Pocketbook

“ No, friend Pigglewitch, four thousand marks is enough. If you cannot begin life afresh with that sum, a larger one would assuredly plunge you into misery. But you were right, nevertheless, to prevent me from destroying this money, it would have been folly. I always act foolishly when I follow the impulse of the moment, and I thank you for hindering me. I will keep the pocketbook. There is no danger for me in the money, I know its worthlessness. Give me your travelling-bag. Is there a key to it? Yes? Thank you. I will deposit the pocket-book here in this bag, where it shall remain untouched. ”

“ But he at once recalled what a life the customers used to lead him, too, and he felt heavy at heart, and to distract his attention he took a fat pocketbook out of his pocket and began counting his money. ”

“ To find a pocketbook filled with bills and money in your dreams, you will be quite lucky, gaining in nearly every instance your desire. If empty, you will be disappointed in some big hope.
If you lose your pocketbook, you will unfortunately disagree with your best friend, and thereby lose much comfort and real gain. ”

“ I remember one time we were in Lamesa, when I was eleven years old. I had spent all my money except a dime. I wanted to buy a pocketbook to put my money in. There were four stores in town that sold pocketbooks and I went to all of them but it was of no use. The cheapest one any of them had was ten cents. Now, if I spent my dime for one, I wouldn't have any money left to put in it. And if I didn't buy one, I was apt to lose my dime. What should I do? ”

“ 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. ”

“ His pocketbook only contained ten dollars in small bills. The balance of his money he had deposited for safe keeping in the inside pocket of his vest. This he had placed under his pillow, and so it had escaped the notice of the thief. ”

“ Their battered hats oscillate on their heads through overloading with tape-tied papers, and oft-times, from the breast-pocket of their tightly-buttoned coats, they drag leathern pocketbooks, white and frayed at the edges like the seams of their own poor garments, from which pocketbooks they draw greasy documents, faded envelopes, sleezy letters, which have been folded and refolded so often that they seem in imminent danger of dropping to pieces like an over-used passport at the next display. ”

“ All shopkeepers in good business can afford to buy proper wrapping-paper, and they generally do so. It is very cheap. See also that they do not wrap your purchase in so small a bit of paper as to squeeze and crush it.
If you go out with much money, (which is never advisable,) divide it into two portions, putting part in your pocket-book or porte-monnaie, and the remainder into your purse, so that if you lose it, or have your pocket picked, the loss may be less. Do not carry notes in your purse, but keep them in your pocket-book. Little gold dollars had best go into your porte-monnaie. ”

“ On picking up a lost pocket-book by chance in the streets, one can be at no loss to divine the quality of its former proprietor. A large rusty black leather pocket-book, looking more like a portmanteau than a memorandum book, stuffed with papers half printed, half written, blank stamp receipts, churchwarden’s orders and directions, long lists of parishioners, with a small ink-horn in one corner—denotes the property of a tax-gatherer. ”

“ A watch and chain—the small pocket articles which every man carries—keys, a monocle eyeglass, a purse full of gold, loose silver, a note-case containing a considerable sum in bank-notes, some English, some foreign, letters and papers, a pocket diary—these were all. Allerdyke took each as Gaffney produced them, and placed each in the bag with no more than a mere glance.
"Everything there is, sir," whispered the chauffeur at last. "I've been through every pocket." ”

“ I must burn this pocket-book, and the cheques too for the matter of that—it’s no good trying to cash them; I can get rid of the notes easily enough. What an infernal scoundrel he was, to be sure—threatening [Pg 183] his sister the Countess! By Jove, I was close to him then; she ought to thank a fellow for stopping his mouth. How he clutched me—a good thing the pistol was pretty heavy, but confound that bruise and the torn pocket! That policeman is a clever fellow; nobody else would have thought of the pocket-book: wish I’d had time to get his purse—these notes are a nuisance. ”

“ Early visitors to that part of the building may have noticed a wooden box, much resembling a carpenter's tool chest, trundled along upon a cart by a porter, and followed by a man with a book under his arm. The box contains the day's delivery of national bank currency for redemption, ranging ordinarily from half a million to a million and a half of dollars, and the book contains a receipt for the amount, to be signed by the receiving clerk of the agency. The money comes in perhaps a hundred or as high as two hundred and fifty packages, from as many places throughout the country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He remained standing, opened the pocket-book, and showed me that it contained twenty bank-notes of fifty pounds each.
“These,” he said, “are of comparatively little importance. These pages of memoranda are worth more. At any rate, there are people in the City who would have given you a good deal more for them. If you had read them you would have had very little difficulty in finding your market. Don't you think you had better have slipped the book into your pocket and said nothing?” ”

