The Richmond Palladium And Sun Telegram

TROOPS GUARD ITS GOLD.
Every Night the Bank of England Has
a Military Display.

For 130 years a company of guardsmen in charge of an officer marched every evening from the Chelsea or the Wellington Barracks to the Bank of England. For the last few years, owing to the great increase of street traffic, the soldiers have gone by the underground railway, and nowadays the nightly guard is drawn from the troops stationed in the Tower of London.

If the visitor to London waits by the bank any evening at half past 6 o'clock he will see about thirty men in the charge of a lieutenant and two sergeants marched up in parade dress with fixed bayonets and loaded ammunition belts. These are the only troops that may march through the city of London with fixed bayonets.

The men themselves like this duty. When they march back to quarters, about 7 o'clock in the morning, they may do as they please for the rest of the day, and they receive an extra shilling a day from the bank managers.

Each man also has a pair of fine blankets wherein to wrap himself while he waits for his turn to go on guard, and in winter big fires are lighted for them. They have generous refreshments provided for them, and the officer in command has a dinner for himself and two friends.

In the daytime another curious survival of the past is to be observed. All detectives guard all the doors, uniformed beadles are also paid for service. From the standpoint of efficiency, these officials are very much in the way, but as long as the Bank of England has been in existence the beadles have policed it. Consequently the beadles are allowed to remain.

The custom of providing a little garrison for the bank dates back to 1780, when an attack was made upon the bank by a mob during the Gordon riots, picturesquely described in "Barnaby Rudge." It is said that in the fight that ensued between the rioters and the clerks of the bank the latter melted their metal inkpots for ammunition after their supply of bullets had given out.—Youth's Companion.