PROFIT ON FISH.
The old style Billingsgate fish-woman wore a strong, stiff gown tucked up, with a large quilted petticoat; her hair, cap and bonnet flattened into a mass from carrying fish baskets upon her head; her coarse cracked voice, her bloated face andher large brawny limbs completing the picture of the old Billingsgate "fish fag."
This virago has disappeared and a new market building was erected in 1849. A stone river-wall was constructed where an old mud bank formerly existed and the surface was filled in and levelled to equalize the grade in Thames street on which the market has its frontage. Within, the ground was excavated and formed into a lower market, which has two subterranean openings on the river, for the sale of shell-fish, oysters, muscles, prawns, periwinkles, and whelks. These shell-fish are kept in large half puncheons bound with iron hoops. The market has a superficial area of 2,700 feet, but the drainage in the lower market is very bad as it is below the level of the river. The upper market is open to the public through two large arched apertures, 400 feet wide, and below it is bounded by eighteen dark arches which are used by the salesmen as depositories for their goods. These arches are entirely without ventilation and even the market itself, thronged as it is for twelve hours of the day, receives no air but that which comes in a chance way from the already vitiated atmosphere of the neighborhood. The market is covered on the side next to London Bridge by a roof of rough glass. The light iron columns which serve to support the roof, also serve to divide the market into a series of narrow gangways, and within these gangways the dealers take their stand to vend and auction the fish every morning, book and pencil in hand, and their aprons hanging from their chests to their knees. There is a clock tower on the building and a bell which is rung at five o'clock every morning to announce the opening of the market, and then is witnessed a general rush like the retreat of an army. The railways alone carry to this market annually, 15,000 tons of fish, besides the amount which is brought by water.
Five hundred years ago this market produced a rental of forty-six pounds per annum; to-day there is a firm which has a small stall whose profits on fish amount to £10,000 a year, and the good-will of one fish merchant in the market, I believe, was purchased last year for the large sum of £30,000. Aboutthe same time that the market rental was forty-six pounds a year, the best soles sold for three pence per dozen, the best turbot for six pence each, the best mackerel one penny each, the best pickled herrings one penny the score; fresh oysters two pennies a gallon, and the best eels two pennies per quarter of a hundred. William Wallace, the Scottish hero, was then a prisoner in the Tower, and Bannockburn had not been won by Bruce, and the ink on the Magna Charta was hardly dry.
In 1548, although the king of England was a Protestant, and the government a Protestant one, yet an act was passed which imposed a penalty on those who ate flesh on fish days. This was to protect the trade in the fisheries, however, and not to interfere with the private religious opinions of the people. The consumption of fish in the household of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in the year 1314, was 6,800 stock fish, consisting of ling, haberdine, &c., besides six barrels of sturgeon, the whole valued at £60 of the money of that period.
It is four o'clock of a summer morning at Billingsgate market and all London is as yet solitary, and the streets are unpeopled by traffic or pedestrians. The sight from London Bridge is magnificent on such a morning. In the words of the poet who looked upon this same scene:
"This city now doth like a garment wearThe beauty of the morning; silent, bare,Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie,Open unto the fields and to the skyAll bright and glittering in the smokeless air.Never did sun more beautifully steepIn his first splendor valley, rock, or hill;Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!The river glideth at its own sweet will;Dear God! The very houses seem asleep,And all that mighty heart is still."
Riot, profligacy, want and misery have retired, and labor has scarcely risen. As we approach Billingsgate, the profound silence of the dawn is now and then broken by the wheels of the fishmonger's light cart, which is proceeding to the market.
market
AN AUCTION AT BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET.
The whole area of the market, brilliantly lighted with streaming flames of gas, comes into view. One might fancy that the stalls were dressed for a feast. The tables of the salesmen, which are arranged from one side of the covered area to the other, afford ample space for clustering throngs of buyers around each. The stalls appear to form one table, but the portion assigned to each is nine feet by six. Each salesman sits with his back to another, and between them is a wooden shelf, so that they are apparently enclosed in a recess, but by this arrangement they escape having their pockets picked, a common occurrence where there is a large crowd. There are about 200 fish salesmen in London and half of that number have stalls in this market for which a pretty good rent is paid.
