presented, but refused, amounted to double the sum. Wagner, after conviction, offered to reveal, for a reward of £3000, a system which had long been in practice of defrauding the Exchequer of vast sums by means of forged stamps. His offer was not, however, accepted. A more elaborate plot in many ways, more secretly, more patiently prepared than the preceding, or indeed than any in the calendar, was the case of the forgeries upon the Bank of England discovered in 1863, but not before the forged paper had been put in circulation for more than a couple of years. In 1861 a man named Burnett came with his wife and took up his residence at Whitchurch, Hampshire, at no great distance from Laverstock, where are Messrs. Portal's mills for the manufacture of bank-note paper. Burnett had only just come out of gaol after completing a sentence of penal servitude. His object in visiting Whitchurch was to undermine the honesty of some workman in the mills; and he eventually succeeded, his wife making the first overtures, in persuading a lad named Brown to steal some of the bank paper. Brown took several sheets, and then was detected by Brewer, a fellow-workman of superior grade, who threatened to betray the theft. But Brewer, either before or after this, succumbed to temptation, and stole paper on a much larger scale than Brown. All that was taken was handed over to Burnett, or a "woman in black" whom Brown met by appointment at Waterloo station. To facilitate his operations, Brewer obtained a false master key from Burnett, which gave him access to all parts of the mills, the packing-room included. In this part of the mills a large quantity of bank-note paper was kept at the period of the robbery, and in the states known as "water-leaf" and "sized," which are the penultimate processes of manufacture. One more remains, that of "glazing," without which no paper is issued for engraving. None of the stolen paper was glazed, and this was an important clue to the subsequent discovery of the crime.