Bilge

“ A dealer who has sold goods, for which he is to be paid in six months, but who desires to receive payment sooner, draws a bill on his debtor payable in six months, and gets the bill discounted by a banker or other money-lender, that is, transfers the bill to him, receiving the amount, minus interest for the time it has still to run. It has become one of the chief functions of bills of exchange to serve as a means by which a debt due from one person can thus be made available for obtaining credit from another. ”

“ He seemed to recall it a little wonderingly.
"I found one morning, in the pocket of my coat, a roll of bills—five thousand dollars. Enough to repay the bank and put everything straight."
"You 'found' it?" echoed Milly, incredulous. "People do not 'find' five thousand dollars in their pockets, do they?" ”

“ Had I myself the money, I should gladly meet your needs at a moderate usance, not more than twenty-five in the hundred; but my friend is a hard man, who exacts large returns for his means, and will be very urgent that repayment be made on the day named in the bill. He hath empowered me to take your bill at two months,—for him, mind you,—for £10, the payment to be assured, as you wished, by the pledge of your two new plays in manuscript,—"Midsummer Night's Dream" and "Romeo and Juliet,"—for which bill he will at my strong instance, and because you are a friend to me, give £5. ”

“ The farmer immediately drew out his coupon.
“Let me see,” said the broker; “thirty dollars, gold at the present premium comes to thirty-six dollars.”
“Thirty-six dollars!” repeated the farmer, complacently. “Sarah’ll feel rich when she gets that money.”
“Here’s your money,” said the broker, producing three ten-dollar bills, a five and a one. “The bills are new, you perceive.”
The farmer put away the bills in his old wallet, and the stranger slipped the coupon carelessly into his vest pocket.
“Now, my young friend, I am ready to attend to your matter,” he said, turning to Harry. ”

“ You shall have my cheque for fifty pounds as soon as we reach my house, and the rest of the money will be paid you day by day.”
“That will not do,” I said. “We will drive now to your bank, and you will draw fifty pounds in notes or gold. We shall then go on to my bank, where I shall deposit the money. After that I am at your service.”
“You are a business-like woman,” he said. “It is queer to be distrusted when one is really perfectly honest, but it shall be as you wish. ”

“ In the Treasury Building and in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing one may see the entire process of manufacturing and issuing paper money. In the Treasury we see new bills exchanged for old, worn-out bills, which are ground to pieces to destroy forever their value as money.
BUREAU OF ENGRAVING AND PRINTING, “UNCLE SAM'S MONEY FACTORY”
But to understand the story of a dollar bill or a bill of any other value we must visit the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. ”

“ You see, a tainted bill doesn’t have much chance to acquire a correct form of expression. I never knew a really cultured and educated person that could afford to hold a ten-spot any longer than it would take to do an Arthur Duffy to the nearest That’s All! sign or delicatessen store.
For a six-year-old, I’ve had a lively and gorgeous circulation. I guess I’ve paid as many debts as the man who dies. I’ve been owned by a good many kinds of people. But a little old ragged, damp, dingy five-dollar silver certificate gave me a jar one day. ”

“ My butcher says to me he wants that little bill. It’s a part of the pleasant unconscious poetry of the man’s nature that he always calls it a ‘little’ bill—to make the payment appear easy to both of us. ”

“ Anglo-Saxon writings frequently speak of money as given by weight. Our cut No. 53 is a representation of the merchant, or the toll-taker, seated before his account book, with his scales hanging to the desk. In the first of these cuts, a man holds the bag or purse, in which the money received for toll or merchandise is deposited. The cut No. 54 represents the receiver pouring the money out of his bag into the cyst, or chest, in which it is to be locked up and kept in his treasury. ”

“ Every Saturday morning a man comes to my bank to cash a cheque for a hundred and fifty pounds (How he gets through all that money in a week I have never had the courage to ask him.) Every Saturday morning I come to my bank to cash a cheque for—well, whatever it happens to be, you know.
The trouble is that we nearly always coincide; only the other man always seems to coincide first. ”

“ To offer a ten dollar bill, or even a five dollar bill, to a storekeeper on Amsterdam Avenue in New York City may well mean that the one clerk in the establishment, or the proprietor's wife will run out with the bill to three or four neighboring stores before finding change with which to break it. ”

“ Buying and remitting commercial long bills is no pastime for an inexperienced man. Entirely aside from the question of rate, and profit on the exchange end of the transaction, there must be taken into consideration the matter of the credit of the drawer and the drawee, the salability of the merchandise specified in the bill of lading, and a number of other important points. ”

“ They have money enough, each of them, to buy a safe, an iron box into which any carpenter could bore with an ordinary brace and bit, and enough over to pay for the printing of twenty thousand dollars' worth of bills in denominations of one, two, five and ten dollars. The printing finished, each man would sign his own bills as president, and one of the others would add the final touch of authenticity by signing a fictitious name to the same bills as cashier. ”

“ But in modern bill-broking the credit of the bill-broker is a vital element. The lender considers that the bill-broker—no matter whether an individual, a company, or a firm—has considerable wealth, and he takes the 'bills,' relying that the broker would not venture that wealth by guaranteeing them unless he thought them good. ”

“ The people of these back counties have lately complained to the Assembly that a sufficient currency was wanting; you have an opportunity of receiving and dividing among you a very considerable sum; for, if the service of this expedition should continue, as it is more than probable it will, for one hundred and twenty days, the hire of these waggons and horses will amount to upward of thirty thousand pounds, which will be paid you in silver and gold of the king's money. ”

“ They forget that in England not one shilling of paper money of any description is received but of choice,—that the whole has had its origin in cash actually deposited,—and that it is convertible at pleasure, in an instant, and without the smallest loss, into cash again. ”

