large quantities of gold and silver. In the Weighing Office, in another part of the bank, Mr. W. Cotton's ingenious machine is employed to detect light gold coin. The light pieces are separated in the process of weighing from those of full weight, and so quick is the operation, that 35,000 may be weighed in a day by one machine. When the gold coin has been weighed it is put into bags of £1000, which are deposited in the iron presses of the Treasury, a well-secured apartment.

The operation of printing bank notes is well worth seeing. The paper is of peculiar make, the texture and water marking almost beyond imitation. The printing machinery is of most ingenious construction, the invention of a father and son named Oldham. Each half of a note is numbered alike, and as the printing proceeds, the machine alters the number in readiness for the next note. When a note that has been issued is returned to the bank, it is immediately cancelled, and consequently new notes are continually issuing to replace those that come in. Notes representing from 18 to 19 millions sterling are usually in circulation.

The principal offices are the Pay Hall, 79 feet by 40; the Rotunda or Dividend Pay Office, with a dome 57 feet in diameter; Transfer Offices; the £5 note Office; the Private Drawing Office; and the Post Bill Office. A small military force is stationed in the bank at night to protect it from attack, and some of the clerks remain up through the night keeping watch.

The public may walk through the principal offices during business hours. Admission to the other parts can only be obtained by an order from a director, the governor, or deputy-governor, and a special order is required for the Bullion Office.

THE ROYAL EXCHANGE,

the head-quarters of London commerce, occupies a conspicuous position near the Bank of England, between Cornhill and Threadneedle Street, on the site of the first Exchange, built by Sir Thomas Gresham, and presented by him to his fellow merchants in the reign of Elizabeth. That edifice had shops like the present Exchange, and we read in the old plays of "the gaudy shops of Gresham's burse." This structure was destroyed by the great fire of London in 1666. Three years afterwards the second Exchange was opened. This building was also destroyed by fire, an event which occurred in January 1838.

The present Exchange, which cost £180,000, designed by Mr. W. Tite, was opened by Queen Victoria in October 1844. Its total length is 308 feet. The west front has a fine portico, 96 feet wide, supported by 12 columns 41 feet high, and having the pediment ornamented by numerous allegorical figures by R. Westmacott. On the south side of the building, over the three centre arches, are the arms of Gresham, of the City, and of the Mercers' Company; and these arms are again given on the entablature at the east end. On the north side, over the three central arches, are some mottoes; that in the middle is Sir Thomas Gresham's Fortun à my; that on the east side is the City's Domine dirige nos; and on the other side is the Mercers' Company's Honor Deo. Passing through the great portico we reach an open area, surrounded by a spacious arcade or ambulatory, the roof and walls of which have been painted in fresco by F. Sang. Coats of arms, with arabesque designs are here given in rich and lively colours. In the middle of the area stands a marble statue of the Queen by Lough; and in the eastern corners of the arcade are statues of Elizabeth and Charles II. The chief days on 'Change are Tuesday and Friday, and the busy time is from half-past three to half-past four. A tall tower on the east side carries a clock, and is surmounted by a great gilt grasshopper, the device of Sir Thomas Gresham. Shops and offices occupy the ground floor on three sides, which greatly spoil the effect as a piece of architecture. The principal floor is occupied by rooms appropriated to two of the great insurance offices and to the underwriters' establishment of Lloyds. To the latter, access is gained by a flight of steps at the east end of the building. The great room, where the business of underwriting (ie. insuring ships) is transacted, is 98 feet long and 40 feet wide. In the vestibule is a statue of the statesman Huskisson by Gibson, and a mural tablet with an inscription recording the extraordinary exertions of the Times newspaper in the exposure of a remarkable fraud on the mercantile public. In the various rooms meet merchants, ship-owners, insurance-brokers, and other persons interested in foreign commerce. To this place the agents of the establishment, who are scattered all over the world, forward the earliest news of the departure, the arrival, the loss, or the damage of ships. The subscribers are about 1900 in number; members pay an entrance fee of 25 guineas, and an annual subscription of four guineas, but if underwriters and

insurance-brokers the annual subscription is 10 guineas. To aid the calculations of insurers, there in here a self-registering anemometer with a set of meteorological instruments. Two other rooms are called the Merchants' Room (annual subscription four guineas) and the Captains' Room. In the latter refreshments can be obtained. This great and useful establishment is managed by a committee of nine members whose chairman is elected annually. Six subscribers must recommend a candidate for admission, who is then balloted for by the committee.