Proceeding to the bottom of the market, we perceive the masts of the fishing boats rising out of the fog which envelopes the river. The boats lie considerably below the level of the market, and the descent is by several ladders to a floating wharf, which rises and falls with the tide, and is therefore always on the same level with the boats. About fifty of these craft are moored alongside of each other.
THE OYSTER BOATS.
The oyster boats are crowded together by themselves. The buyer goes on board the oyster boat, as oysters are not sold in the ordinary, morning market. The fishermen and porters are busily engaged in arranging their cargoes for quick delivery as soon as the market begins. Two or three minutes before five the salesmen take their seats in the enclosed recesses, watching each other eagerly. The porters with their dirty canvass aprons and their huge scooped hats stand ready with their baskets on their heads, but not one of them is allowed, however, to have the advantage of his fellows by an unfair start, or to overstep a line marked out by the clerk of the market. The instant the clock strikes the melee commences and then woe to the bystander who blocks up the way—he is knocked down and trampled on, and fish of all sizes are spilled over his prostrate body, while his eyes, hands, limbs and other members, are blessed with great fervor by the porters.
Each porter now rushes at his utmost speed to the respective salesman to whom his basket is consigned. The largest codfish are brought in baskets which contain four; those somewhat smaller are brought in boxes; and smaller sizes in dozens, and still larger numbers, but always in baskets. All fish are sold by the "tail," or by number excepting salmon, which are sold by weight, and oysters and shell-fish by measure. The baskets are instantly emptied on the tables, and the porters hasten for a fresh supply. It is the fisherman's interest to bring his whole cargo into the market as soon as possible, for if the quantity brought to market be large, prices will fall the more quickly, and if they are high, buyers purchase less freely, and he may miss the sale. As, for example, a boat load of mackerel from Brighton sold at Billingsgate for forty guineas per hundred, or seven shillings each, an extraordinary price—while the next boat load produced but thirteen guineas per hundred.
The majority of the fishing vessels are sloops and schooners under fifty tons each, and of this number the greater part belong to ports on the coast as follows:
Salmon is conveyed by rail in large boxes, covered with pounded ice, which preserves them fresh for six days, and sometimes in the summer months as many as 3,000 boxes of salmon are received at Billingsgate in a day. The salmon are sent to agents to be sold on commission at a profit of five to ten per cent., the agent taking the risk of bad debts, and the price varies from fivepence to a shilling a pound, according to the supply in market.
BREAKFAST AT BILLINGSGATE.
The best time to see Billingsgate is of a Friday morning between six and seven o'clock. The regular fish merchants come first and are served first, and then their places are taken by the Costermongers, or street pedlars, who buy the refuse, or what is left. Lower Thames street, above and below London Bridge, is sure to be crammed full of fish carts and fish porters running hither and thither with baskets of fish upon their shoulders, and it is noticeable that the lower part of every building is open and the spaces filled with fish of all kinds, chiefly smoked and preserved fish, which are exposed in large baskets and boxes for sale. The proprietors of these places, some of whom do business in salted and smoked fish with every part of the civilized globe, stand at the doors of their wholesale shops with large aprons upon them, although their bank accounts may amount to scores of thousands of pounds.
Up Fish street as far as the monument are long lines of carts waiting for fish, drawn by asses and horses, and around the monument may be seen a perfect circle of carts guarded by ragged boys, some of whom contract to take care of a dozen carts at a time for a penny a cart, while the Costers are purchasing the fish.
Formerly the consumption of spirits here among the buyers of fish was very great, but now at a very early hour in the morning a hot cup of coffee with a slice of bread and butter can be procured at any of the numerous coffee stalls for twopence-halfpenny.
The men and women are shouting and hallooing at each other as if they were mad. Old gentlemen who have a good appetite and come here to make a market for their families, are very often seen to enter the tavern called the "Three Tuns," which is in the market enclosure, and at which a fish dinner or fish breakfast of three dishes can be procured for eighteen pence. It is very puzzling at first to understand the cries, which come hard and fast from the mouths of salesmen and hucksters, costers and pedlars of newspapers, frequenters of coffee stands, and other trades people.
