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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3552, 27 November 1882, Page 2

Some misapprehension (says the Evening Post) seems to exist relative to the provision of the Bank and Bankers Amendment Act passed last session relative to the practice of defacing banknotes by stamping or printing advertisements, &c, on them. It has been stated that any person passing a note thus defaied is liable to a " fine of £5." This is not tbe case. The Act provides that any person who after the issue of a banknote defaces it in any way, by " writing, printing, stamping, or marking " anything thereod, or who "being party or privy" to this being done " pays away, parts with, puts in circulation, demands payment of, deposits, or offers to deposit in any bank any note so defaced," is liable to a penalty of £5. That is to say, it requires a person to have been concerned in the defacement of the note, or to pass it being privy to the fact of its being defaced, which renders a person liable to a fine of £5 for each note so defaced or passed. This cannot be too clearly understood by tradesmen who have been in the habit of advertising themselves in this way. After the Ist January next, when the Act comes into force, defacing notes will not only subject them to so many £5 penalties, it will also expose them to the risk of having notes left on their hands, for people will hardly be so foolish as to accept defaced notes in payrrent, knowing that if they pass the notes they may involve themselves in trouble or annoyance through suspicion of being " privy" to the defacement. On the other hand, if the defacing tradesman has to take the defaced notes direct to the bank to realise them, he obtains no benefit from his defacing advertisement, while, although the banks might pay him the value of the notes, it would be rather unprofitable to receive £1 for each £1 note at tbe cost of paying £5 fine for each. So we presume tbe defacing practice will be prudently discontinued, and this is very desirable, inasmuch as it has been found a material aid to forgers and swindlers. Certainly when the new Act comes in force, defaced notes will be looked on with much suspicion, and probably will in many cases be refused by payees."