“ TREASURE ISLAND Nobody noticed me, I guess, and I just scrambled up the ditch and went away behind a tree and looked at the two dollar bill again. I guess you sure know the shape of an oar-lock all right—kind of round, but open at the top. And that was just the shape of the stain on the bill. I could have laid one of my oar-locks right on that bill and covered up the stain.
Maybe you think I was glad to get the bill back but I wasn’t. What did I care about that bill? Gee, a two dollar bill isn’t anything, compared to a friend, it isn’t. ”

“ Many bills of exchange are drawn at sight, as it is called, in which case the payee presents it for payment to the drawee, there is no acceptance and no discount, and a bill of this kind becomes the same as a cheque. ”

“ Wood will oblige and force you to take five pence halfpenny of his trash in every payment: and many of you receive twenty, thirty, forty payments in one day, or else you can hardly find bread: and pray consider how much that will amount to in a year; twenty times five pence halfpenny is nine shillings and two pence, which is above a hundred and sixty pounds a year, wherein you will be losers of at least one hundred and forty pounds by taking your payments in his money. ”

“ There's also a question of finance. I have an incurable habit of paying bills. I have been up and down Regent Street several times, looking for that shop. I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that matter honour is satisfied, and that, since Gip's name and address are known to them, I may very well leave it to these people, whoever they may be, to send in their bill in their own time. ”

“ The rate of discount for trade bills is usually 1/2 per cent. per annum higher than the rate for bank bills.
The essential feature of almost all the bills on the market is that they represent a commercial transaction, such as a sale of goods, where value passes. It is this that lends them their self-liquidating quality; for they are usually liquidated by the acceptor out of the proceeds of the resale of the goods during the currency of the bill. ”

“ Verily the ingenuity of children is wonderful. They have turned their active minds upon the problem of paper currency with fearsome results. Baby writes cheques in quaint ways upon odd bits of paper and brings them to me to be cashed. Malcolm, once known as Dimples, has made a series of pound and five pound notes of his own. The bank they call the money shop. ”

“ Every branch of trade, every conceivable species of amusement, is forced upon the public eye in this way. Bill-posting is one of the fine arts. Its professors are among the most notable characters in Virginia. They have a specific interest in certain corners, boards, boxes, and banks of earth and rock, which, with the brush and pot of paste, yield them a handsome revenue. To one who witnesses this bill-mania for the first time the effect is rather peculiar. He naturally imagines that the whole place is turned inside out. ”

“ A bank in New York may buy $1,000,000 worth of sterling bills drawn on England and send them forward to its London agent to be discounted with the bill broker. The bill broker will discount these bills at, say, 4 per cent. If he thinks rates are likely to fall, he will hold the bills; if he thinks them likely to rise, he will try to sell the bills at about 3-3/4 per cent. or 3-7/8 per cent. discount, thus making a profit on the transaction of 1/4 per cent. or 1/8 per cent. per annum. Similarly he may discount large parcels of bills for Eastern and South American banks. ”

“ MODE OF CARRYING CASH AND BABIES.
In travelling, the carriage of money is a great annoyance, owing to the smallness of its value and the large number of coins or "cash" necessary to make up an amount of any size. Exchanging eighteen shillings English for brass cash, the weight of them amounted to seventy-two pounds, which had to be carried by the coolies. These cash have a square hole in the middle, and are strung together upon a piece of straw twist. Should the straw break, the loss of time in getting up the pieces is much more than the loss of the money. ”

“ Furthermore, to one who tries to master the situation, the coinage and the monetary system seem at first sight to present an insuperable obstacle. To have a bill for dinner rendered in thousands of reis is rather confusing, until one comes to regard the thousand rei piece as equivalent to about thirty cents. ”

“ The principal mode in which money is raised by traders is by "bills of exchange"; the estimated certainty of their paying those bills on the day they fall due is the measure of their credit; and those who estimate that liability best, the only persons indeed who ^can estimate it exceedingly well, are the bill brokers. And these dealers, taking advantage of their peculiar knowledge, borrow immense sums from bankers and others; they generally deposit the bills as a security; and they generally give their own guarantee of the goodness of the bill ”

“ The workman who had placed his money in the Savings' Bank, having perhaps purchased ten pounds' worth of materials, and expended ten pounds in labour applied to them, now finds himself, by this alteration in the currency, possessed nominally of eighty pounds, but in reality of a sum which will purchase only half the labour and materials required to finish his machine ”

“ When they collect together around the pay-table they indulge in jocular remarks with one another, and the majority bubble over with good-nature. As they pass the table in single file they grab up the box containing the money with commendable determination. If the pay is a full one there will be a broad smile, or a grin, on the faces of most of the men as they remove the cover and pocket the coin ”

“ Each, therefore, serves equally to supply means of speculation to the merchant. So far, moreover, as bills and notes constitute what is called the circulating medium, or paper currency of the country, and prevent the use of guineas, the fictitious and the real bill are upon an equality; and if the price of commodities be raised in proportion to the quantity of paper currency, the one contributes to that rise exactly in the same manner as the other. ”

“ For, as the bills of the banks constitute the whole of the circulating medium; they gain, gratuitously, the interest on so much of their paper as is constantly absorbed in circulation: the amount of which we know is immense. ”

“ For, once a month, certain printed bills, called Mess-bills, are circulated among the crew, and whatever you may want from the Purser--be it tobacco, soap, duck, dungaree, needles, thread, knives, belts, calico, ribbon, pipes, paper, pens, hats, ink, shoes, socks, or whatever it may be--down it goes on the mess-bill, which, being the next day returned to the office of the Steward, the "slops," as they are called, are served out to the men and charged to their accounts. ”