The name Lloyds originated in the fact that a man so called kept a coffee-house in Abchurch Lane, where mercantile men were in the habit of meeting..

At No. 2 White Lion Court, Cornhill, is a distinct Society called Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping, whose affairs are managed by a committee of twenty-four members. The object of this society is to ascertain by the survey of competent persons, the character and condition of ships. It is here that the classification A 1, etc., applied to ships, originates.

In front of the great portico of the Royal Exchange is a bronze equestrian statue on a granite pedestal, bearing the simple inscription

WELLINGTON.

Erected June 18, 1844.

Close by is a neat fountain; a female figure in bronze pours water from a vase into a granite basin.

THE STOCK EXCHANGE,

Capel Court, near the Bank of England, was built in 1801, on the site of a house belonging to Sir William Capel, Lord Mayor in 1504. Here the stock-jobbers and brokers meet, to buy and sell stocks and shares. Jobbers are persons who buy and sell on their own account; brokers, those who act only on account of others. The annual subscription is £10, and none but subscribers are admitted. They are from 800 to 900 in number, and are chosen by ballot by the committee, a body of 30 elected annually by the whole body of members. Every member must be reelected at the end of the year. The hubbub during business hours is great, from the brokers calling out their terms aloud. The regular commission of a broker, on buying or selling, is 2s. 6d. per cent. Stocks and funds are the barometers of states; they are in

continual fluctuation under the influence of a variety of circumstances, which are looked upon as favourable or adverse to the will or ability of those states to pay their debts. False reports have often been circulated with a view of acting upon the funds, and our criminal courts have been sometimes called upon to investigate charges of conspiracy connected with attempts to raise or lower prices. The late Earl of Dundonald, then Lord Cochrane, was convicted of being implicated in a conspiracy of this nature, although it is now generally believed that he was entirely innocent. The quantity of spare money in the country has also much to do with the prices. Several slang terms are in use here. A bull is a person who contracts to buy on speculation, in the hope of a rise, when he will clear a profit. A bear is one who contracts to sell without holding stock at the time, in the expectation that a fall will ensue; the contracts being made for a distant date, or "for the account," as it is termed. Lame duck is a name given to defaulters.

THE CUSTOM HOUSE,

Lower Thames Street, presents a conspicuous front to the river, half-way between the Tower and London Bridge. It is the fifth Custom House built on the site. The front, 488 feet long, was designed by Sir Robert Smirke, the architect of the Post Office and the British Museum, when the centre of the building, built by David Laing in 1814-17, was taken down on account of the foundation giving way. The total cost was enormous, viz., £435,000. Between the building and the river is a broad esplanade. Upwards of 2200 persons are employed in the custom house, or are connected with it; for a very large proportion of the total sum raised by the customs duties (not far short of one-half) is collected at the port of London. The management of the business is intrusted to a board of commissioners appointed by Government. There are about 170 rooms in the building, in addition to warehouses and cellars. The Board Room contains portraits of George III. and George IV., the latter by Lawrence. The business is chiefly transacted in the "Long Room," which has a length of 190 feet, and a width of 66, and where about 80 officers and clerks sit. In the queen's warehouse and the fire-proof cellars are kept the articles which have been seized. These are sold at quarterly sales, but the amount realized by them is not more than £5000 a year. Office hours from 10 to 4.

THE COAL EXCHANGE,

Lower Thames Street, City, was opened by the late Prince Consort in 1849, having been erected by the corporation from the designs of J. B. Bunning. It is in the Italian style, and has two principal fronts. The tower is 106 feet high. The hall where the merchants meet is a rotunda, 60 feet in diameter, with three tiers of galleries round it, covered by a dome of glass, which is 74 feet above the floor. The floor of this rotunda is beautifully inlaid with wood, of which there are 40,000 pieces, representing a mariner's compass, with the arms of the city in the middle. The blade of the dagger on this shield is a piece of the mulberry tree, planted by Peter the Great, when working as a shipwright at Deptford. The walls of the vestibule and rotunda have been richly decorated by F. Sang, with representations of the plants found in the coal-beds, of coal-mines, and mouths of shafts, of coal-digging implements, and with emblematic figures of rivers. In digging the foundations of this building a Roman bath was discovered, which was preserved, and access to it can still be obtained. The consumption of coal in the metropolis is enormously great, as strangers would be led to guess from its soot-laden atmosphere; and the number of persons engaged in the carriage alone is large. On all sea-borne coal the corporation levies a duty, which realizes about £170,000 a year, but a considerable portion of the quantity introduced (between three and four millions of tons) is now brought by railway.