SECRETS OF A BANK.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 305, 12 September 1929, Page 8

SECRETS OF A BANK.

HO.W A RUN WAS MET. Subterfuges resorted to by the Bank of England to meet the run following the collapse of the South Sea Company were mentioned by Mr W. Marston Acres in a recent lecture before the London Society. Mr Acres, who was for 30 years an offic al of the bank, said that one device adopted in order to gain time was to pay demands for cash in shillings and sixpences. The counting was a long process. Another device was for the cashiers to pay large sums to certain friendly individuals, who went out at one doer with bags of money and returned shortly afterwards by another entrance to pay it all in again. The practice of keeping a military guard at the bank dated from the time of the Gordon riots in 1750. At first the City Corporation raised strong objection to what they deemed an ineity. The citizens generally comterference with their control of the plained bitterly of the arrogant behaviour of the soldiers, who marched two abreast along the Strand, Fleet Street and Cheapslde, jostling and pushing people out of their way.

Various theories had been put forward, said Mr Acres, to account for the bank’s nickname, “The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.” He thought it originated from a cartoon bearing that title, which was drawn by James Gillray in 1791, and depicted William Pitt endeavouring to obtain possession of the bank’s gold. Gillray probably got his inspratlon from a speech made by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in the House of Commons in March, 1797, when Sheridan referred to the bank as “an elderly lady in the city of great credit and long standing, who had unfortunately got into bad company.”