"Now, you mussel buyers," shouts one, "come along—come along—now's your time for fine, fat, greasy, mussels."
"All alive! al-ive oh—alive oh! Han-some cod! best in the market. All alive oh!"
"Y-e-o—y-e-o! Y-e-o—here's your fine Yarmouth Bloaters! Who's the buyer?"
"Here you are, guv'-ner; splendid whiting! some of the right sort."
"M-o-rningT-e-l-e-graph, one penny.StandardandTimes."
"Turbot! all alive—turbot."
"Glass o' nice peppermint! this cold morning—ha'penny a glass!"
"Here you are at yer hown price! Fine soles, Oh!"
"W-oy, w-o-y! Now's your time—preguzzling sprouts—all large and no small 'uns."
"H-u-l-l-o, h-u-l-l-o, here, I say—bewteeful lobsters—good and cheap—fine cock crabs, all alive, hoh."
"Never mind 'im, guvner; he'll cheat yer; look at this 'ere turbot—have that lot for a pound—come and see—now don't go away, guvner—the're preshis cheap, and filling at the price."
"Had-had-had-had-haddick—all fresh and good."
"Here, this way—this way for splendid Skate—Skate O—Skate O."
"Currant and meat puddin's, a penny each and werry 'ot." "Here's food for the belly and clothes for the back, but I sell food for the mind" (shouts the newspaper vender). "Here's smelt O!" "Here ye are, fine Finney haddick!" "Hot soup! nice pea soup! a-all hot! hot! Ahoy! ahoy here! live plaice! all alive O! Now or never! whelk! whelk! whelk! whelk! Who'll buy brill O! brill O! Capes! waterproof capes! sure to keep the wet out! a shilling a piece! Eels O! eels O! Alive! alive O!" "Fine flounders, a shilling a lot! Who'll buy this prime lot of flounders? Shrimps! shrimps! fine shrimps! Wink! wink! wink! Hi! hi-i! here you are, just eight eels left, only eight! O ho! O ho! this way—this way—this way! Fish alive! alive! alive O!"
THE CAPITAL INVESTED.
"Fresh do you call these?" says one who finds the price of a lot of sprats too high for him. "Look a-how they rolls hup the vites of their heyes, as hif they vanted a little rain. I should say they hadn't a blessed smell of water for a week past."
"Think I've been a robbin' of somebody?" says another. "Vy, bless you, all the whole bilin' of my customers hasn't got so much among 'em as would buy the lot—no, not if they sold their veskits."
As many as two thousand persons breakfast at the coffee houses in the neighborhood of Billingsgate every morning, all of whom are engaged in the fish business.
The following estimate has been made of the gross amount of fish of different kinds, sold at Billingsgate market in the course of the year:
The capital embarked in this trade is something enormous to think of. Salmon when scarce, have sold for twenty shillings a pound. The market is the property of the Municipality of London associated with the Company of Fishmongers, one of the most powerful and wealthy corporate societies in London. Fifty per cent. of the gross amount of fish received at Billingsgate market is purchased by the Costermongers and sold from carts in the streets, at a small profit to the pedlars.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE INNS OF COURT.
THEREe are four Inns of Court in London and thirteen Inns of Chancery. The Inns of Court are the Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn. The Inns of Chancery are Barnard's Inn, Holborn; Clement's Inn, Strand; Clifford's Inn, Fleet street; Furnival's Inn, between Brook street and Leather lane; Lyon's Inn, Strand; New Inn, Wych street; Sergeant's Inn, Chancery lane; Staple Inn, Holborn; Sergeant's Inn, Fleet street; Symond's Inn, Chancery Inn, and Thavie's Inn, 56 and 57 Holborn Hill.
These Inns of Court and Chancery are large boarding-houses or hotels; and in the middle ages, they were called "inns" or "hostels," where students in law and Chancery were taught the legal science and ate their meals while living as students at a common table as in college. This is called "dining in hall," and certain rules and regulations are prescribed so that the aspiring student may not expect to have the license of the American boarding-house, being in fact in a state of pupilage as was intended by the founders of the splendid (for I cannot use any other term) Inns of Court.
