumpers, the halt, the blind, and the lame; your vendors of trash, apples, plums; your ragamuffins, rake-shames, and wenches--have jostled the greater number of honourable merchants, substantial tradesmen, and knowing masters of ships, out of that place. So that, what with the din of squallings, oaths, and cries of beggars, men of the greatest consequence in our City absent themselves from the Royal Exchange."

The cost of the second Exchange to the City and Mercers' Company is estimated by Strype at £80,000, but Mr. Burgon calculates it at only £69,979 11s. The shops in the Exchange, leading to a loss, were forsaken about 1739, and eventually done away with some time after by the unwise Act of 1768, which enabled the City authorities to pull down Gresham College. From time to time frequent repairs were made in Jerman's building. Those effected between the years 1819 and 1824 cost £34,390. This sum included the cost of a handsome gate tower and cupola, erected in 1821, from the design of George Smith, Esq., surveyor to the Mercers' Company, in lieu of Jerman's dilapidated wooden tower.

The clock of the second Exchange, set up by Edward Stanton, under the direction of Dr. Hooke, had chimes with four bells, playing six, and latterly seven tunes. The sound and tunable bells were bought for £6 5s. per cwt. The balconies from the inner pawn into the quadrangle cost about £300. The signs over the shops were not hung, but were over the doors.

Caius Gabriel Cibber, the celebrated Danish sculptor, was appointed carver of the royal statues of the piazza, but Gibbons executed the statue of Charles II. for the quadrangle. Bushnell, the mad sculptor of the fantastic statues on Temple Bar, carved statues for the Cornhill front, as we have before mentioned. The statue of Gresham in the arcade was by Cibber; George III., in the piazza, was sculptured by Wilton; George I. and II. were by Rysbrach.

The old clock had four dials, and chimed four times daily. The chimes played at three, six, nine, and twelve o'clock--on Sunday, "The 104th Psalm;" Monday, "God save the King;" Tuesday, "The Waterloo March;" Wednesday, "There's nae Luck aboot the Hoose;" Thursday, "See the Conquering Hero comes;" Friday, "Life let us cherish;" Saturday, "Foot Guards' March."

The outside shops of the second Exchange were lottery offices, newspaper offices, watchmakers, notaries, stockbrokers, &c. The shops in the galleries were superseded by the Royal Exchange Assurance Offices, Lloyd's Coffee-house, the Merchant Seamen's Offices, the Gresham Lecture Room, and the Lord Mayor's Court Office. "The latter," says Timbs, "was a row of offices, divided by glazed partitions, the name of each attorney being inscribed in large capitals upon a projecting board. The vaults were let to bankers, and to the East India Company for the stowage of pepper."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us