urse with the very class
which, from the direction his mind was taking, he so much wished to
understand,--namely, the thrifty portion of the industrious classes. A
considerable number of them had sums lying at interest. As years rolled
on, Mr. Sikes often witnessed the depositor commencing with ten or
twenty pounds, then make permanent additions to his little store, until
at length the amount would reach one, two, or, in a few instances, even
three hundred pounds. Mr. Sikes would often imagine the marvellous
improvement that would be effected on the condition of the working
classes, if every one of them became influenced by the same frugality
and forethought, which induced these exceptional operatives to deposit
their savings at his bank.

About that time, trade was in a wretched condition. The handloom weavers
were almost entirely without employment. Privation and suffering
prevailed on every side, and these were often borne with silent and
noble heroism. Various remedies were proposed for the existing evils.
Socialism, chartism, and free trade, were the favourites. Theories of
the wildest and most impracticable character abounded, and yet even in
those dark days there were instances of men who had to some degree made
the future predominate over the present, who could fall back upon their
reserve in the Joint Stock or Savings Bank to tide them over into better
times. Believing in the beneficent results of free trade, Mr. Sikes was
equally convinced that national prosperity, as well as national
adversity, might be attended with great evils, unless the masses were
endowed with habits of providence and thrift, and prepared by previous
education for the "good time coming" so eloquently predicted by the
orators of the League.

Many discussions with working men, in his homeward evening walks,
convinced Mr. Sikes that there were social problems with which
legislation would be almost powerless to grapple, and of these the
thriftlessness of the masses of the people was one. An employer of five
hundred handloom weavers had told Mr. Sikes that in a previous period of
prosperity, when work was abundant and wages were very high, he could
not, had he begged on bended knee, have induced his men to save a single
penny, or to lay by anything for a rainy day. The fancy waistcoating
trade had uniformly had its cycles of alternate briskness and
depression; but experience, however stern its teachings, could not teach
unwilling learners.