In the old days of the York and Lancaster factions, the Sergeants and "apprentices at law," as the students were called, each had their pillars in Old St. Paul's, and at the foot of the pillar the student, half kneeling, heard his client's case and jotted down the points on his tablet.
GRAY'S INN GARDENS.
The four Inns of Court were frequented by sons of wealthy commoners and the nobility, while the Inns of Chancery had for pupils and boarders, the sons of merchants and tradesmen, who had not the means of paying the expenses of the Inns of Court which amounted to twenty marks, annually, a large sum in those days.
About 8,000 students attend the Inns of Court and Chancery in London, and it is a very strange sight to see the dark chambers in some of these ancient Inns with their old fashioned, mediæval architecture, parapets, gate-ways, unillumined windows, courts, and passages, amidst one of the very busiest spots in London.
Go inside of one of these courts and you shall no longer hear the sullen roar of the city, or the clatter of the omnibusses, nor the incessant and deafening din of hawkers and street pedlars. A monastic silence reigns, and in the grass-grown square of Lincoln's Inn, all is silent as the grave, and in the dim passages of Clifford's and Clement's Inns, it is very difficult to believe that the densely-packed Strand and thronged Fleet street are so near.
During Elizabeth's reign, alms were distributed twice a week at the gate of Gray's Inn, and James I. signified that none but gentlemen of descent and blood should be admitted to matriculate. The "Reader," a lazy official of Gray's had a liberal allowance of wine and venison for which sixpence and eightpence were paid per mess, and eggs and green sauce were breakfast dishes on Lenten day. Beer was then only six shillings a barrel. Caps were worn at supper by order, and hats and boots and spurs, and standing with the back to the fire in the hall were forbidden the students under penalty. Dice and cards were only allowed at Christmas. Two students slept in a bed and Coke and Littleton are said to have been at one time bed-fellows.
Gray's Inn Gardens was one of the most pleasant places in London in the old days long agone, and during the reign of Charles I., it was frequented as a place of assignation. The principal entrance to Gray's Inn is from Holborn by a gateway, a fine specimen of brick-work of 1542. The hall of Lincoln's Inn has an open oak roof, divided into seven bays by gothic arched ribs, the spandrils and pendants richly carved; in the centre is an open louvre, which is pinnacled externally. The interior is richly wainscoted, decorated with Tuscan columns, and the windows are of stained glass, gorgeously emblazoned. The library 80 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 44 feet high has an open oak roof, with separate apartments for study, and iron balconies running around the book-cases. There are in this apartment five stained glass windows, and a collection of valuable law books and MSS. to the number of 25,000.
inn
LINCOLN'S INN.
On either side of the dais of the dining hall beneath the lofty oriel window in Lincoln's Inn, is a sideboard for the upper or "benchers" table who are the high authorities of the place; the other tables are arranged in graduation, two crosswise and five along the hall for the barristers and students who dine here every day during term; the average number is 200; and of those who dine on one day or another during the term "keeping commons," there are about 500 students.
LINCOLN'S INN.
The new hall of Lincoln's Inn, just completed and equal to anything in England, is situated on the site of the old hall, between Middle Temple Cloister and Crown Office-row. It is of the Perpendicular Gothic style, faced externally with Portland stone and internally with Bath. The building projects towards the gardens 14 feet more than the old hall, which measured 70 feet by 29 feet; the new hall being 93 feet by 41 feet. Its floor above the pavement-level, and the basement is occupied by the various offices required for the officials. In rebuilding their hall, the "Benchers" have availed themselves of the opportunity to extend and improve the domestic offices; to provide commodious robing-rooms, and lavatories for the use of members and of students and to obtain better clerks' offices.
New offices have also been built for the treasurer, and the Parliament Chamber has been increased in size. The interior of the hall is panelled, to the height of nine feet, with a very handsome wainscot dado; the panels with cinquefoil cusp heads, surmounted by an embattled cornice—a magnificent specimen of joiner's work. The Parliament Chamber, attached to the hall eastward, has been considerably altered and improved—this is what may be called the drawing-room attached to the hall, where the "Benchers" retire for dessert. The kitchen is attached at the west end, and fitted up with the latest modern appliances. The hall is to be heated with hot water and lighted with sun-burners, and very handsome ornamental gas-brackets have also been introduced on the side walls.
