Billet doux

“ This ticket is the check of one American, drawn against his personal wealth and credit; this bill is the check of all Americans, drawn against the collective wealth and credit of the nation. That's all the difference between a cocktail check and a coin, between a meal ticket and a ten dollar bill. Neither is worth a rap unless it can be REDEEMED. Like sanctification caught at a camp-meeting, there must be a hereafter to it or its a humbug. But don't you metallists take that as a premise and jump at conclusions or you're liable to sprain your logical sequence. ”

“ If the jury had found the traverser guilty of passing the note only, he must have been acquitted, because the passing of the note was no offence unless it was "paper currency," or "paper medium evidently intended for common circulation." Is the word bank bill better than note? Does the name, per se, import paper currency without an averment that it was paper currency? It might have been a bank bill, and yet be what the brokers call an uncurrent bank bill, or a bank bill not payable to order, or bearer. ”

“ Quickly a peon steps forward and lays a $10 bill on one card. The "tosser" shuffles again, the man wins and puts many silver dollars in his pocket. This excites the watching crowd, which presses forward, and many women and men lay down their money on certain cards, only to see it go into the pile of the "tosser." One failure does not discourage them, but they try as long as their money lasts, for it is impossible to win. ”

“ His Majesty, being now completely out of breath, laid down his scroll (which he appeared to have finished) , puffed at his pipe, and took some rum-and-water. I embraced the opportunity of asking how many divisions the art and mystery of bill-sticking comprised? He replied, three - auctioneers' bill-sticking, theatrical bill-sticking, general bill-sticking.
'The auctioneers' porters,' said the King, 'who do their bill-sticking, are mostly respectable and intelligent, and generally well paid for their work, whether in town or country. ”

“ A HALF-DALER PIECE, WHICH MEASURES THREE INCHES SQUARE.
Amongst the most civilised races gold and silver coin, or "bank-notes," secured by deposits of gold and silver or by Government guarantees, are the recognised media of exchange. Modern coinages exhibit many specimens of beautiful and artistic moneys, and the notes—bills, as they are called in America—issued by the Bank of England, the French, United States, and other Governments, are, if not exactly artistic, wonderfully ingenious devices for baffling the skill of the forger. ”

“ Money is also conveyed from province to province by these Tartars, when, if the amount is large, several horses are strung together, and are escorted by mounted police. The currency in the interior being silver coins of the size of our five-shilling pieces, the jolting and friction occasioned by the drive are likely to tear ordinary bags, so the latter are enclosed in a special rope-bag, which is neatly and compactly knitted over them. Gold coin is put up in leather, which is puckered up to form a bag, and tied and sealed on the top. ”

“ Most people told us before we came out here that the billets were not at all comfortable, and we expected to be in any old cowshed. Our last billets were extremely comfortable and our new ones are equally so. Rotten billets are usually only given to troops who leave their billets untidy when they leave. Before we leave we are always very careful to leave ours clean and so we get good ones. Early this morning we moved our billets again and are now some 16 miles from the firing line. Continuing from where I left off in my last letter. ”

“ Carefully extracting four cards from the top and bottom of the pack, and after placing them, faces upwards, on the table, the dealer invites the company to stake their money. Gold in onzas, half-onzas, four-dollar pieces, and 'escudos,' or two dollars, is produced; but he who is indisposed to risk more than a fractional part of his money at one time, expresses his desire by concealing a portion of his coin beneath the card of his selection. Thus an onza placed half-way under a card signifies that the owner wishes to stake only half that coin, or eight dollars and fifty cents. ”

“ A packet done up in a piece of brown paper, unsealed, but tied with string, was found to contain a small quantity of trimming, a collar-box with a few paper-collars, and inside the box were two £1 notes and 10s. in silver. A halfpenny wrapper was used to serve as a covering for the [207] transmission of a letter, a bill of sale, and four £5 Bank of England notes. In a newspaper which reached the Dead-letter Office were found four sovereigns, and in another a gold locket. A packet carelessly rolled up was seen to contain a sovereign, two half-sovereigns, and a savings-bank book. ”

“ There, by the starlight, look at the contents of this precious wallet, and see how much further your eyes can pierce into the mystery of my proceedings.'”
He handed me the wallet, which I opened. To my great surprise, I found it stuffed with old shreds of newspaper, bits of rag, even cotton, but not a cent of money.
“There! ara you satisfied? You shall have that wallet, with all its precious contents, as a keepsake from me. It will remind you of a strange scene. It will have a history for you when you are old, which you will tell with a chuckle to your children.” ”

“ So I handed my friend the money to put up; but Bill wouldn't stand it, and spoke up: "I won't do that. If you don't play your own money, I won't bet;" so I told him to just lay it up and turn the card, and I would hand it to him. He got out his wallet and put up $1,700, and I loaned him $300 to make it up; so he turned the card. The old fellow could not believe himself. He stood still for a few minutes, looked at Bill, then at me, and finally said, "Devol, lend me a five-dollar bill, and I will go home and stay there until I get some sense." ”

“ Unlike gold and silver, the new currency possesses no intrinsic value, but it consists simply of orders or cheques drawn on the State as the sole possessor of all articles of sale.
Every labourer in the service of the State receives once a fortnight a series of money certificates in the form of a coupon booklet. The name of each holder is printed on the cover, and with a view to preventing the use of the coupons by other persons, it is enacted that the photograph of every individual holder be attached to his book of coupons. ”

