ase a row of cottages, now become
his property. Many others, in the same place, and in the neighbouring
towns, are engaged in building cottages for themselves, some by means of
their contributions to building societies, and others by means of their
savings accumulated in the bank.

A respectably dressed working man, when making a payment one day at the
Bradford savings bank, which brought his account up to nearly eighty
pounds, informed the manager how it was that he had been induced to
become a depositor. He had been a drinker; but one day accidentally
finding his wife's savings bank deposit book, from which he learnt that
she had laid by about twenty pounds, he said to himself, "Well now, if
this can be done while I am spending, what might we do if both were
saving?" The man gave up his drinking, and became one of the most
respectable persons of his class. "I owe it all," he said, "to my wife
and the savings bank."

When well-paid workmen such as these are able to accumulate a sufficient
store of savings, they ought gradually to give up hard work, and remove
from the field of competition as old age comes upon them. They ought
also to give place to younger men; and prevent themselves being beaten
down into the lower-paid ranks of labour. After sixty a man's physical
powers fail him; and by that time he ought to have made provision for
his independent maintenance. Nor are the instances by any means
uncommon, of workmen laying by money with this object, and thereby
proving what the whole class might, to a greater or less extent,
accomplish in the same direction.

The extent to which Penny Banks have been used by the very poorest
classes, wherever started, affords a striking illustration how much may
be done by merely providing increased opportunities for the practice of
thrift. The first Penny Bank was started in Greenock, about thirty years
since, as an auxiliary to the savings bank. The object of the projector
(Mr. J.M. Scott) was to enable poor persons, whose savings amounted to
less than a shilling (the savings bank minimum) to deposit them in a
safe place. In one year about five thousand depositors placed L1,580
with the Greenock institution. The estimable Mr. Queckett, a curate in
the east end of London, next opened a Penny Bank, and the results were
very remarkable. In one year as many as 14,513 deposits were made in the
bank. The number of depositors was limited to 2,000; and the demand for
admission was so gr