PENNY BANKS.—AN EXAMPLE.
IT does seem rather out of keeping for a man with a rent-roll like that of Lord Derby to step forth as a preacher of Thrift. There is, according to common notions, such an aspect of incon- gruity betwixt his precepts and his circumstances, he can afford with so much ease to keep up the stateliness and splendour that befit the occupant of a foremost rank in the Order to which he belongs, it is so absolutely certain that nothing but the maddest profusion, of a sort wholly at variance with his impulses and temper, could ever bring him to experience the straits and anxieties of those who find it hard to make both ends meet, that, to ordinary apprehension, the edge of his salutary counsel is somewhat dulled and its force abated. He jests at scars who never felt a wound ;" and many people, after glancing at his lordship's speech, delivered the other day to the Provident Knowledge Society, may have been disposed to pooh-pooh its recommendations, as coming from one who knows nothing of what he talked about. Neverthe- less, the speech was a good speech. In it his lordship appeared almost at his best. The subject he undertook to discuss appealed to the strongest side of his nature with pre-eminent attractive- ness. In discussing it he showed his accustomed frankness, courage, impartiality, and robust good sense. His cool reason found scope in tracing the operation of those immutable laws which link improvidence with loss and misery, shutting out the buyer who has no money in his pocket from the best and cheapest markets, and loading the indebted spendthrift with a burden of shame and fear. At the same time, in descanting upon the advan- tages of frugality, he betrayed perhaps as much warmth of feeling as he need ever be expected to exhibit, his language even taking on a faintly imaginative glow, as he expressed his ideas in a style which, handled by anyone under less of constitutional and cherished restraint, would undoubtedly have risen into eloquence. As it was, his discourse formed a singularly pregnant and impres- sive lay-sermon. Its solid merits compensated the lack of rhetorical embellishment. With a direct plainness of speech and a condensed vigour of reasoning which gave to what is worn and trite the effect of freshness and power, he enforced certain homely truths it were well to have pondered in every household throughout the land, and that only need to be pondered in direct relation to individual capa- city and conduct, in order to lose their common-place character, add appear in all their practical importance. Two points were notable in his address, —his denunciation of the imprudence and want of forethought prevalent among all classes, and his exposition of a new method for helping the cultivation of these qualities among the very poorest. Valuable though his observations were, we yet think he scarcely penetrated to the quick in touching the causes of the first ; and we are able to adduce a remarkable illustration of what may be done by the second.
"Rich and poor," exclaimed his lordship, "we are all tarred with the same brush ; and I utterly disdain the offensive and un- gracious office of lecturing only those who have very little to spare on the duty of laying by for the future, while that same duty is notoriously neglected by many thousands in classes where its per- formance would be comparatively easy." This was frank and magnanimous, but it was scarcely consistent with his quotation from Defoe as to the English disposition in favour of alternating spells of hard work with bouts of idleness and dissipation, what was painfully earned and saved during the one period being recklessly thrown away in the other, —a quotation he adopted as true still, and as illustrating by its truth the inveteracy of national character and habits. Probably the statement was too sweeping, as all general assertions are apt to be, even in Defoe's time. Certainly, though possessing a modicum of truth, it cannot be accepted as correctly describing a common usage among our popu- lation now. Instances of addiction to a periodic debauch, of outbursts of indulgence by people who cannot stop when they once begin, are no doubt to be found in all grades of life ; but their victims are the "loose fish" of society, men who have for the most part broken adrift from the ties of home and kindred, or if there are amongst them men still bound by such ties, then men who have sunk in the world, who have no steady employment, and who subsist by precarious windfalls. The ceaseless activity and the stern requirements of modern life throw off all these helpless folk. The man who cannot be relied on for regular and sustained exertion is of little use now-a-days. If he gets drunk or incompetent for lengthened periods, a t uncertain inter- vals, his doom is sealed. The talent that will enable one in any walk of life to keep his feet, if he toils only by snatches, and allows great gaps of dissipation to make inroads on his time, is of the rarest. Lord Derby, had he been better acquainted with the working-classes, would have known this, and have checked himself from being misled by the influences of what seemed a pet quota- tion into the suggestion of a false analogy. It is well that Mr. Hughes was present to correct, with a courage and frankness equal to Lord Derby's own, and with a more intimate and sympa- thetic understanding of the case, the misconception to'which his lordship's remarks have given colour and circulation. But we should have been glad had even Mr. Hughes brought out more sharply the fact that the number of detached waifs, to whom alone his lordship's observations can- apply, great though it be, does not bear any formidable proportion to the mass of society. The general charge of improvidence is unquestionably just, and it affects both rich and poor ; but it rests on wholly different grounds from those Lord Derby urged. The curse that afflicts all our well-doing classes, and reduces to mean straits those who might be comfortable, is the supposed necessity that con- strains them to ape the style of those next above them. A painful and incessant struggle, prolific of mortifications and rebuffs, of petty worry and useless waste, is thus universally main- tained. The toe of the peasant may not tread on the heel of the courtier, but the man of £2,000 tries to keep even pace with the man of 1,3000 ; the junior partner or the barrister whose briefs are few with the man of assured position ; the genteel clerk who has a small salary with his next-door neighbour who is much better off ; and so on throughout the descending scale, with plenty " galling of kites," and an infinitude of deceit, demoralisation, strain, and waste. Had Lord Derby preached the virtue of abjuring all this silliness, and cultivating the independence and self-respect which would prescribe living simply as one's means allow, he would, while quite avoiding the invidiousness of lecturing one class, have given the first part of his homily a more precise and appropriate turn.