Lincoln's Inn occupied the site of the Convent of Blackfriars, which was built by Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. Among the famous students of the Middle Temple, were Edmund Burke, Bulstrode Whitelocke, Wycherley and Congreve, Sir William Blackstone, Lord Chancellors Eldon and Stowell, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and Oliver Goldsmith.
The number of students in the reign of Henry VI. were:Four Inns of Court, each 200—800; ten Inns of Chancery, each 100—1000; total 1800. To-day there are in the four Inns of Court alone, 4500 students.
In Gray's Inn lived Dr. Rawlinson, "Tom Folio" of the "Tatler," who stuffed four chambers so full of books that he was compelled to sleep in the passage.
How to become a lawyer is the only science studied in the Inns of Court, and the manner of doing it is as I shall describe. The four Inns of Court, viz.: the Middle and Inner Temples, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn, have exclusively the power of conferring the degree of Barrister-at-Law, requsite for practising as an advocate or counsel in the superior courts. Lincoln's Inn is generally preferred by students who contemplate the Equity Bar; it being the locality of Equity Counsel and Conveyancers, and of Equity Courts or Courts of Chancery. If the student design to practise the common law, either immediately as an advocate at Westminster, the assizes, and sessions, or as a special pleader (a learned person who, having kept his terms, is allowed to draw legal forms and pleadings, though not actually at the bar), his choice lies usually between the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, and Gray's Inn, though he may adopt Lincoln's Inn. The Inner Temple, from its formerly insisting on a classical examination before admission, became more exclusive than the Middle Temple or Gray's Inn. Gray's Inn is numerously attended by Irish students, and has produced some of the greatest luminaries at the Irish Bar, including Daniel O'Connell.
To procure admission to either of these Inns, the student must obtain the certificate of two barristers, coupled in the Middle Temple with that of a Bencher, to the effect that the applicant is a fit person to be received into the Inn, for the purpose of being called to the Bar. Once admitted, the student has the use of the library, and is entitled to a seat in the church or chapel of the Inn, and to have his name set down for chambers.
"DINNER IN HALL"
He is then required to keep "commons," by dining in the hall for twelve terms (four terms occur each year), on commencing which, he must deposit with the treasurer £100, to be retained with interest until he is "called"; but members of the Universities are exempt from this deposit. The student must also sign a bond with sureties for the payment of his commons and term-fees. In all the Inns no person can be called unless he is above twenty-one years of age and of three years' standing as a student. The "call" is made by the Benchers in council; after which the student becomes a barrister, and takes the usual oath at Westminster. In certain Inns, however, the student must, before his call, attend certain lectures, which are a revival of the old readings, without their festivities.
To witness one of the "Hall Dinners" is enough to bring back the days of chivalry to one's mind. There is the lofty, grand Gothic roof, the long tables, the grace before meat, which is offered by the "Reader," the magnificent windows of stained glass, which project a thousand varied hues on the faces of the students, and the grave features of the Benchers who sit aloft on the dais.
At five or half-past five o'clock, the barristers, students and other members, in their gowns, having assembled in the hall, the Benchers enter in procession to the dais; the steward strikes the table three times, grace is said by the treasurer or senior Bencher present, and the dinner commences; the Benchers observe somewhat more style at their table than the other members do at theirs; the general repast is a tureen of soup, a joint of meat, a tart, and cheese, to each mess consisting of four persons; each mess is also allowed a bottle of port-wine. The dinner over, the Benchers, after grace, retire to their own apartments. At the Inner Temple, on May 29, a gold cup of "sack" is handed to each member, who drinks to the happy restoration of Charles II. At Gray's Inn a similar custom prevails, but the toast is the memory of Queen Elizabeth. The Inner Temple Hall waiters are called "panniers," from "pan-arii" who attended the Knights Templars. At both Temples the form of the dinner resembles the repasts of the military monks; the Benchers on the dais representing the "knights;" the barristers the "freres," or brethren; and the students, the"novices." The Middle Temple still bears the arms of the Knights Templars, viz., the figure of the Holy Lamb.
