when necessary, an arrangement which we recommend to other large employers of labour and large bodies of workmen. That the masters should be acquitted of any selfish motive, they allow the funds to be managed and applied by a committee of workmen appointed by themselves from their own number.

[6] No labourer, says Mr. Smiles in his Workman's Earnings, &c., is better worthy of his hire than the English one. It is not merely that he works harder than the labourer of any other country, but he generally produces a better quality of workmanship. He possesses a power of throwing himself bodily into his occupation, which has always been a marvel to foreigners; and he then recurs to the well-known example of the surprise created among the French peasantry when gangs of English navvies proceeded with the works of the Rouen railway, and worked amidst constant exclamations, of Voilà! voilà ces Anglais! comme ils travaillent!

[7] We put the matter quite mildly here, though it is customarily and very properly spoken of much more severely. For example, Mr. Norris, one of the Government inspectors of schools, in speaking of the well-paid miners and iron workers of Staffordshire—who doubtless are little worse than the same classes throughout the country—says in one of his able reports: Improvidence is too tame a word for it—it is recklessness; here young and old, married and single, are uniformly and almost avowedly self-indulgent spendthrifts. One sees this reckless character marring and vitiating the nobler traits of their nature. Their gallantry in the face of danger is akin to foolhardiness; their power of intense labour is seldom exerted except to compensate for time lost in idleness and revelry; their readiness to make gatherings for their sick and married comrades seems only to obviate the necessity of previous savings, &c.

[8] Much of what we have said in the foregoing pages is admirably summed up in a sentence or two in an article on Savings Banks, which we would not be far wrong in attributing to Dr. Wynter, and which we had not seen before these pages were written: Contemporaneously with the growth of savings banks, we have seen a growth of civilization among the poorer classes. Thrift has not effected all that amelioration of morals which contrasts so happily the mid years of the century with its younger ones; but it has been no mean confluent to the tide of progress, the softening of manners, the spread of education, the humanising of popular sports and pastimes, the wakening up of the natural dignity and self-reliance of the people,—the broad and indispensable basis of every other virtue.—London Review.

[9] Quarterly Review, 1859.

[10] Mr. W. R. Greg in the Edinburgh Review, 1853, p. 406.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE ORIGIN OF SAVINGS BANKS.

It would be difficult, we fear, to convince either the people or their rulers that the spread of Savings Banks is of far more importance, and far more likely to increase the happiness and even the greatness of the nation, than the most brilliant success of its arms, or the most stupendous improvements of its trade or its agriculture. And yet we are persuaded that it is so.—Edinburgh Review, 1818.

Great Britain can with justice, we think, lay claim to the original establishment of the system of Savings Banks. One well-known writer[11] on this and cognate subjects has traced them to Switzerland, if not to Hamburg, at a time prior to any experiments with them in this country; but from the best investigation we have been able to make, the institutions in question were something very different from Savings Banks as English people understand them, dealing, as they did, in business more like the sale of deferred annuities. The institution at Hamburg, which is said to have been founded in the year 1778,—and which is interesting to readers of history as being one of those whose coffers the First Napoleon swept of their funds, thus giving it its death blow,—simply took the spare cash of domestic servants and handicraftsmen, and granted annuities on the members arriving at a certain age. No withdrawal of money was allowed. In this country the first proposals for a bank for savings were made in 1798 or 1799, according to the judgment of the reader as to which of the two original schemes best deserves the name of Savings Bank, or whether either of them is entitled to the honour. The two persons whose names it is customary to speak of in connexion with the earliest people's banks are those of the well-known Priscilla Wakefield, and the Rev. Joseph Smith of Wendover. In the mind of each of these estimable persons we think the question of becoming the bankers for the poor around them was at first only a subordinate measure, and quite auxiliary to other matters deemed of greater importance. Mrs. Wakefield's scheme arose out of a well-meant anxiety to better the condition of the weaker and more defenceless portions of the community, an object to which she devoted much of her literary ability, and was first started in 1799, for the benefit of women and children in her own village of Tottenham, and under her immediate superintendence. Members paying according to their age certain sums per month became entitled to a pension after sixty years of age; in case of sickness, four shillings a week; in case of extraordinary misfortune a certain amount could be withdrawn; in case of death a sum of money was allowed for the funeral. Honorary members paid subscriptions, which went to meet deficiencies and current expenses. In 1801 there was added, first, a fund from which loans were made to those who had been members for six months; and second, a regular bank for savings. The interest given in the latter case was the same as that charged in the former, or five per cent. The clauses relating to children were such as almost to entitle the founders to the honour of being the originators of Penny Banks, if nothing else; juveniles were encouraged to deposit their penny per month, which was kept for them, along with interest, until such a time as the accumulation was needed for apprentice fee, clothes, or such like object. The management of this Parent Institution, as it may well be called, was equitably divided amongst the honorary and the benefited members. In 1804 the Tottenham Bank was more regularly organized, and Mr. Eardley Wilmot, M.P. and Mr. Spurling, were appointed Trustees.[12]

