SIXTY YEARS IN THE BANK OF SCOTLAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 2165, 8 December 1885, Page 2

SIXTY YEARS IN THE BANK OF SCOTLAND.

Mr George Oossar, of the Bank q Scotlaud, died recently at the ripe age of ninety.one years, Mr Oossar (remarks the' Scotsman ") may be said nevor to have felt what illness was, and he succumbed at last to natural decay, During, his sixty years' service in the bank, he was only absent from duty three days from iiidisposition-a fact which speaks to the great robustness of his constitution, and bears testimony to hjs ml for his employers, a quality whjoh animated ; hjm all through life." Born"'in '1795,' Mr Oossar entered the bank's service in the year 1825, quitting it in 1884, thus making up a tale of about sixty years' service. As a bank messenger, employed in the transniJßsJQn'pf money parcels from (die head office to the different "branches and other banks in the country, Mr Cosjar had accumulated a vast experienoe in this capacity, Some of his reminiscences carry pno back to troubldua times in the history of banking. The following one is in his own words:—"ln November, 1826, the Stirling bank at Stirling was on the verge of stopping payments. I was sent out one morning with a box of gold to the Black Bull coach office, where the Stirling mail started from. The ooaoh heing full, I sent for a carriage, and tried, to' make the best of my way to Stirling. Wlien I arrived at Linlithgow the only money I had in' my pocket was a £snote of a lately started bank. I couldnotgetchange of it, and was obljgei} fp t'ell tjie Edinburgh man who drove tije that I wquld pay him on my return home. I then got a carriage on to' Falkjrk,' and borrowed money from the hotel-keeper, to whoin I was known., arriving at Stirling, at three o'clock, T]ie hank carried on for a week on two longer, and then stopped altogether," Mr Oossar, who was most methodical in his habits, has left behind hiin a computation of the value of the money parcels ho had conveyed in the course of his journeys'. This he sets down at the large figure of £50,040,000. His travels he estimates to range over 560,080 miles, about one-fifth of this being performed in the old stage coach, and the remainder by, rail. His last London journey was undertaken in December, 1880, and his last branch journey in September, 1881, his retirement from the bank taking place on 27th February, 1884, ""'■"'