The entrance expenses at the Inner Temple (the average of the costs at other Inns), are £40 11s. 5d., of which £25 1s. 3d. is for the stamp; on call, £82 12s., of which £52 2s. 6d. is for the stamp; total, £123 3s. The commons bill is about £12 annually.
Of Clement's Inn in the Strand which is just the same Clement's Inn as it was when Shakspeare lived, that poet speaks as follows in the second part of Henry IV.:
Shallow.I was once of Clement's Inn, where, I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet.
Silence.You were called lusty Shallow, then, cousin.
Shallow.By the mass, I was called any thing; and I would have done any thing indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and Black George Barnes of Staffordshire, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold man; you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the Inns of Court again.
Then Shallow tells of Sir John Falstaff breaking "Skogan's head at the court-gate when he was a crack not thus high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn."
Shallow.Oh, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the Windmill in St. George's Fields?
Falstaff.We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
Shallow.I remember at Mile-End Green (when I lay at Clement's Inn), I was then Sir Dagonet in Arthur's Show.
Then Falstaff says of Shallow: "I do remember him at Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring."
Before a student can enter an Inn of Court and eat his first dinner, he must deposit £100 as security that he will pay for the rest of his dinners. No student is allowed to keep a "term" unless he has been three days in "hall" when grace is said at dinner.
IRISH STUDENTS.
No person in trade or in deacon's orders, or one who has been a conveyancer's clerk, can be admitted at all, so strict are the rules. No gentleman can be called to the bar by any of these Inns which are corporate and chartered bodies, before having been a member or student of his Inn for five years, unless that he is a Bachelor of Laws, or a Master of Arts of the Universities of Oxford, Dublin, or Cambridge, when three years is the period required. No one can be called to the bar until his name and description have been put up on the screen in the hall of the Inn to which he belongs for a fortnight previous to his call, and communicated to all the other societies.
Irish students must keep eight terms in one of the English Inns, as well as nine in the King's Inns, Dublin, before they can be called to the Irish bar.
Irish students may keep terms in London and Dublin alternately, or in any other order they may think proper. Gray's Inn is the favorite Inn of Irish students, for the reason that discipline is not so strict as in the Inner or Middle Temple, or Lincoln's Inn, and, besides, no charge is made for "absent commons," or being away from the dinners, while in the other Inns the student is charged for his meals in any case.
tailpiece
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE BANK OF ENGLAND AND THE MINT.
THE Bank of England is the greatest moneyed institution in the world. It is situated in the very heart of the City of London, opposite the Royal Exchange and the Mansion House, and is composed of an insulated mass of stone buildings and courts covering four acres of ground, bounded by Princes's street, west; Lothbury, north; Bartholomew Lane, east; and Threadneedle street, south. Its exterior measurements are 365 feet south, 410 feet north, 245 feet east, and 440 feet west.
Within this area are nine open courts, a magnificent Rotunda, numerous public offices, court and committee rooms, an armory, engraving and printing offices, a library, apartments for officers' servants, beadles, detectives, porters, and messengers.
During the No-Popery riots of 1780, the Bank was attacked by the mob, when Wilkes rushed out of the building and seized some of the ringleaders. The Bank was defended by the regulars, the City Volunteers, and the Clerks of the establishment, who melted their leaden inkstands into bullets. For ninety years since that terrible night, the bank has been guarded by a company of foot soldiers, detailed in regular rotation from the Horse Guards, under command of one officer, for whom a sumptuous table is set every night, with the privilege of inviting two friends, while servants are provided for him.
THE BANK ESTABLISHED.
In the political tumult of November, 1830, provisions were made at the Bank for a state of siege, and when the Chartists made their great demonstrations in 1848, the roof of the Bank was fortified by a company of sappers and miners, cannon were planted, and a strong garrison held every court and passage in the interior.
The number of clerks and porters and other employees who are retained by the Bank, is one thousand or more, and their salaries amount to half a million of pounds, or two and a half millions of dollars annually.
In 1808 an arrangement was made by the English Government with the Bank, by which the latter undertook the management of the English national Debt, at a rate of £340 for each million of the debt up to 600 millions of pounds, and £300 for every additional million.
