connection with the currency are numerous. In 1889 110 persons were convicted out of 194 charged with issuing counterfeit coins, having them in their possession, or actually making them. The more ingenious the device on the coin produced by the Imperial mint, the less likely is a counterfeit to pass muster for long. [Illustration: DRYING BLANKS.] The coin leaves the Press-room complete, and has to pass only one other ordeal, that, namely, of the Weighing-room. Here it is placed on a wonderful automatic balance. If it is too light it falls into a drawer on one side, if correct into a drawer in the centre, if too heavy into a drawer on the other side. The average of coins which are either too heavy or too light, and consequently have to be returned to the melting pot, is, owing to the smallness of the "remedy" or margin of weight allowed, as much as 13 per cent. There are thirty of these little machines employed, and their workmanship may be judged by the fact that each one costs £300. Bronze coins are not subjected to this severe test, but are weighed in bulk in a huge scale. Every year there is what is called "The Trial of the Pyx"--the pyx being the chest containing sample coins. A coin is taken, without preference, from every "journey weight" of gold, a "journey weight" being 15 lb. troy, or 701 sovereigns, or 1,402 half sovereigns. The work of testing is performed by a jury, composed of freemen of the Goldsmiths' Company in the presence of the Queen's Remembrancer, and the report of the jury is laid before the Treasury. The yearly verdict shows how wonderfully and uniformly accurate the standard of fineness has remained, averaging, as it did in 1889, according to the Deputy Master's Report, 916·657, the precise standard being 916·6. As regards silver, the English standard of 925 is, with the exception of certain coins, averaging 945 in the Netherlands, the highest in the world, the average in France being 835, and in Germany and the United States, 900. [Illustration: COINING PRESS.]