Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 Part 42 (1/2)
Singular to state, marks were chosen by gentlemen and others [v.03 p.0319]
who joined the operative masonic lodges of the 16th and later centuries, and they were as carefully registered in the mark-books as those selected by operatives for trade purposes. The same marks are to be seen in the registers used by fathers and sons, and not always with a slight difference, as some have stated, to secure identification. What should be noted also is that other trades used precisely similar marks and for a like object, so that the idea of their having a mystical meaning, or being utilized for any other object but the one named, seems groundless.
The late George G.o.dwin, F.R.S., F.S.A., &c., drew attention to the subject of ”masons' marks in various countries” in a communication to the Society of Antiquaries in 1841, and also at a little later period (vide _Archaeologia_, vol. x.x.x. p. 113). To him is the credit due of first drawing attention to ”these signs” in England. It is noteworthy how little such marks are noticed, even in buildings which are visited by archaeologists quite frequently, until a few are pointed out, and then they meet the eye to an astonis.h.i.+ng number. In the _Sessional Papers_, 1868-1869, of the Royal Inst.i.tute of British Architects, No. 9, may be found numerous samples of the marks from various parts of Europe in ill.u.s.tration of the paper by G.o.dwin.
No better plan has been followed in modern times to connect the work done with the worker in stone, and it is probable that a second mark, observable on some blocks, may serve to indicate the overseer. There are even three or more sometimes.
The same system was adopted at the building of Truro cathedral, only the marks were inserted on the bed of each stone instead of at the side as usual, the result being that they ceased to be seen after being placed _in situ_. Mr Hughan obtained copies of these marks from Mr James Bubb, the first clerk of the works, and from his successor, Mr Robert Swain, and had them published in the _Freemason_, 13th of November 1886. He remarked at the same time that ”many of these designs will be familiar to students of ancient ecclesiastical and other buildings at home and abroad.” Some are interesting specimens.
_A Historical Treatise on Early Builders' Marks_ (Philadelphia, U.S.A., 1885) by Mr G. F. Fort, and _Masons' Marks from Buildings in the Counties of Lancaster and Chester, with Notes on the General History of Masons'
Marks_ (Historic Society of Lancas.h.i.+re and Ches.h.i.+re, vol. vii. N.S.), by W.
Harry Rylands, F.S.A., may be consulted with advantage. The latter declares that ”the Runic theory is as unlikely and as untenable as that which places the origin of these marks in the absurd alphabets given by Cornelius Agrippa, who died early in the 16th century.” Victor Didron copied some 4000 during a tour in France in 1836 and pointed out their value (_Ann.
Arch_., 1845).
(W. J. H.*)
BANKET, a South African mining term, applied to the beds of auriferous conglomerate, chiefly occurring in the Wit.w.a.tersrand gold-fields (see GOLD). The name was given to these beds from their resemblance to a sweetmeat, known in Dutch as ”banket,” resembling almond hard-bake. The word is the same as ”banquet,” and is derived ultimately from ”bank” or ”bench,” meaning table-feast, hence applied to any delicacy or to various kinds of confectionery, a use now obsolete in English.
BANK HOLIDAYS, in the United Kingdom, those days which by the Bank Holidays Act 1871 are kept as close holidays in all banks in England and Ireland and Scotland respectively. Before the year 1834, the Bank of England was closed on certain saints' days and anniversaries, about thirty-three days in all.
In 1834 these were reduced to four--Good Friday, 1st of May, 1st of November and Christmas Day. By the act of 1871, carried through the House of Commons by Sir J. Lubbock (afterwards Lord Avebury), the following were const.i.tuted bank holidays in England and Ireland--Easter Monday, the Monday in Whitsun week, the first Monday of August, the 26th of December if a week-day; and by the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act 1903, March 17th as a special bank holiday for Ireland (see FEASTS AND FESTIVALS). In Scotland--New Year's Day, Christmas Day, Good Friday, the 1st Monday of May, the 1st Monday of August. If Christmas Day and New Year's Day fall on a Sunday, the next Monday following is the bank holiday. No person is compelled to make any payment or to do any act upon a bank holiday which he would not be compelled to do or make on Christmas Day or Good Friday, and the making of a payment or the doing of an act on the following day is equivalent to doing it on the holiday. By the same act it was made lawful for the sovereign from time to time, as it should seem fit, to appoint by proclamation, in the same manner as public fasts or days of public thanksgiving, any day to be observed as a bank holiday throughout the United Kingdom or any part of it, or to subst.i.tute another day when in any special case it appears inexpedient to the sovereign in council to keep the usual bank holiday. (See further HOLIDAY.)
