a bill that was passed in 1793 endows them with a preference, before any other creditor, against their trustees and officers--it also exempts them from stamp duties and court fees in their legal proceedings, and supplies them with expeditious and cheap means of settling disputes.'

'It is only to be lamented, that such a good disposition in the people, and such beneâcent provisions in the legislature, should be used by the artful as the means of foisting impositions upon the deserving persons intended to be made secure. Benefit Clubs in the metropolis are, it is believed, with a very few exceptions, cheats upon the unwary--their benefit is chiefly to the publican at whose house they are set up, and to the secretary, their contriver, who is usually some broken adventurer. For the most part, the contributions are not a third part of what is necessary to realize the promised advantages--and the secretaries, some of whom manage twenty different clubs, seem to be under no other restraint in outbidding each other in the advantages they promise, than the necessary caution not to overstrain the credulity of their subscribers. Consisting at first of the young and healthful, the members are all payers-in--and the fund continuing to improve for a time, persons unused to consider subjects of this kind are delighted with the prospect, and think it must last for ever; but when from being young and healthy payers-in, they become sickly and aged drawers-out, the scene presently changes. Hence most of the clubs are exhausted in fifteen or twenty years, and very few indeed reach to the age of thirty years, when those who have been many years members reap no other fruit from their life-long industry and frugality, than grievous disappointment. These continual falsifications of the just hopes of the frugally disposed are not more cruel to the sufferers themselves, than they are prejudicial to the cause of industry and frugality in others. Many, desirous of saving part of the earnings, and applying them to their future wants, seeing these failures of these clubs, give up their object in despair, and spend the sums they would otherwise save, in present enjoyment.'

The trouble of corresponding, and the risk incurred through the neglect or defalcation of agents, soon made it necessary to stop the receipt of small savings in the country, and to confine it to London; the management of the latter at the office was found scarcely compatible with the other business of the concern; and the number of subscribers was very limited, because the repayment of the money took place not (as in the case of the lately established savings-banks) on the demand of the owner, but only in the shape of an annuity in old age. The intention was to make the poor lay by a provision for advanced years: but this, however well meant, was not found suitable to their circumstances; since the time, at which a married man is most likely to need an extra-supply, is generally that of middle-life, viz. when his children have begun to be expensive to him with

out being yet able to do any thing for their own support. In advanced years,

When this period is passed by--when his children's labour is sufficient for their support, and his wife who is at liberty to work for her livelihood, his condition then re-approaches to the independence of a single man, and if his diminished bodily powers cause his earnings to be at that period curtailed-his subdued desires, on the other hand, free him from many expenses which the habits of youth made necessary; so that, if he continues to enjoy the blessing of health, the labour of old age for many years will supply its wants. It is, therefore, not quite reasonable that a young man should sink his savings to procure an independence in an old age which he may not live to enjoy; and overlook the probability of such savings being wanted to supply food for an infant family, or the expenses of the sick bed.'

The savings-banks now established leave it in general to the contributor to withdraw the money at his option; and they are seldom liable to any other objection than that of too great a complexity in their arrangements, arising from a solicitude on the part of the directors to act as guardians to their humble neighbours.

Be it ever remembered, that the great merit of these Saving Banks is their simplicity—adhering to the operation of merely taking care of the working man's savings, be they much or little -improving them at good interest-and returning them whenever demanded the management will be easy and without expense; but enter into complex machinery, and all the reverse effects will follow. The perfect freedom, convenience, and cheapness of these banks, at once compose their attraction, and their great utility. Bind the depositors to stated periodical payments, and speculate on contingent benefits, and this very promising plan of economy will evaporate into the cloud of plausible but erroneous schemes, which daily win the complaisance of the charitable, but which soon disappoint their expectations and sink into oblivion.

'The plan of the Edinburgh bank is the best of all in the north, because it is the most simple; it professes to do but little, but it does that little well.-In various other parts of England, and also in Ireland, similar institutions have lately been proposed, and announced under high patronage and munificent support; indeed the best feelings appear to have been kindled toward the subject.'

That they may not end in disappointment, the writer of this essay has been induced to take up his pen, and submit to the public the result of his experience. The best advice then that he can give to the opulent and beneficent is, to be the interest bankers for the poor in their respective neighbourhoods,-and there to stop. In that way they may do more for the good of working people, than by any other act of general kindness.-The chief caution necessary is not to spoil this simple machine by im

provements. Almost every place of deposit for savings that has been lately announced has had something new thrown in-a combination of several districts, with a central seat of managementimpediments against the deposits being withdrawn, lest they should be wasted-optional annuities-an actuary or secretary, to be elected, with a certain salary, before it is seen whether any adequate employment will arise-and lastly, a large subscription from among the rich and charitable. All these things, it is submitted, are unnecessary. A combination of several townships, with a centrical seat of directors, can seldom be of use; for if proper persons, in each town, are willing to receive the weekly amounts of deposits, and pay interest, no combination of places can do more; but they must do less, by creating useless correspondence, interference, and delays. Interest banks are best managed in their separate localities. All regulations for suspending the freedom of paying in, and drawing out, are essentially bad. It is now ten years since the author projected the Bank for Savings, of the Provident Institution; but being encumbered with restrictions and scientific calculations, after several years unsuccessful trial it was given up: experience has now stript the plan of every thing but the simple process of receiving, improving, and paying, and it thrives beyond expectation. It is the great object of the banks for savings to reclaim the working class from their present habit of relying on the helping hand of others in their difficulties, and to teach them to depend only on the natural support of their own industry and prudence.