The Bank of England was established (1694) chiefly by Mr. William Paterson, the projector of the Scotch Colony of Darien, who commenced by founding a National Bank, 1691. To carry on the war with France (1694) Government required a loan of £1,200,000, and imposed new taxes, expected to yield a million and a half. The subscribers to the loan were incorporated under the title of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, and empowered to buy land, to deal in gold and silver, and in bills of exchange. The interest on the loan was 8 per cent., besides which Government agreed to pay £4,000 a year for the cost of management, or £100,000 in all.
In the vicinity of the Bank of England there is a dense traffic, and it is necessary that suitable provender should be found for the large number of bankers and bankers' clerks, who, living in cosy little villas at Brompton, Paddington, and Maida Hill, and are compelled to eat their warm lunches in the city during business hours.
The Poultry, Bucklersbury, King William, Prince and Leadenhall streets, are lined with these comfortable, pleasant looking eating-houses and dining-rooms, where the moneyed men and their smart looking clerks sit back in easy little boxes, withturtle soup, salad, and juicy rump steaks before them, and long necked wine bottles in ice coolers between their feet, chatting about stocks and Change and Turkish Loans.
In the parlor lobby of the Bank is a portrait of Mr. David Race, who was in the service of the institution over fifty years, during which time he amassed a fortune of £200,000.
house
BANKERS' EATING HOUSE.
The Bullion Office, on the western side of the Bank, consists of a public chamber and two vaults—one for the open deposit of bullion free of charge, unless weighed, the other for the private stock of the Bank.
Here are employed a Principal, Deputy Principal, Clerk, Assistant Clerk, and porters.
The gold is kept in solid bars, each bar weighing 16 pounds and valued at £800, or $4,000, and the silver in pigs and bars, while the dollars are kept in bags.
The value of the gold in the vaults of the Bank in 1869 wasabout twenty millions of pounds, or one hundred millions of dollars.
One day I received an order which was sent me by a friend, giving me full authority to visit the Bank of England. I had not a little curiosity to satisfy, and accordingly I arrived at the Bank as early as eleven o'clock in the day.
LEDGERS AND MONEY-BAGS.
Passing through the central entrance, which is opposite the Mansion House, I found myself in a spacious court well flagged, and here were two boxes in which sat a brace of Old Jewry detectives, who are on duty in this spot from one end of the year to the other. These men receive gratuities from the Bank beside their regular pay. There were also in the yard two big fat beadles in red coats and leggings, their garments being covered with tinsel. These fat, logy looking fellows are the footmen of the Bank, who are employed to watch for suspicious strangers and to guide any visitors who may come.
While an attendant was reading the order which I handed him, I could hear the musical jingle of sovereigns and silver coins, being rattled up and down in the interior of the building.
I was taken by the guide into a large vaulted room with a cupola, in which were a perfect army of clerks, some young and brisk, others old, gray, and ponderous, ranged in long rows behind the desks, making up accounts, weighing gold and paying it over the counters, or writing in huge ledgers.
Outside the circular railings, which run all around this very large room, were stationed a vast crowd of depositors, men and women, or persons drawing money in gold or silver. Continually from the throats of the clerks arose the words:
"How will you have it. Gold or silver? Sovereigns or halves?"
Here is a lady who has traveled very far, perhaps, for her dividends. She has taken a seat and a number of curious eyes are gazing at her as she slowly takes a wing of a chicken and a piece of snowy white bread from a napkin and commences to eat, in the midst of all this wealth and confusion of the richest city in the world.
The number of ledgers and account books behind these barsare enough to frighten one. When the day's business is done all these huge books are stowed away by the porters in the fire-proof room under ground, and brought up again in the morning, for they are fully as valuable as the large sums inscribed on their leaves.
Machinery has been perfected so that these bulky account books may be hoisted and lowered every day.
Look at that young man with his banking case chained under his arm; the rolls of checks and notes he holds in his hands will probably amount to thousands of pounds; he catches the eyes of one of the clerks, calls out the amount, hands the bulky bundle over the brass mounted railing and quits the room, leaving the sum to be counted over at leisure.