“ Each pocket should hold something new and wonderful except the pocket that was to be for April Fool’s Day. That pocket should hold only a blank piece of [Pg 7] paper folded up tight to feel as if it were going to be a surprise. There’d be nothing at all in it, when Marjorie broke the seal! What a joke! And every month’s holiday should have a pocket, too! Dotty chuckled. Old Christmas cards would now find a new use. Valentines and Easter gift cards would go into the Surprise Book, too. And every month there would be a story pocket in the book! What fun! ”

“ Reuben was a prudent young man, and took the opportunity of being in such respectable company to examine his pocket-book. The contents were “in order,” as commercial men say. He folded the two sovereigns and the half-sovereign into the three five-pound notes, putting five shillings into his waistcoat pocket for casual expenses, as his other money had been exhausted by cabs and porterage, then replaced the notes and gold in his pocket-book, which he carefully lowered into the breast-pocket of his overcoat. ”

“ At intervals of from five to ten minutes he slowly drew from the vast pocket of his clumsy coat a bulky pocket-book, and sleepily conned over certain memoranda with which its leaves were charged—then having looked into its well-lined receptacles, to satisfy himself that no miracle of legerdemain had abstracted the treasure on which his heart was set, he once more fastened the buckle of the leathern budget, and deposited it again in his pocket. ”

“ Statistics show that in commercial countries a very large proportion of all transfers is by book accounts and notes, and more than nine-tenths of all the residue of payments is by checks, drafts, and such paper tools of exchange.
"Of the vast business done in New York and London not five per cent. is done with either paper money or gold or silver, but by the mere balancing of accounts or the exchange of credits. And this will be so whether your paper money is worth forty per cent. or one hundred per cent. ”

“ The Baron is an amateur of pocket-books and note-books. The best pocket-book must contain a calendar-diary, and as little printed matter, and as much space for notes, as possible. No pocket-book is perfect without some sort of patent pencil, of which the writing-metal, when used on a damp surface, will serve as well as do pen and ink on ordinary paper. Such a pocket-book with such a pencil the Baron has long had in use, the product of JOHN WALKER & Co., of Farringdon House. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Great evils, in the midst of many advantages, have arisen out of the use of paper money, from the neglect of measures of security, or from the adoption of such as have proved false. Issues of inconvertible paper money have been allowed to a large extent, unguarded by any restriction as to the quantity issued.issued.
As the issuing of paper money is a profitable business, the issue naturally became excessive when the check of convertibility was removed, while banking credit was not backed by sufficient security. ”

“ Then for another year I was a money-broker, selling currency, silver, and revenue stamps. When that petered out I was ready for anything. A friend had loaned money to a printer and seemed about to lose it. In 1867 I became bookkeeper and assistant in this printing office to rescue the loan, and finally succeeded. I liked the business and had the hardihood to buy a small interest, borrowing the necessary money from a bank at one per cent a month. I knew absolutely nothing of the art and little of business. ”

“ Somewhat akin to the ledger systems are the various card- and pocket-charging methods which work without the intervention of an indicator. There are several of such systems in existence both in Britain and the United States, most of them having features in common, but all distinguished by differences on points of detail. At Bradford a pocket system has long been in use. It is worked as follows: Every book has attached to one of the inner sides of its boards a linen pocket, with a table of months for dating, and an abstract of the lending rules. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Therefore, when a bank notifies you that it holds your note, or a draft drawn on you, for collection, bear in mind four points. First: the bank must follow the instructions of the sender or owner of the paper. Second: it can not disregard the law. Third: you are benefiting yourself more than the bank by paying your paper promptly. Fourth: the bank is taking a risk every time it accepts anything other than actual cash for a collection. ”

“ Paper money must be distinguished from other value-paper or money-paper,899 which may also run to the possessor or holder, and not unfrequently serve as a medium of payment. In the case of these bonds or obligations,900 their circulating capacity is a secondary matter, and the principal thing the authentication of an economic legal relation; whereas paper money is intended principally, if not exclusively, to act as money.901 Money-paper appears in a great many different forms, but it nearly always bears interest. ”

“ Money was everywhere; banknotes, treasury bills, money in the greasy notes of a Chinese Government bank, money in the shape of Greek drachmas and Italian lira. Sometimes a box would contain nothing but these valuable squares of paper, sometimes a box held thick packets of correspondence addressed to Trasmere, at queer looking towns in Northern China. ”

“ So soon as confidence is established with the public, they grant credits, or cash accompts, upon good security; concerning which they make the proper regulations. In proportion to the notes issued in consequence of those credits, they provide a sum of coin, such as they judge to be sufficient to answer such notes as shall return upon them for payment. Nothing but experience can enable them to determine the proportion between the coin to be kept in their coffers, and the paper in circulation. ”