PENNY BANKS.

Evening Star, Issue 4178, 18 July 1876, Page 4

PENNY BANKS.

Lord Shaftesbury and the London School Board are agreed on one point at least, the advantage of establishing Penny Banks. A meeting was recently held at which Lord Shaftesbury presided, for the purpose of furthering the scheme; of opening penny banks in various parts of London. The National Penny Bank has already established nine branches for receiving money in the evening, and seven or eight others open all day. Three per cent, is the interest they give. Lord Shaftesbury vouched for its being conducted ou the very best principles to encourage thrift. He said he would like to see the spirit of economy and s wing that permeated the hrencli working classes transplanted to England, which would make our working men the . most comfortable and affluent on the face of the earth. The wav indemnity of France was paid almost entirely out _of the savings of the French people, hut if such a call was made on England it could not bo met in a similar way. A few years hack sixty ragged schoo s , combined for the purpose of establishing a savings’ hank, and in one year the deposits amounted to 1/2000. This was all the savings of children, and in the tune of the famine at Bethnal Green was the salvation of many a poor family. In the Shoeblack Brigades there were savings’ banks, and many of the boys were enabled to do a great deal of good to their families. At the time of the cotton famine the lied Brigade gave ■five per cent, of their earnings to the Lancashire Fund. The following evening, at the weekly meeting of the London School Board, the Rev. Canon Cromwell introduced a deputationfrom the Committee of Management of the National Penny Pank in favor of the establishment of penny banks in Board Schools,—‘Church Bells.’

It is reported that Mr Whitehead, the inventor of the fish torpedo, has sold to the Emperor of Itussia two of those engines of improved construction, capable of a speed of twenty miles an hour. He had previously offered them to the British Government, but the War Department, having no doubt of its own ability to manufacture the torpedo with the requisite travelling power, declined his terms. Nearly all the principal European nations are now in possession of the Whitehead torpedo, Mr Whitehead, who originally offered it exclusively to his own Government, having subsequently sold his secret to several Powers, one after the other, Bianco being the great exception, that country having no torpedo for attacking an enemy's | ship under water. The Americans declined Mr Whitehead’s invention, but have made one for themselves. The English Govern- j merit might have purchased the American j production, but it was tried and found j greatly wanting in comparison with the one i they now past-eg.s, being devoid of its mast important principles. j