See how carelessly the cashier handles that heavy bag of gold; he has no time to count it, but throws it into the scale as a coal heaver would a sack of coals—so long as it is right weight, that's all he cares about; he then shoots it into his large drawer and throws the bag aside as if he did not mind whether a sovereign stuck in the bag or not.
He counts sovereigns by twos and threes at a time; you feel confident that he must have given you either too many or too few, he appears so negligent; you count them, and there they are quite correct, and no mistake whatever.
The guide says to me: "Sometimes, Sir, the clerks are kept in the Bank for hours when there's a sixpence wrong in the balance, and they have to go over and over the books until they make the sixpence right. It's awful work, to have to go over them long columns of figures and no chance of getting away until everything is correct."
"Was there ever any great forgery committed on the Bank?" I asked the guide, who seemed to be a very intelligent man, having been in the Bank forty years.
"Ah, yes Sir, there was two great ones. In old times a great many men were hanged for forging Bank of England notes. In one year, I think it was 1820, there was over a hundred persons convicted of forgery, and nearly nine hundred were convicted for having forged notes in their pockets. Why, Sir,when I was a boy I remember as many as twenty-four hanged in one year for forgery on the Bank. I think the year was 1818. In 1803 there was a great forgery, committed by Mr. Astlett, who was one of the chief cashiers of the Bank. The amount was so large it frightened every body. Astlett done his work so well, by re-issuing Exchequer bills, that he defrauded the Bank out of £320,000 before they knew it. You may imagine what a row there was when it was found out. The old Governor nearly went mad."
"Was any other great forgery ever attempted?" said I, curious to hear those details of forgotten crime.
"Oh yes Sir," said the old man, "the biggest forgery of all was Fauntleroy's, in 1816, that was a great deal bigger than Astlett's, for it was for £360,000, and the way of it was this: You see Mr. Fauntleroy was the head partner of a bank in Berners street that had dealing with the Bank of England, and the bank that he belonged to was in a bad state, so what does Fauntleroy do to keep up its credit, but he goes to work quite cooly and forges powers of attorney of a lot of nobs and he sells out their funds, and all the time he was a-working in the dark this way, he wos a payin' of the divydends to them. Then the crash came at last, and before he was caught, when the police broke into his house, they found a note and on the note was written:—
"The Bank first began to refuse to discount our acceptances, and to destroy the credit of our house; and by G—d the Bank shall smart for it."
"So, that's the way he did it, but he was hanged for it, and I saw him swing. I never saw so many people in my life as was at that hanging. All London was there, Sir, and when he got off the cart you would have thought he was going to a party, he was so blessed cool."
THE GREAT PANIC OF 1825.
There was a "Great Panic" in the Bank of England in December, 1825, caused by the redemption of interest on £215,000,000 of stock held by the public. The Bank of England was acting as banker for the Nation, and offered to advance money to holders of stock to pay off their principal investment.This was an era of mad speculation, and no less than £372,000,000 was invested in all kinds of bogus stock projects. In some of these schemes shares of £100 on which only £5 had been paid, rose to a premium of £40, yielding a profit of eight times the amount of money paid. Everything went merry as a marriage bell for a time, and large sums had been withdrawn from the Bank of England, reducing the gold in its vaults from £8,750,000, in October, 1824, to £3,624,320 in February, 1825.
The panic began on the 5th of December, 1825, when a London bank failed, at which the agency of above forty country banks was transacted, and such a re-action was the necessary result of the previous madness of speculation. Lombard street, and the vicinity of the Bank, were filled with excited men and women, who were waiting eagerly to withdraw their investments. Next day, a number of other banks failed. The rush on the Bank of England was terrific, but the clerks kept paying away gold in bags of twenty-five sovereigns each. From nine until five, each day, twenty-five clerks were engaged, counting out gold, and as it would take that number of clerks to count out £50,000 in sovereigns, if counted by hand, a plan was made by which the tellers counted 25 sovereigns into one scale and 25 into another, and if the scales balanced, they continued until there were 200 sovereigns in each scale. In this way £1,000 were paid out in a few minutes, the weight of one thousand sovereigns being 21 pounds, while 512 bank notes only weigh one pound. In this way £307,000, in gold, was paid out in nine hours to the clamorous people.