BANKER'S PRECAUTIONS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 12, 25 March 1909, Page 478

BANKER'S PRECAUTIONS

Of all devices resorted to by bankers to • gain time and inspire confidence during runs on their institutions, there has never, perhaps, been a more novel scheme than that conceived in a -western city. The depositors were astounded to find that they could enter the bank only at - the cost of spoiled garments, as the astute president had caused the doorposts to be freshly painted". An English bank once prevented a crisis in its affairs by exhibiting in the windows large tubs apparently brimful of sovereigns.. These tubs, however^ were turned upside down, only a small quantity of gold being piled on their bottoms. . .* ' An ingenious device was resorted to in Buenos Ayres. There was a run on a large bank, and for. several days depositors besieged ' the premises, withdrawing money and placing it in another bank on the opposite side of the street. It so happened, however, that these two institutions had reached a private understanding; so fast as the safe bank received the deposits they were returned to the unsafe one by an underground passage, with the result that everyone marvelled at its continued ability to meet its obligations.