which notice has been given is paid out. There
are three desks for paying in, each furnished with
three recorders—one in pass-book, one in day-
book, one in ledger—of the little sums paid in.
No poor man's earnings shall be lost through
negligence of record. We may read the secret
of this girl, hardly too old to lead nursery
games in a home ignorant of want, whose pleasant
face is set so firmly with a sense of the
world's care and duty, and who stands erect, with
the street-door key in her hand, waiting for
sixteen shillings and twopence: a comparatively
large sum, and her mother's whole deposit. It
is a sum hoarded through months of small
solicitude, and now, no doubt, there is a great care
to be killed by it. The girl knows all about it.
Her face shows that she is acquainted with her
mother's cares and is partner of her confidence.
There is a boy here who has given notice of, and
is fulfilling, his intention to draw on the Bank
for a shilling. Many of these young people are
depositors on their own account, for they all
have found in their homes good reason for earning
something at an early age.

Across the room there is a girl of twelve in a
frock of deep mourning which she has outgrown,
and to which a tiny brother clings with a small
fist. She has to mind him, and has brought
him with her, while she carries to the miserably
slender hoard, the last mite wrung as savings
from the widow's pittance for long days of toil.
The girl is a child, with the sedateness of old
age in her manner. While she is giving her
mind to operations with the pass-book, her
young charge has wandered to the empty grate,
and has made a horse of something that he found
there, and has vanished on horseback. When
the business is over, the staid sister searches the
whole room with a grave look, satisfies herself
that her charge is gone (as a child should) into
the sunshine, and quietly departs herself into
the golden summer light.

She has gone out of an enclosed arch fitted
with doors and mysterious suggestions of
outlying premises, furnished with desks and stools,
with a frill of zinc that may stop leakage from
above, and with a smoky clock over the stove,
suggestive of ideas not honourable to the
contrivance serving in the place of chimney; and
she is gone out into a hard and dull paved court
that will lead into a street with forty smells, of
which not one suggests the handiwork of God.
But, she has fulfilled her small errand of love and
duty; she has found for her mother true service
in small service under that brick vault; and in
the sordid street she has, at any rate, the vault
of heaven overhead, and the pure light—
the only thing in nature that cannot be
poisoned.

We have spoken so far, without reference to
the proverb, Take care of the Pence, and the
Pounds will take care of themselves. As a
general proverb, it contains more falsehood than

truth. But, it is certain that they who count
earnings in shillings, can save only in pence, and
that the savings banks, which do not receive any
sum smaller than a shilling, do not meet the want
of thousands who are helped—as their free use of
it bears witness—by the Penny Bank. In this
Bank, money is easily deposited in a safe place,
as fast as it comes in excess, however trifling the
excess may be, and is easily withdrawn again
for use. The founder of a Penny Bank should
have as many Bank days in a week, as means
allow. School teachers and monitors may readily
be taught how to act as its clerks. An hour on
one day, or on two days, in the week—Saturday
night furnishing, if possible, one of these hours
—is the usual time allowed. In the case of
savings banks, it has been found that at Edinburgh,
where the savings bank is open every day, and
on three evenings in the week, the use made of
it is three times greater than is general
elsewhere in the United Kingdom.

Into the minuter practical details of Penny
Bank management we need not enter here.
Various methods are used for securing accuracy
of accounts, and a set of books published at
Warwick (Morgan's Penny Bank System) is
very suitable for establishments of this kind in
which the press of business is not great. Useful
help for whatever head may plan the actual
institution of one of these Banks, will be found
also in the second of a series of Plain Papers
on the Social Economy of the People,
published by Messrs. Bell and Daldy.

We remained at the Bank maintained in the
parish of St. George's in the East until its
doors were closed. We saw the several books
made up, compared and balanced with the money
taken, of which a substantial part was a bagful
of copper. Record of the hour's work in
ink, and in the metal that had been deposited,
having been found to tally perfectly, the
business was over for the day. It has been said that
seven and sixpence is, in this poor parish, the
average year's deposit of a customer, while in
the Penny Bank of an adjoining district there
are average deposits of a pound. The hour's
work at a single bank time here, represents the
paying in on one side, and the drawing out on
the other side, of small sums, yielding a total
in each case varying between ten and twenty
pounds.

Now ready, price 1s.,
Uniform with PICKWICK, DAVID COPPERFIELD, BLEAK

HOUSE, &c.,
The Third Monthly Part of

A TALE OF TWO CITIES.

BY CHARLES DICKENS.

With Two Illustrations on Steel by HABLOT K.

BROWNE.

To be completed in Eight Monthly Parts.

CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly, W., AND

"ALL THE YEAR ROUND" Office, 11, Wellington-street

North, London, W.C.

The right of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUND is reserved by the Authors.

at the Office, No. 11, Wellington Street North, Strand Printed by C. WHITING, Beaufort House, Strand.