A writer in _All the Year Round_ (1892, pp. 41–3) remarks that “when the £1 note was introduced in the last decade of the eighteenth century, forgery from the first was the great trouble, and the hasty manner in which the notes were engraved and issued greatly facilitated the operations of the forger.” In _The Bankers’ Magazine_, vol. lxvii., pp. 390–410, {147} is an article by J. Macbeth Forbes, “French Prisoners of War and Bank Note Forging,” in which is an illustration of a partially executed forgery of a Guinea Note of the Bank of Scotland. Another illustration is that of the words “BANK OF SCOTLAND” carved on a bone by the prisoners in Edinburgh, the letters measuring ⅞ inch, but so rough and irregular are these, that, even if they were successfully reproduced, they could hardly have deceived a simpleton, much less a Pawky Scot. This block might have been an early effort to make a tool for imitating the water-mark; the type is not reversed, so it cannot have been a stamp for printing. It is possible, however, that bone was the material used for type by the Norman Cross forgers. The deft fingers which executed many of their legitimate works of art were sufficiently skilled to carve an imitation of a £1 note. The resemblance of the oak block with the name “Louis Chartie” carved on it to that referred to in _The Bankers’ Magazine_, suggests the possibility of its having been a tool for one step in the process of forging M. Charretie’s name. The fact that the prisoners were able to have in their possession, and to use a plant and tools necessary for such a trade as forging, illustrates the absence of any but a very casual supervision of the thousands of prisoners concentrated in the four courts of the prison. One would gladly pass over another illegal traffic which was with difficulty suppressed. To the disgrace of those British purchasers whose depraved tastes made it worth the while of the prisoners to expend their ingenuity on the production of obscene pictures and carvings, it must be mentioned that an illicit, secret trade in such articles was carried on at Norman Cross. At one time in the year 1808 the trade in such goods, clandestinely made and sold, reached such a pitch that respectable inhabitants of the neighbourhood complained to the Transport Commissioners, and on the 18th December an order was issued totally closing the market. It was a severe punishment, as it at once stopped the supply of all the little necessaries, luxuries, and comforts the prisoners could obtain—the vegetables, sugar, condiments, tobacco, beer, clothing, which they were in the habit of purchasing—and it also stopped the sale of their legitimate manufactures. The offence merited such a punishment, and the practice had to be stopped.