ers with short paragraphs relating to accidents, offenses,
and brief records of remarkable occurrences in general--who is, in
short, what they call a penny-a-liner) told his landlord that he had
been in the city that day and heard unfavourable rumours on the subject
of the joint-stock banks. The rumours to which he alluded had already
reached the ears of Mr. Yatman from other quarters, and the confirmation
of them by his lodger had such an effect on his mind--predisposed as it
was to alarm by the experience of his former losses--that he resolved to
go at once to the bank and withdraw his deposit. It was then getting on
toward the end of the afternoon, and he arrived just in time to receive
his money before the bank closed.

He received the deposit in bank-notes of the following amounts: one
fifty-pound note, three twenty-pound notes, six ten-pound notes, and six
five-pound notes. His object in drawing the money in this form was to
have it ready to lay out immediately in trifling loans, on good
security, among the small tradespeople of his district, some of whom are
sorely pressed for the very means of existence at the present time.
Investments of this kind seemed to Mr. Yatman to be the most safe and
the most profitable on which he could now venture.

He brought the money back in an envelope placed in his breast pocket,
and asked his shopman, on getting home, to look for a small, flat, tin
cash-box, which had not been used for years, and which, as Mr. Yatman
remembered it, was exactly of the right size to hold the bank-notes. For
some time the cash-box was searched for in vain. Mr. Yatman called to
his wife to know if she had any idea where it was. The question was
overheard by the servant-of-all-work, who was taking up the tea-tray at
the time, and by Mr. Jay, who was coming downstairs on his way out to
the theatre. Ultimately the cash-box was found by the shopman. Mr.
Yatman placed the bank-notes in it, secured them by a padlock, and put
the box in his coat pocket. It stuck out of the coat pocket a very
little, but enough to be seen. Mr. Yatman remained at home, upstairs,
all that evening. No visitors called. At eleven o'clock he went to bed,
and put the cash-box under his pillow.

When he and his wife woke the next morning the box was gone. Payment of
the notes was immediately stopped at the Bank of England, but no news of
the money has been heard of since that time.

So far the circumstances of the case are perfe