the general public are weighed in ordinary
scales by the tellers. The average loss upon each
light coin, on an average of thirty-five
thousands taken in 1843, was twopence three
farthings.

The business of the "Great House" is
divided into two branches; the issue and the
banking department. The latter has increased
so rapidly of late years, that the last addition
the Old Lady was constrained to make to her
house was the immense Drawing-room aforesaid,
for her customers and their payees to
draw cash on checks and to make deposits.
Under this noble apartment is the Strong
Room, containing private property, supposed
to be of enormous value. It is placed there
for safety by the constituents of the Bank,
and is concealed in tin boxes, on which the
owners' names are legibly painted. The
descent into this stronghold—by means of the
hydraulic trap we have spoken of—is so
eminently theatrical, that we believe the
Head of the Department, on going down with
the books, is invariably required to strike
an attitude, and to laugh in three sepulchral
syllables; while the various clerks above
express surprise and consternation.

Besides private customers, everybody knows
that our Old Lady does all the banking
business for the British Government. She
pays the interest to each Stock-holder in the
National Debt, receives certain portions of
the revenue, &c. A separate set of offices is
necessary, to keep all such accounts, and
these Stock Offices contain the most varied
and extensive collection of autographs extant.
Those whom Fortune entitles to dividends,
must, by themselves or by their agents,
sign the Stock books. The last signature of
Handel, the composer, and that upon which
Henry Fauntleroy was condemned and
executed, are among the foremost of these lions.
Here, standing in a great long building of
divers stories, looking dimly upward through
iron gratings, and dimly downward through
iron gratings, and into musty chambers
diverging into the walls on either hand,
you may muse upon the National Debt.
All the sheep that ever came out of
Northamptonshire, seem to have yielded up their
skins to furnish the registers in which its
accounts are kept. Sweating and wasting in
this vast silent library, like manuscripts in a
mouldy old convent, are the records of the
Dividends that are, and have been, and of
the Dividends unclaimed. Some men would
sell their fathers into slavery, to have the
rummaging of these old volumes. Some,
who would let the Tree of Knowledge wither
while they lay contemptuously at its feet,
would bestir themselves to pluck at these
leaves, like shipwrecked mariners. These are
the books to profit by. This is the place for
X. Y. Z. to hear of something to his advantage
in. This is the land of Mr. Joseph Ady's
dreams. This is the dusty fountain whence
those wondrous paragraphs occasionally flow
into the papers, disclosing how a labouring
thatcher has come into a hundred thousand
pounds—a long, long way to come—and gone
out of his wits—not half so far to go. Oh,
wonderful Old Lady! threading the needle
with the golden eye all through the labyrinth
of the National Debt, and hiding it in such
dry hay-stacks as are rotting here!

With all her wealth, and all her power, and
all her business, and all her responsibilities,
she is not a purse-proud Old Lady; but a
dear, kind, liberal, benevolent Old Lady; so
particularly considerate to her servants, that
the meanest of them never speaks of her
otherwise than with affection. Though her
domestic rules are uncommonly strict; though
she is very severe upon "mistakes," be they
ever so unintentional; though till lately she
made her in-door servants keep good hours,
and would not allow a lock to be turned or a
bolt to be drawn after eleven at night, even to
admit her dearly beloved Matthew Marshall
himself—yet she exercises a truly tender and
maternal care over her family of eight hundred
strong. To benefit the junior branches, she has
recently set aside a spacious room, and the sum
of five hundred pounds, to form a library. With
this handsome capital at starting, and eight
shillings a year subscribed by the youngsters,
an excellent collection of books will soon be
formed. Here, from three till eight o'clock
every lawful day, the subscribers can assemble
for recreation or study; or, if they prefer
it, they can take books to their homes. A
member of the Committee of Management
attends in turn during the specified hours—a
self-imposed duty, in the highest degree creditable
to, but no more than is to be expected
from, the stewards of a Good Mistress; who,
when any of her servants become superannuated,
soothes declining age with a pension. The
last published return states the number of
pensioners at one hundred and ninety three; each
of whom received on an average £161, or an
aggregate of upwards of £31,000 per annum.

Her kindness is not unrequited. Whenever
anything ails her, the assiduous attention of
her people is only equalled by her own
bounty to them. When dangerously ill of
the Panic in 1825, and the outflow of her
circulating medium was so violent that she was
in danger of bleeding to death, some of her
upper servants never left her for a fortnight.
At the crisis of her disorder, on a memorable
Saturday night (December the seventeenth)
her Deputy-Governor—who even then had not
seen his own children for a week—reached
Downing Street "reeling with fatigue," and
was just able to call out to the King's Ministers
—then anxiously deliberating on the dear Old
Lady's case—that she was out of danger!
Another of her managing men lost his life in
his anxiety for her safety, during the burning
of the Royal Exchange, in January, 1838. When
the fire broke out, the cold was intense; and
although he had but just recovered from an
attack of the gout, he rushed to the rescue of