Bank of England

the principal bank of London, the greatest banking establishment in the world. Seen from the outside, it is a large, irregular, one-story building covering about four acres. It is surrounded entirely by streets. For the sake of security, the outside walls are without windows. The offices are lighted from inside courts. Visitors and those having business enter through a guarded gateway in Threadneedle Street, whence the bank is called the "Old Lady of Threadneedle Street." It was founded in 1694 by a shrewd Scotchman named William Paterson, who obtained a royal charter, conferring power to issue paper money. It is still the only bank in London having that authority. The bank is a joint stock affair. The original capital was 1,200,000 pounds. Nine hundred employes are paid salaries varying from $250 to $6,000. The vaults contain usually from $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 of gold and silver. This is about equal to the value of the Bank of England notes in circulation. The bank receives a grant of $1,000,000 a year for managing the national debt. This is a large sum to receive in a single commission, but it amounts only to one-thirty-eighth of one per cent. The bank does the usual banking business, receiving deposits, cashing checks, and making loans. It is under obligation to buy all the gold bullion offered at a price fixed by Parliament. The business of the bank amounts to about $10,000,000 a day. It has its own printing room for the making of blank books and the printing of its own paper money. A bank note is never reissued. Even though a customer receive the note at one window and pay it in at another, it is cancelled. The notes taken in each day are laid away carefully for ten years, in case they may be needed as evidence in some lawsuit. Each month a little furnace holding several bushels is stuffed full of the notes taken in ten years before. See Wall Street