Billeting

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the meantime, I draw, and shall still be obliged to draw, on Dr Franklin, to enable me to discharge the public bills accepted by Mr Jay. Exchange is every day more to our disadvantage. The depreciation of the royal billets is now at 31/4 to 31/2 per cent, and I make no doubt will be at 6 per cent in two months. ”

“ Later on, in the chapter on the actual money-making operations of the foreign department, the risk in buying various kinds of bills will be fully explained, but in passing it may be mentioned that "clean" bills are of such a nature that bankers will touch them only when drawn by the very best houses. With a documentary bill, the banker holds the bill of lading, and if there is any trouble about the acceptance or payment of a draft, can simply seize the goods and sell them. ”

“ In that event the check and the promissory note and the bill of exchange, operating as orders to the book-keepers of banks and clearinghouses, would effect transfers of debits and credits the world over so that all Trade would be barter systematized—plain barter freed from the obstructions incident to barter in primitive Economic circumstances. Except for the use of “pocket cash,” Money pieces of every kind, whether metal or paper, would be like children’s toys to grown-ups. ”

“ Under its grinding “punch” our poor little dollar goes, and with it a hundred dollars beside. With a savage accuracy it stabs two holes through every one. This is done for the purpose of absolute cancellation. Then each bundle is returned to its box, the messenger picks it up, the counter follows, and both hasten to the cash-account clerk of the division, whose business it is to see if all the money received and delivered to the counters, has been returned and accounted for. ”

“ But in connection with banking and in ordinary commercial parlance it means money taken to a bank, left there, and understood to be subject to check or draft. [2] Money thus deposited and drawn on enters largely into the commerce of the country: checks and drafts are mercantile instruments, part of the machinery of trade, having commercial value and bearing no resemblance to the 'pass-book' held by the poor seamstress, or washerwoman, or cook, who can go but four times a year and after notice to have a debit entered in it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If I draw this bill where I have no reason to draw it, where I have no demand, or no effects to answer it, or if I give my correspondent no advice of it, I abuse the remitter, that is, the man whose money I take, and this reflects upon my credit that am the drawer, and the next time this tradesman wants money at Bristol fair, he will not come to me. 'No,' says he, 'his last bills were not accepted.' Or, if he does come to me, then he demands that he should not pay his money till he has advice that my bills are accepted. ”

“ In many instances men make such collections a matter of business, and these receptacles for stamps bring very high prices,—in fact, like old coins, many of them command fabulous prices. The collection of these miniature paper currency circulating mediums is decidedly a British institution. Periodicals devoted to the interest of dealers are established in various parts of the kingdom, and agents employed, not only to furnish information upon the subject of new issues, but to procure various stamps for orders. ”

“ Here the small currencies, the national bank notes, the new special tax-paid stamps, receive the internal revenue seal. The “funded loan bond” alone is stamped with the aristocratic green seal.
Having been sealed, the dollar must now be numbered, and for that purpose passes into the numbering division, where it receives the last touch of printing from machines attended solely by women and girls. This machine works on the same principle as the famous paging machine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The undervaluing of our Money which is delivered or received by Bills of Exchange here or beyond the Seas, cannot decrease our treasure.
The Merchants Exchange by Bills is a means and practice whereby they that have money in on Countrey may deliver the same to receive it again in another Countrey at certain times and rates agreed upon, whereby the lender and the borrower are accommodated without transporting of treasure from State to State. ”

“ If, by any act of the government paper is ordained to be a legal tender for debts, and, at the same time, ceases to be exchangeable for coin, those who have occasion to purchase of foreigners, who are not compelled to take the notes, will make some of their payments in gold; and if the issue of paper, unchecked by the power of demanding the gold it represents, be continued, the whole of the coin will soon disappear. ”

“ The price paid by the principal auctioneers for country work is nine shillings per day; that is, seven shillings for day's work, one shilling for lodging, and one for paste. Town work is five shillings a day, including paste.'
'Town work must be rather hot work,' said I, 'if there be many of those fighting scenes that beggar description, among the bill-stickers?'
'Well,' replied the King, 'I an't a stranger, I assure you, to black eyes; a bill-sticker ought to know how to handle his fists a bit. ”

“ No market town shall take an outrageous toll contrary to the common custom of the nation.
Since good sterling money has been counterfeited with base and false metal outside the nation and then brought in, foreigners found in the nation's ports with this false money shall forfeit their lives. Anyone bringing money into the nation must have it examined at his port of entry. Payments of money shall be made only by coin of the appropriate weight delivered by the Warden of the Exchange and marked with the King's mark. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For whether the banker sends over in every mail a bewildering assortment of every conceivable form of foreign exchange to be credited to his account abroad, or whether he confines himself to remittances of the simplest kinds of bills, the idea remains exactly the same—‌he is depositing money to the credit of his account in order that he may have a balance on which he can draw. ”

“ To remedy this state of things it is now enacted, that, if any person should at any one time either exchange, lend, sell, borrow, buy, receive, or pay any broad silver money, or silver money unclipped, of the coin of the kingdom, for more than the same was coined for, and ought by law to go for, he should forfeit ten times the amount of the money so illegally exchanged. ”

“ When we receive the cash for the men’s notes at pay day, we credit “Mr. Bills Receivable” with the amount taken in, thus clearing him of this amount and making him no longer responsible for it. We have previously, of course, entered this amount on the debit side of the Cash Book, for the same reason noted above. When the coupons are presented by the men in payment for articles purchased by them, we credit “Merchandise” (or the proper department of the Exchange, if departments are used) with the amount taken in. ”

“ In England an immense amount of trade is carried on without the exchange of coin, by means of the various forms of credit, which are all, in one way or another, promises to pay. In the London clearing-house, the place where the cheques drawn on different banks are daily exchanged for each other, as much as 2,000,000,000l. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The dealer in bills of exchange requires capital and credit. He generally draws the instrument, or it is drawn at his instance, when he is desirous of purchasing it. The bill is worth more or less, as the rate of exchange shall be between the place where it is drawn and where it is made payable. ”

“ The fact is, I don't mind tellin' you I've a deal on, an' I've undertaken t' put up this money in cash—to-night."
The banker ruminated for a few minutes. Experience had told him that with a certain class of men money in bills was more valuable than money in a cheque or draft. The very bulk of the currency seemed to impress them. He had seen an old-timer refuse a twelve-hundred-dollar marked cheque for his property, and yet surrender greedily at the sight of a thousand one-dollar bills piled on a table before him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To make the currency do the usual office of money more effectually and fully, is legitimate regulation of the currency. To make it do the special office of theatre tickets or railroad tickets is superadding to its quality as currency, as money, or its equivalent, another and foreign quality. ”