Mr. Montague Norman's reference in his radio talk the other day to the soiled notes sent to the Bank of England for destruction reminded me of a bank in Billingsgate what once ran a "laundry" for washing dirty money. Every night several hundredweights of silver and copper coins from the fish market were. cleaned by a process of boiling in strong soda and water.
This drastic treatment was necessary because of the condition of th coins after a few hours of "fishy handling—many would be stuck together as if with glue. Nowadays modern methods of accounting procedure have reduced the need for so much laundry work, but there is still an occasional "big wash."
At the moment the Bank of England are puzzled over a new and profitable traffic in banknotes that has developed within the last few months. Ten-shilling notes are being sold for as much as 30s. each, and the buyers, quite satisfied with their purchases, are withdrawing them from circulation
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.