Page:Journal of the Straits Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (IA journalofstra85861922roya).pdf/179

 THE GOVERNMENT OF THE STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.

Promises to pay the bearer on demand at Singapore.

TEN 10 CENTS.

Local Currency for Value received.

The serial number appears in black at the two top corners of the note.

On the back of the note appears the representation of a dragon in white and pale green and the value in English, Chinese, Tamil and Malay in the four corners.

By September 22nd, 1920 the value of these notes issued was $680,000. The locally manufactured ten cent notes were extensively counterfeited and a great many of these forgeries circulated side by side with the genuine ones.

On January 21st, 1918 an issue of Twenty-five cent notes commenced. These were prepared at the Government Survey Office at Kuala Lumpur, Federated Malay States. (Pl. IV. figs. 6 and 7). The value of these notes in circulation by September 22nd, 1920 was $39,825. I was recently informed that these twenty-five cent notes were being withdrawn from circulation as occasion permitted.

The twenty-five cent note was a better looking production than the local ten cent paper currency. They measured about 108 × 75 mm. The material was a fairly thin white paper closely striped with narrow perpendicular pale pink lines. On the face was first printed an elaborate ornamental design (in orange) and outside this (in black) a border of heavy spandrels with the figures "25" in white in a black circle at the top corner and "Cts" in similar circles. at the bottom corners: midway on the right, and left and at the bottom, in Tamil, Malay and Chinese respectively and in black on white scrolls "25 Cents." Over the orange pattern and printed in black: