There were two open square boxes, which had connections with a number of wheels and revolving cylinders, and from each of these boxes projected the mouth of a scoop or highly polished funnel. A roll of sovereigns passed into this box, sliding slowly down through the mouth, and thence into a larger box below on the floor.
The attendants fill the tubes, and at the lower end of the scoop the work is done. Whenever a sovereign of light weight touches this spot in the lower part of the tube, a small brass plate jumps out and pushes the light sovereign into the left-hand aperture, while the full-weight pieces drop without hindrance into the right-hand box. The small brass plate does the business very quietly.
The light sovereigns are then gathered, placed in a bag, and sent back to the Mint to be re-coined. The man who was working the machine pulled a crank and a number, perhaps a thousand, of these marked sovereigns fell into the box. I took some of them in my hand, and found them almost totally defaced, and a number had been slit in two halves by the process, but no gold dust is lost the operation is performed so cleanly.
On the very same spot where once stood the Monastery of the Cistercian Monks, or Gray Friars, the Royal Mint of England is now located, and here all the money in use in England is coined by the "Company of Moneyers," as they are called. The building is situated on Tower Hill, the Mint having for a thousand years been carried on in the Tower itself.
For many hundreds of years the coinage of England had been debased by succeeding money-makers, who were entrusted by the Kings with the coinage, and in the reign of King Edward I, 280 Jews, of both sexes, were charged by this monarch with having debased the silver and gold coins, and were hung in London for the offence. King John, in 1212, ordered all the prisoners in his custody, among whom were some ecclesiastics, to be brought before him for instant judgment, at the same time summoning Cardinal Pandulph, the Papal Legate, to appear also to witness the judgment. Pandulph appeared, and King John thinking to frighten that haughty prelate who had often humbled him, ordered a priest among the prisoners, who had counterfeited money, to be hanged.
Pandulph stepped forward and said:
"Lord King, who so dares lay finger on yon clerk, though he were of royal blood, him shall I excommunicate, and he shall be anathema of Holy Church."
Pandulph, who was indeed a very energetic person, left the apartment to get a candle, so that he might curse John in due form, and the King having been thoroughly frightened, delivered the priest to Pandulph to have that prelate do justice on him, but the legate immediately liberated the offender.
During the reign of the Saxon Edgar, the penny had become scarcely equal to a half-penny in weight, and St. Dunstan, who was a bishop and confessor to the King, became so outraged at the debasement of the coinage, that on Whit-Sunday he refused to celebrate the mass before the King until justice had been done on three officials, or as they were called "moneyers." They were at once taken out of the Church and had their right hands struck off by order of the King.