STAVING OFF A RUN.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1091, 24 June 1882, Page 4

STAVING OFF A RUN.

In times of severe panic people have been known to refuse Bank of England notes and prefer local notes. In the country districts of Scotland the old one-pound notes were greatly preferred to sovereigns. It is said that when there was a run upon the Bank of England in 1765 the device was resorted to of paying the country people in shillings and sixpences. One acute Manchester firm painted all their premises profusely, and many dapper gentlemen were deterred from approaching the counter. A story is told of Cunliffe Brook’s bank. When there was an impetuous and unreasoning rush for gold, Mr Brook obtained a number of sacks of meal, opened them at the top, put a good thick layer of coin upon the contents, and then placed them untied where the glittering coins would be manifest to all observers. One bank procured a number of people as confederates, to whom they paid gold, then slipped around to a back door and refunded it, and thus the effect of a stage army was produced. At another bank the chief cashier himself examined every note with the mo A earching scrutiny, holding it up to the light, testing the signature, and making believe that, on account of alarm as to forgery, there

was need of the most scrupulous care. When he had completed his pretended examination, he handed the note to one of his subordinates very deliberately with, in slow and measured terms, “You may pay it.” Other plans were to pay the money very languidly, counting it twice over, so as to be sure the sum was right, and to give a sovereign short, so that the customer should complain and the counting have to be done over again. Atone of the banks peck measures inverted wee placed in the windows facing the street, a pile of gold upon the top, after the manner of the fruit exposed for sale at street corners in the summer. At another the coin was heated in shovels over the fire in the parlor behind, and handed out as “ new ” at a temperature of 300 degrees Fahrenheit. The clerk in charge accommodating Ids phraseology to the i occasion, cried out loudly every half-1 hour: “Now, Jim, do be gettin’ on with them sovereigns ; folks is waitin’ for their money.” “ Coming sir, coming,” was the ready reply, and the “ folk ” thought the power of production boundless. It is always the simple-minded and uninformed who constitute on such occasions the chief portion of the throng, just as the people who go to extremes are the half-educated ones. The crowd were easily persuaded —the proof that all was right was burning their fingers. — London Truth.