294 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



exchequer to represent any issue in excess ; and the banks 

 being obliged to exchange each other's notes on presen- 

 tation twice a-week, they exercise upon each other a 

 control which renders all excess of issue impossible. 



The credit of the banks being thus established, they 

 make the following use of it, and it is in this respect 

 more especially that they prove useful. They receive in 

 deposit any sum above 10, and notwithstanding that 

 these monies can be withdrawn at will, interest upon 

 them is allowed at the rate of 2^ or 3 per cent. Conse- 

 quently nobody keeps money by him ; every one has his 

 account at the neighbouring bank, where he pays in or 

 draws out according as he requires. It is incredible how 

 greatly this custom encourages economy in all classes of 

 society. Servants and labourers, as soon as they can 

 scrape together 10, have their banking accounts like 

 their masters. 



These deposits do not lie idle, but are advanced by the 

 banks, at from 4 to 5 per cent, to those who can furnish 

 security. Independently too of the ordinary discount 

 business, any one known as a clever, industrious, and re- 

 spectable man, and who can offer two good sureties, may 

 obtain a credit according to the confidence he merits ; 

 this is called a Cash account. These open credits do not 

 amount, for the whole of Scotland, to any very large sum, 

 being reckoned at four to six millions sterling. Those 

 who have such accounts are always anxious to clear them 

 off as soon as possible ; and their sureties also look to its 

 being done, so that this class of debtors is constantly 

 changing. But this floating sum of four to six millions, 

 distributed over a community who commence with small 

 capitals, has produced the happiest results upon the pro- 

 gress of industry and agriculture ; and so judicious is the 



