MUTUAL BANKING. 29 



in the banker's books from the credit of the payer to that of the re- 

 ceiver. If all persons in London kept their cash at the same bank- 

 er's and made all their payments by means of checks, no money 

 would be required or used for any transactions beginning and ter- 

 minating in London. This ideal limit is almost attained in fact, so 

 far as regards transactions between dealers. It is chiefly in the re- 

 tail transactions between dealers and consumers, and in the pay- 

 ment of wages, that money or bank-notes now pass and then only 

 when the amounts are small. In London, even shop-keepers of any 

 amount of capital, or extent of business, have generally an account 

 with a banker; which, besides the safety and convenience of the 

 practice, is to their advantage in another respect, by giving them 

 an understood claim to have their bills discounted in cases where 

 they could not otherwise expect it. As for the merchants and 

 larger dealers, they habitually make all payments in the course of 

 their business, by checks. They do not, however, all deal with the 

 same banker; and when A gives a check to B, B usually pays it, not 

 into the same, but into another bank. But the convenience of busi- 

 ness has given birth to an arrangement which makes all the bank- 

 ing-houses of the City of London, for certain purposes, virtually one 

 establishment. A banker does not send the checks which are paid 

 into his banking-house to the banks on which they are drawn and 

 demand money for them. There is a building called the Clearing 

 House, to which every city banker sends each afternoon, all the 

 checks on other bankers which he has received during the day; and 

 they are there exchanged for the checks on him which have come 

 into the hands of other bankers, the balances only being paid iu 

 money. By this contrivance, all the business transactions of the 

 City of London during that day amounting often to millions of 

 pounds and a vast amount besides of country transactions, repre- 

 sented by bills which country bankers have drawn upon their Lon- 

 don correspondents, all liquidated by payments not exceeding, on 

 the average, £20(X000."— (Vol. ii., p. 47). 



"Money," says Mr. Beck, "follows in the track of claim. Its 

 progress is the discharge and satisfaction of claim. The payment 

 of money is effectually the discharge of the debtor; but it is not 

 equally effectual in satisfaction of the creditor. Though it releases 

 the debtor, it still leaves the creditor to seek the real object of his 

 desire. It does not put him in possession of it, but of something 

 which enables him to obtain it. He must exchange this money by 

 purchase for the article he wants before that object is attained. In 

 payment of debts, it passes from claimant to claimant, discharging 

 and paying claims as it goes. Money follows claim; both contin- 

 ually revolving through all classics of society in repeated and per- 

 petual circles, constantly returning to their several stations, drawn 

 thither by operations of industry or of business. 



"In the possession of money every one has his turn. It comes 

 to him in the shape of payment for his sales or his industry and 