BANKIPUR, an ancient village on the Hugli river in the Bengal Presidency, near the modern Palta above Barrackpore. It has disappeared from the map, but is famous as the princ.i.p.al settlement of the ill-fated Ostend Company, the one great effort made by Germany to secure a foothold in India. The Ostend Company was formed in 1722-1723, and with a capital of less than a million sterling founded two settlements, one at Coblom (Covelong) on the Madras coast between the English Madras and the Dutch Sadras, and the other on the Hugli between the English Calcutta and the Dutch Chinsura. Both English and Dutch were offended and in 1727, in order to obtain the European guarantee for the Pragmatic Sanction, the court of Vienna resolved to sacrifice the Company and suspended its charter. It became bankrupt in 1784 and ceased to exist in 1793. But in the meantime in 1733 the English and Dutch stirred up the Mahommedan general at Hugli to pick a quarrel. He attacked Bankipur and the garrison of only fourteen persons set sail for Europe. Thus German interests disappeared from India.
BANK-NOTES. For our present purpose we include in this description all paper subst.i.tutes for metallic currency whether issued by banks, governments or other financial inst.i.tutes.
Early bank-notes were simply printed forms in which the amounts were written by hand. They were usually for large amounts (40 and upwards) and were printed upon water-marked paper; and, although no precautions were taken in the engraving to prevent fraudulent imitation, forgeries were comparatively rare. But, when at the end of the 18th century small notes for 1 and 2 were put in circulation, forgery became rife, as many as 352 persons being convicted of this crime in England in a single year; and from that time to the present a constant trial of skill has been going on between the makers of bank-notes and the counterfeiters. Engine-turned ornaments and emblematical figures or views introduced in the engraving, in conjunction with special water-marks in the paper, held the forgers somewhat in check until the discovery of photography put into the hands of the counterfeiter a most dangerous weapon, by the aid of which complicated patterns and vignettes could be perfectly reproduced. To prevent such reproduction Henry Bradbury in 1856 introduced anti-photographic bank-note printing, in which the essential portions of the note were printed in one colour and over this another protective colour was placed. A photograph of a note printed in this way presented a confused mingling of the two colours; but with the advance of photographic knowledge means were found of obtaining a photograph of either colour separate from the other, and it consequently became necessary to introduce a third colour and to secure a special photographic relation between the three colours to prevent their separation.
Photography, however, although the most dangerous weapon of the counterfeiter, is not the only means of imitation available, a fact which is sometimes overlooked. A note may be perfectly secure against photographic reproduction, but from the absence of other necessary features may be easily copied by an engraver of ordinary skill. There are two systems of engraving employed in bank-notes:--(1) line-engraving in which the lines are cut into the steel or copper plates; and (2) relief-engraving in which the lines stand up above the plate as in wood-engraving. In the former, adapted to the process called plate-printing, the ink is delivered from the lines in the plate to the paper pressed upon it; in the latter, adapted to surface-printing, the ink is spread upon the face of the lines and printed as in typography. Plate-printing gives by far the finer and sharper impression, but as there is a perceptible body of ink transferred to the paper from the cut lines, it has been supposed that an impression from plate would [v.03 p.0320] be more easily photographed than one from surface where only a film of ink is spread upon the top of the raised lines. But surface-printing being much less sharp and distinct than plate-printing, imperfect copies of notes for which that process is used are the more likely to escape detection. The plates upon which the early notes were engraved being of copper quickly wore out and had to be constantly replaced. The result was great difference in the appearance of the notes, those printed from new plates being sharp and clear, while others, printed from old plates, were pale and blurred. These differences were a great a.s.sistance to the forger, as the public, being accustomed to variations of appearance between different genuine notes, were less apt to remark the difference between these and counterfeits.
In the early part of the 19th century, Jacob Perkins (1766-1849) introduced into England from America what is known as the transfer-process, in which the original engraving on steel is hardened and an impression taken from it on a soft steel cylinder, which in its turn is hardened and pressed into a soft printing-plate. By this means as many absolutely identical plates can be produced as may be required, and being hardened they will yield a very large number of prints without any appreciable deterioration. Another method of securing uniformity is the multiplication of plates by electro-deposition, the surface of the copper-electrotype plates being protected by the deposit of a film of steel which effectually prevents the wearing of the copper and can be renewed at will.
The water-mark of the paper, on which formerly reliance was placed almost exclusively, puts a difficulty in the way of the counterfeiter, but experience has shown that in ordinary circ.u.mstances it does not in itself afford adequate protection. The means by which it can be imitated are well known, and, since a distinct water-mark is incompatible with strong paper, the life of a water-marked note is much shorter than that of one printed upon plain paper. The best bank-note paper is made from pure linen rags and was formerly made by hand. Machine-made paper is however now largely used, as it possesses all the strength of hand-made and is much more uniform in thickness and texture.