“ April 8, 1898—"The truth is, we buy only with gold coin, to which alone the name of money ought to be applied. No bank note, treasury note or paper certificate, in any form or by whomsoever issued, is more than an instrument of credit. ”

“ The handkerchief with its precious contents shot in a graceful arc towards the deck, fell short by a good six feet and dropped into the water, where it unfolded like a lily, sending twenty-dollar bills, ten-dollar bills, five-dollar bills, and an assortment of ones floating over the wavelets. The cheers of the citizenry changed to cries of horror. The girl uttered a plaintive shriek. The boat moved on. ”

“ Every shopkeeper has a board secured by a ledge and running to a point, on which the paras are reckoned, and then spouted into a canvass bag. At the present rate of exchange, this apparently silver coin is less than one third of a farthing, and, as all money is reckoned by it, a stranger is startled to see his baccul’s or huckster’s bills amount to 10,000 paras. ”

“ This innocent looking piece of fluff was caught slipping a five-dollar bill to a teller at a bank down town, and asking for change for a hundred dollar bill. She says it was nothing more than sleight of hand. You are an experienced observer. I want you to watch her work her little trick. If she can fool us, and not use Psi, the legal position is that she didn't need Psi to fool the teller. ”

“ As the changers and merchants who are accustomed to bring bullion to our Mint have ceased, and do daily cease to do so, so that the working of our Mint is greatly impeded, to the great prejudice of our people if no remedy is applied, we therefore order that for each mark of silver brought to the Mint there shall be delivered out by the Mint another 8 sols Tournois in addition to the 112 sols Tournois fixed by law. ”

“ Here's a ticket good for so many meals at a restaurant —an order for so much wealth; and here's a silver dollar —no 'tisn't; it's a check on a—er—on a "resort"; in fact, on a saloon; an I.O.U. for 11 cents, the price of a cigar—or something—I suppose. "Man should not live by bread alone." Now what's the difference between this ticket and check and the currency issued by the government? Simply this: These are the I.O.U.'s of individual's money, the I.O.U.'s of the entire American people. These are orders for certain kinds of wealth at particular places ”

“ St., is as follows: 'The value of foreign coin, as expressed in the money of account of the United States, shall be that of the pure metal of such coin of standard value; and the values of the standard coins in circulation of the various nations of the world shall be estimated annually by the director of the mint, and be proclaimed on the first day of January by the secretary of the treasury.'
The value of foreign coins, as ascertained by the estimate of the director of the mint and proclaimed by the secretary of the treasury, is conclusive upon custom-house officers and importers. ”

“ For this reason, according to his own account, proceeding upon an act of the convention now sitting, he ordained the old coin to be brought to the cunyie-house, where it would be ‘clippit, and put in ane close lockit coffer upon the count and inventar of the quantity receivit frae every person;’ and meanwhile the lately issued genuine placks and lions were to have currency at twopence and a penny apiece respectively—that is, at denominations above their value. Any one hereafter possessing the false coin, was to be punished as an out-putter of false money. ”

“ Here the great hall of the bank, full of panic-stricken citizens jostling one another to get gold for the notes of the bank; there, foreign nations sending over ingots and coin to the bank, and the Mint working night and day, Sunday and week-day, to turn them into sovereigns to meet the run. ”

“ It calls for but one condition: That you keep all your money—bills and change—in it and spend only from it. If this is faithfully done, within twenty-four hours you will have saved enough to buy one—no, two stamps; which at the present price will come to eight dollars and twenty-eight cents.”
To Van Tenner’s skeptical eye the purse placed in his hand seemed an ordinary-enough affair—a cheap, flattish wallet, without distinguishing mark until he opened it and found, set into the flap, a celluloid tablet flanked by a small pencil. ”

“ Baker, my friend’s husband, absently feeling in his vest pocket, found a five dollar note which he had no recollection of putting there.
“Hallo!” he exclaimed, “that is no place for you. I should have put you in my pocketbook. Here, wife, don’t you want some ready money?” and he threw the note across the table to her.
“Many thanks,” she replied; “money is always acceptable, although I have no present need of it.” She folded the note and put it under the edge of the tea-tray, and then proceeded to pour out the tea and attend to the wants of her guests. ”

“ In several instances coins have been found imbedded in cake and pieces of toast; and on one occasion gold coins of the value of £1, 10s. were discovered in a large seal at the back of a letter, the gold pieces having come to light through the wax getting slightly chipped. But the most flattering act of confidence in the probity of the Post-office fell to be performed by a person at Leeds, who, desiring to send a remittance to a friend, folded a five-pound note in two, wrote the address on the back of it, and, without cover or registration, consigned it to the letter-box. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Buying and remitting commercial long bills is, however, 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. ”

“ A large proportion of the specie imported has been paid into the Treasury for public dues, and after having been to a great extent recoined at the Mint has been paid out to the public creditors and gone into circulation as a currency among the people. The amount of gold and silver coin now in circulation in the country is larger than at any former period. ”

“ It would have brought a smile to a dead man to have seen them bet, for they put up all the money they had, and one of them went to the office, and bringing out a valise, said, as he laid it on the table, "There is $18,000 in that valise, and I raise all of you that much." ”

“ For small trading and at home, metal money answers well. But there is great trouble and risk in sending coin hundreds of miles to pay for goods bought at a distance. An easily carried substitute for gold and silver is the bank-note, a promise to pay so much, issued by the treasury or some banker, and passing as money from hand to hand. ”