RUNS ON BANKS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 62, 4 June 1927, Page 8

RUNS ON BANKS

A CLEVER DEVICE Runs on banks arc comparatively rare nowadays, but fifty or sixty years i go, when private banks issuing their own notes were dotted all over the country, they were of frequent occurrence. Idle or malicious gossip was sufficient to induce two or three timid depositors to withdraw their money. Their example was followed by others, and yet ethers, until a bank that was perhaps perfectly solvent, unable fo meet the sudden drain on its resources, would le compelled to put up its shutters. A good story of how such a catastrophe was averted in the case of a certain East Anglican bank in told by Mr. P. W. Matthews in his recently published ' History of Barclay’s Bank.’’ The bank was kept by a Mr. Boulthee. who was also a corn merchant. When the run threatened he nailed a bushel measure, the wrong way up. to the floor of his counter, and the bottom of it he covered with sovereigns. Then, .when a -timid customer came to draw cash he was asked first to cssist in moving the measure, which ~‘V.ls, of course, impossible. Thus fears i.oon vanished.