The Wendover institution, which was really started a year before that at Tottenham, partook at first so largely of the nature of a charity as to make it almost of the character of a private undertaking between a rich and benevolent rector and his poor parishioners. Still, there was here the germ of that of which we are in search. Mr. Smith, and two of his richer parishioners, who joined him in the work, circulated proposals in the summer of 1798 to receive any surplus money which any of the working population round them felt they could spare—provided it were not less in amount than twopence; to keep a strict account of every deposit made in this way; and then to repay the money during the winter season, or generally about Christmas, with the addition of one third of the whole, which would be allowed as interest on their deposits—or to speak, perhaps, more correctly, as a bounty for their economy. Any depositor might receive his money before Christmas on demand; and it was further stipulated that, in case of sickness or loss of employment, these fruits of his savings should not preclude him from parish relief, if otherwise he could obtain it. A Christmas dinner was the comfortable addition to the good round sum which, generally, was garnered at this time, the dinner, too, being provided by the three directors. It is rather curious that the time chosen to receive deposits was limited to Sunday evenings; but we suppose this would be justified by the scriptural text, not generally applied in this fashion, which they chose for their motto, Upon the first day of the week, let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him. For several years these benevolent gentlemen carried on their operations, and had generally about sixty subscribers, who deposited from five to ten pounds every season.

In February, 1807, Mr. Whitbread introduced his Poor Laws Amendment Bill into the House of Commons, and went over the whole ground of the condition and the wants and requirements of the working population in an eloquent manner. That speech—which must have been of several hours' duration—dealt with the past legislation on the subject, and commented on the various steps which ought to be taken, over and above the mere collection of poor-rates, to alleviate the condition of the poor. After dwelling on the subject of national education, and hinting at a mode such as was eventually brought into operation many years afterwards, Mr. Whitbread went on to describe the want felt by the poor of some safe and profitable investment for their earnings; that so few are found to make any saving may in a great degree be accounted for by the difficulty of putting out the little they can raise at a time. He described the action of Friendly Societies, and showed that at that early period they were open to the same objections that are now being continually raised against them. Mr. Malthus,[13] said Mr. Whitbread, had just proposed the establishment of county banks, but he would go farther than Mr. Malthus, and extend his principle. It seemed to him that there would be less trouble in his proposals than in the less extensive proposals of Mr. Malthus.

Mr. Whitbread then went into the matter of his proposals under this head, and we give his own words:[14] I beg gentlemen not to start at what I am about to suggest, which to many who hear me may be quite new, but to afford it their cool and deliberate consideration. I would propose the establishment of one great national institution, in the nature of a bank, for the use and advantage of the labouring classes alone; that it should be placed in the metropolis, and be under the control and management of proper persons; that every man who shall be certified by one Justice of the Peace to subsist on the wages of his own labour shall be at liberty to remit to the Accountant of the Poor's Fund (as I would designate it) any sum from 20s. upwards, but not exceeding 20l. in any one year, and not more than 200l. in the whole. He then proceeded to show how the money might be invested in Government Stock, in the name of commissioners to be appointed, and by this means interest would be allowed to depositors at the highest rate possible. The plan, added Mr. Whitbread, will be more amply detailed in the Bill itself, and such regulations are provided as will, with the intervention of the Post-office, give ample facilities to its execution. Gentlemen need not to be told that the perfection attained in the management of that great machine is such as to give the most easy and rapid means of communication with the metropolis, much greater, indeed, than usually subsists between the remote parts of any county and its capital town. Mr. Whitbread then went on to say, that in addition to this form of investment, the same machinery might be employed to give those who might wish it an opportunity of purchasing annuities by the payment of stated regular sums up to a certain age; and even to insure their lives. So strong, indeed, was this feeling, that he eventually proposed, as an addition to his bill, that under the same management there should be an Insurance-office for the poor, with properly-calculated tables and modes of payment. We need not here dwell upon the miscellaneous items which he fully went into in his admirable speech. He finally begged the patient attention of the House and the country to the consideration of the general outline of the plan which he had proposed, in order to encourage the labourer to acquire property, and to secure to them the certain and profitable possession of it when acquired. He had the greatest hope of a happy effect from its being put in practice. If the poor, said he, should be found to avail themselves of it to any extent, the advantage to them and the country would be incalculable, and the expense attending it would speedily be covered. This Bill went through several necessary stages; there was little objection manifested to Mr. Whitbread's plans for securing the savings of the poor, but there was also little anxiety to forward the measure. Mr. Whitbread in this, as in many others of his wise proposals, was far ahead of his time, and he suffered the matter to drop towards the end of the session.[15]

One at least of the important organs of public opinion frowned upon Mr. Whitbread, and laughed at his scheme; an organ whose frown and whose laugh was no joke at that date. It has not unfrequently been a subject of remark how persistently the Quarterly Review stood in the way of progress, clogging the wheels of all kinds of reform. In matters of this kind, however, it generally showed a most enlightened policy, and was not unfrequently in the van of improvement instead of obstruction. It was not so always with its more powerful rival, the Edinburgh