In doc.u.ments which pa.s.s current as money it is obviously the duty of the bank or government issuing them to take all reasonable means to prevent the public from being defrauded by the subst.i.tution of counterfeits; and a bank whose circulation depends upon the confidence of the public must do so in its own interests to insure the acceptance of its notes. This principle is now recognized by all issuing inst.i.tutions, but in practice there is room for improvement in the issues of many important establishments, partly because of the disinclination of the directors of a bank to change the form of an issue to which the public is accustomed, partly because of the difficulty of deciding what is really a secure note, and in certain cases because, owing to exceptional circ.u.mstances, an issue may be practically immune from forgery although the notes themselves present little or no difficulty in imitation. The features essential to the security of an issue are (1) absolute ident.i.ty in appearance of all notes of the issue; (2) adequate protection by properly-selected colours against photographic reproduction; and (3) high-cla.s.s engraving comprising geometric lathe work and well-executed vignettes. In addition it is important that the design of the note should be striking and pleasing to the eye, and the inscription legible.
The notes of the Bank of England are printed in the bank from surface-plates in black without colour or special protection except the water-mark in the paper. They are never reissued after being once returned to the bank, and their average life is very short, about six weeks, so that a dirty or worn Bank of England note is practically never seen. This arrangement, coupled with the difficulty of negotiating forged notes in England, the lowest denomination being 5, accounts for the comparative immunity from forgery of the bank's issues.
BANK RATE, a term used in financial circles to designate the rate of discount charged in the chief monetary centres by the state or leading bank, as opposed to the open-market rate. (See MARKET: _Money market_.)
[Sidenote: Definition.]
BANKRUPTCY (from Lat. _bancus_ or Fr. _banque_, table or counter, and Lat.
_ruptus_, broken), the status of a debtor who has been declared by judicial process to be unable to pay his debts. Although the terms ”bankruptcy” and ”insolvency” are sometimes used indiscriminately, they have in legal and commercial usage distinct significations. When a person's financial liabilities are greater than his means of meeting them, he is said to be ”insolvent”; but he may nevertheless be able to carry on his business affairs by means of credit, paying old debts by incurring new ones, and he may even, if fortunate, regain a position of solvency without his creditors ever being aware of his true condition. And even when his insolvency becomes public and default occurs, a debtor may still avert bankruptcy if he is able to effect a voluntary arrangement with his creditors. A debtor may thus be insolvent without becoming bankrupt, but he cannot be a bankrupt without being insolvent, for bankruptcy is a legal declaration of his insolvency and operates as a statutory system for the administration of his property, which is thereby taken out of his personal control.
[Sidenote: Early methods.]
In primitive communities bankruptcy systems were unknown. Individual creditors were left to pursue their remedies by such means as the law or practice of the community might sanction, and these were generally of a very drastic character. Under the Roman law of the Twelve Tables, the creditors might, as a last resort, cut the debtor's body into pieces, each of them taking his proportionate share; and although Blackstone in quoting this law appears to cast some doubt upon its too literal interpretation, there can be no doubt that the power of selling the debtor and his family into slavery was one which was habitually exercised in Greece, Rome, and generally among the nations of antiquity. Even among the Jews, whose legislation was of a comparatively humane character, this practice is ill.u.s.trated by the Old Testament story of the woman who sought the help of Elisha, saying, ”Thy servant my husband is dead ... and the creditor is come to take unto him my two children to be bondmen.” The savage severity of these earlier laws was, however, found to be inconsistent with the development of more humane ideas and the growth of popular rights; and tended, as in the case of Greece and Rome, to create serious disturbance in political relations between the patricians, who generally composed the wealthier or creditor cla.s.s, and the plebeians, in whose ranks the majority of debtors were to be found. Later legislation consequently subst.i.tuted imprisonment in a public prison for the right of selling the person of the debtor. Under the feudal systems of Europe the state generally insisted on its subjects being left free for military service, and debts could not therefore be enforced against the person of the debtor; but as trade began to develop it was found necessary to provide some means of bringing personal pressure to bear upon debtors for the purpose of compelling them to meet their obligations, and under the practice of the English courts of law the right of a creditor to enforce his claims by the imprisonment of his debtor was gradually evolved (although no express legal enactment to that effect appears at any time to have existed), and this practice continued until comparatively recent times.
[Sidenote: Commercial objects.]
Without some system of enforcing payment of debts it would have been impossible for the commerce of the world to have attained its present proportions; for modern commerce is necessarily founded largely on credit, and credit could not have existed without the power of enforcing the fulfilment of financial contracts. On the other hand remedies against a debtor's person, and still more against the persons of his family, are not only inconsistent with the growth of opinion among civilized communities, but are in themselves worse than futile, inasmuch as they strike at the root of all personal effort on the part of a debtor to retrieve his position and render a return to solvency impossible. Hence the necessity of devising some system which is just to creditors while not unduly harsh upon debtors, which discriminates between involuntary inability to meet obligations and wilful [v.03 p.0321] refusal or neglect, and which secures to creditors as between themselves an equitable share of such of the debtor's a.s.sets as may be available for the payment of his liabilites.