'Impressed with these considerations, the author has exerted himself lately to establish a 'Provident Bank' in his own parish, St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and he has the satisfaction to see that it has every prospect of doing well. Indeed the alacrity, with which the benefit has been embraced, confirms him in the belief, that the wanderings of the lower class are, in a great measure, attributable to the want of plain and convenient ways for the exercise of prudence. In the course of an hour after the books were opened, fifty-seven persons had deposited savings to the amount of upwards of seventy pounds.'

It is much to be lamented that the plan of savings-banks was not adopted ten or twelve years ago, because in that interval the lower orders could have availed themselves of them to a much greater extent than they can under the present circumstances of reduced wages and deficient employment.

'It is a curious fact, that in places where the labouring class have highest wages, the inhabitants are encumbered with the highest poor-rates. The following extract of a letter which I have received from an esteemed friend, who has considerable estates at Coventry, shows the existence of the evil in that city in a striking point of view. It is believed that similar conduct prevails in most manufacturing districts.'

"In reply to your favour of yesterday, respecting the improvident conduct of the Women Ribbon Weavers at Coventry, I understand for at least six months last year they were (when they liked to pay attention to their work) in the habit of gaining about three pounds per week. Very few of them, I believe, worked more than four days a week, and the manufacturers were obliged to give them such work as they liked, or they would not do any. A respectable butcher informed me that he could not sell legs of mutton but at a very reduced price, as the weavers would not purchase any thing but ducks, geese, fowls, &c. which they dressed most evenings for supper. The drapers, &c. had not any thing sufficiently good in their shops, but were obliged to send to London for the best silks, &c. to please the ladies. The first or second week after trade became bad, they in general pawn their fine dresses, and afterwards apply to the parish for relief; the poor-rates have, in some instances, been double the rental of the houses.'

·

II. Mr. Duncan on Parish-banks.-The reverend author of this pamphlet enters at considerable length into an historical sketch of these institutions, and explains with great clearness the points in which they differ from the old established associations under the name of benefit-clubs,' or friendly societies.' The latter, though generally praise-worthy in their motives, were founded on such erroneous calculations, that they frequently left an inadequacy of funds at the time when the advanced years of the original subscribers rendered assistance most necessary. Still Mr. D. is so far from being exclusively attached to the new establishments, and so convinced of the expediency of providing for particular contingencies of distress arising from old age and sickness, that he dedicates a section (p. 47.) to the method of uniting the parish bank system with that of friendly societies; and it is in this solicitude to combine a variety of objects, and to provide for them by a multiplicity of regulations, that he differs from other advocates of savings-banks, particularly from Mr. Beaumont, Mr. Christian, and the managers of the Edinburgh association.

The progress of these institutions has been more rapid in Scotland than in the other parts of the United Kingdom; the general steadiness there of the lower orders, the intimate connexion subsisting between a clergyman and his flock, but, in particular, the absence of poor-rates, having all concurred to accelerate the adoption of this most beneficial arrangement. The principal of the university of Edinburgh (Dr. Baird) has been indefatigable in the cause; and it has lately derived a most efficient patronage from being taken up by the numerous body of gentlemen who are known by the denomination of the Highland-Society, but who are in fact occupied with questions of in

terest to Scotland at large. Mr. D. has subjoined to his pamphlet, by way of example to other associations, the rules of the Dumfries parish-bank, following it up with a notice of other institutions, as well as with some very useful calculations. He records, likewise, several affecting anecdotes of the pleasing results of early prudence in the lower orders, consequent on the exhortation of their superiors and on the facilities afforded by the institution in question. It is only to be regretted that his pamphlet is composed in a diffuse style, and that he aims too much at system and modification in a matter of which the essence consists in brevity and simplicity.

III. Mr. Christian's pamphlet consists chiefly of a recapitulation of the plans of the principal establishments of this nature that have been already formed. He begins with the Provident Institution of Bath; which he has no hesitation in pronouncing to be founded on a basis that cannot last, because it will require the aid of constant charitable contributions, and because the promise of a bonus or premium at the end of the five years must be altogether illusory. The regulations of the Southampton Provident Institution are next discussed, and treated with as little ceremony. In the third place, Mr. C. passes under review the suggestions of Mr. Twiss, a barrister, who has lately published on this subject, which he is disposed to approve in the main: but, in discussing the merits of Mr. Beaumont's plan, he is struck with the serious objection that occurred to us with regard to lodging deposits in the hands of individuals, however apparently respectable. The regulations of the Hertfordshire savings-bank are next investigated, but pronounced to be inferior in simplicity and in judgment to those of the Edinburgh-bank. The pamphlet concludes with a few directions (pp. 75. et seqq.) which Mr. C. considers as indispensable to every institution of the kind.

IV. We are now to wind up our report with a notice of the little tract under the title of Reasons for the Establishment of Savings-banks. It differs from the preceding works in containing, not the scheme of any particular foundation, but some general reasoning in recommendation of the institution at large; and we have seldom met with more truth in a short compass that in this cheap and modest essay, the chief (and rare) objection to which arises from its too great brevity, and the obscurity in which it is likely to remain from the writer not venturing into a comprehensive view of the subject. The sufferings of the lower class proceed, he says, in a great measure from their improvidence in youth.

All the labouring classes are subject to great inequalities. At some periods they enjoy a surplus, at others they experience