But the second part could scarcely be improved. The proposal broached in it is one that should commend itself to philanthropic regard. The scheme of " Penny-Savings' Banks " which it unfolded is not an untried project, though we believe the accessories which Lord Derby wishes superinduced upon it would immensely enhance its efficacy. We have reports before us from Glasgow which show that it has existed in that city, with growing favour and use- fulness, for more than twenty years. Savings' Banks themselves are of Scottish origin,—the invention of a quiet rural clergyman, though a man of much originality and foresight. " Penny Savings' Banks" took their start under the fostering care of another Scottish clergyman, the " minister " of a city congregation, who has long been chancellor of the exchequer for the Free Kirk, and whose statesmanlike faculty of devising and presiding over arrange- ments that hit their mark has given him a celebrity unusual among his compeers. It was in 1849 that the Free Tron congre- gation, under the leadership of Dr. Buchanan, resolved, in accordance with the principle of Chalmers as to how home mission work should be conducted, to let loose its energies upon a definite portion of the old Tron parish. This district was one of the lowest and worst, if not the very lowest, in the city. It was the Whitechapel or St. Giles of Scotland's commercial metropolis. On less than ten acres of ground there were crowded more than 10,000 inhabitants. A motley population they were, deriving their substance almost entirely from plunder or prostitution. Crime, misery, disease, filth, existed among them in every variety of form. Within the district there were upwards of a hundred public-houses ; and the pestiferous atmosphere, which produced on even the temporary visitor that depression of mind under which all energy sinks, had so told on the inhabitants, robbing them of all buoyancy of feeling, that these pest-shops droves roaring trade, a great part of what was earned finding its way to them in exchange for a short-lived stimulus to the semblance of a healthy sensation. It was an unpromising field ; but by dint of persevering effort in plying a multitude of remedial agencies—house-to-house visita- tion, schools, popular lectures, as well as Sunday services, a great reformation has been accomplished. A church has been filled and emptied some half-dozen times. The process marks more distinctly than aught else the success of the experiment. It was rendered necessary because those drawn from the locality who were the attenders gradually ceased to have local claims. They had shifted to more reputable regions, and room had to be provided for the diminished number of their successors. Care was taken, however, that they should not be allowed to fall away piecemeal. They swarmed off in successive clusters, carrying with them all the apparatus of congregational activity. In this way many new churches have been added to the number in Glasgow. It is a most legitimate and gratifying mode of increase. The story, in all its details, would form an interesting recital, and deserves to be better known than it is ever likely to be. At present, we are concerned with only one feature,—that of the Penny Savings' Bank. It was early developed, with admirable effect, especially, upon the young. It has now become a usual concomitant of home mission work, a penny bank being opened wherever a mission station is planted. There are 128 such banks in Glasgow and its suburbs. They receive deposits of any amount, from a penny to a pound. Whenever the latter sum is reached an account is opened with the National Security Bank, in the name of the depositor, and his money is transferred thither, while he is free to start afresh with his old patrons. Last year, the 128 Banks conducted 58,867 trans- actions, involving the receipt of £29,336 and the repayment of £13,311. A more extraordinary demonstration of what may be achieved by small means could hardly be imagined. Evident it is that Lord Derby's Society have got hold of a very potent instrument. And the suggestion made as to an amended style of working can scarcely fail to increase its efficiency. The suggestion is that instead of imposing upon contributors the duty of carrying to the bank on particular evenings the money they wish to lodge, thus breaking in, often at an inconvenient time, upon an evening's leisure, collectors should be appointed, who might catch them in knots at their places of work upon pay-nights, and receive what they may be willing to make over. No one who has read the evidence tendered before the Friendly Society's Commission can doubt that if trustworthy volunteer agents on the part of these banks could be found, who would in any degree emulate the assi- duity of the well-paid burial-club collectors, amazing results would be attainable. In the case of the clubs, the contributors deem themselves bound by a definite bargain to pay so much in exchange for the receipt in certain contingencies of a definite benefit ; and they are heedless of the deductions and waste that affect their contributions. But let them be trained to follow up their payments, become familiarised with the effect of accumulation, have exhibited to them in their own case how every little sum tells, and it is all but certain that a strong encouragement will be ministered, even to the dwellers on the ground-floor of the social edifice, to cultivate that providence which is to a large extent the food of civil life, the nerve of national prosperity.
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