'Apart from that antiquity, the original bank-notes were introduced by the Lombards in Lombardy in the 1th century. There a group of wealthy merchants got together, and their reputation and credit was' such that the Lombards willingly accepted their LO.U's instead of gold or cur-Yeney. From that developed the first of the modern bank-nolos in Lombardy, The production of the word "company" on the Bank of England notes is very interesting, because shows a close connection between the Bank of England and the old Lombards. 'The, contraction "Ca" really represents "compa", which is short for the Italian word "compagnia"—the Governor and Compagnia of the Bank of England. Very' shortly after "the first issue of notes by the Lombards, the practice grew in various European countries, of using paper instead of coin, And that practice grew $0 rapidly, that it became a positive danger. There was no. legislation governing the conditions of issue, with the result that before very long' there were several severe crisis, culminate ing in the South Sea Bubble, in which hundreds and hundreds of private banks all over Europe crashed, bring-{ing in their train untold misery.
"Atter that, legislation was introduced governing the conditions on which a bank was allowed to fast its own notes, and these conditions mained static until after the War. Since that event, we have seen tremendous movement in currency: owing to the mal-administration of gold money, all the countries of the world have' been compelled to abandon gold us their yard-stick of cur rency, and we have now, what. called the "sterling group" in which the yard-stick of exchange is not a metallic backing, but what anybody will give for a £1 note, The results have been that the bank-nolo printer is faced with a very serious problem, and the study of bank-notes to-day, is. matier of the greatest importance {to the whole of the community.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.