Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/78

 ONCE A WEEK. But having once alluded to that ingenious adjunct to the business of banking, the Clear- ing-house, I am impatient to relieve my mind of all I have to say about it. Bankers have frequently to place to the credit of their con- stituents sums of money, in the shape of cheques upon other bankers paid in by the bearers for the express purpose. Next door to the Guardian Assurance Office, in a court, and at a corner of Lombard Street, is a build- ing in which the process I am going to explain is in daily operation Formerly, when the contrivance was testing, the business of the Clearing-house was carried on in a room on the premises of Messrs. Smith, Payne, & Smith; but it is now, and has long been, located in the house at the corner just spoken of Bankers east of Farringdon-street only are members of the confraternity; the rest carry on a business, at a distance from the centre of operations, which renders the facili- ties afforded by the Clearing-house of less practical importance to them. These divide London into walks; and a particular clerk, among whose qualifications an aptitude for Hansoms and 'busses, a good pair of legs, and habits of activity are indispensable, is ap- pointed to each, just in the manner adopted at St. Martin's-le-Grand with reference to the delivery of our letters. This district clerk, or clerk of Walk So-and-so, has to knock up all the houses within his circuit upon whom the cheques received by his own have been drawn; and this is what they call collecting bankers' charges, But the members of the Clearing-house are enabled by their ingenious method to avoid the waste of notes by which these claims, pur- suing the system just explained, must be ad- justed. This is a saving of importance. The London and Westminster Bank once stated, in evidence before the House of Commons, that they were obliged, before they enjoyed the privileges of membership, to keep in hand. 150,0001, in Bank of England notes solely to settle these charges. It is thought that 1,000,000!. would be too little to represent the waste of notes which, without the Clearing- house, would be entailed upon the bank. Now that the joint-stock banks are eligible for admission, the only bond-fude bank in the City which is excluded in the Bank of England, and this for good and obvious reasons into which I do not now enter. Twenty-five private and seven joint stock banks at present constitute the association. As the clock strikes 10.30 and 2.30, a clerk from each firm enters the FOOM. He carries the obligations of other firms due to him, and compares them with the claims presented by others for which he is [JAN. 9, 1864, debtor; the balance is then carried forward in an account kept between the Clearing-house and the Bank of England, with whom each banker also has a separate account; and not a single note or sovereign is employed in the adjustment of accounts quite fabulous in mag- nitude. Sometimes nearly 7,000,0001, in a day are dealt with in this concise manner; and on days appointed for the settlement of accounts on the Stock Exchange, the amount of business passing through the Clearing-house has occasionally equalled some 16,000,000%. sterling. At any rate, 1,000,000,000%, on a moderate average, goes through this process annually. How many loaves of bread and coarse woollen shirts, nay, how many tureens of good green turtle soup, and silk robes, and gilded equipages, are represented by these few figures! The clearing-room is fitted up with desks for every one of its members, whose names are arranged in alphabetical order over each. The collecting clerk, having assorted his cheques, goes straight with the promises to pay" to the house he has claims on; and as each fol- lows his predecessor in their circuit from A. to B., B. to C., and so on to the end, the anima- tion of the scene, especially during the last quarter of an hour, is quite refreshing; a cage of canaries is not more remarkable for the noise and agility of its inmates. When the balance is found to be against any particular bank, and in favour, therefore, of the Clearing-house, a white transfer ticket --being, in fact, an order on the cashiers of the Bank of England to place to the credit of the clearing bankers the balance mentioned- squares the account; and when the Bank of England is creditor on the balance, the Clear- ing-house gives a green ticket, addressed to the same "cashiers," ordering them to credit the said bank "out of the money at the credit of the account of the clearing bankers." This shows the sort of jugglery which, by the reconversion of paper into gold, so amazed my childhood, and in which the business of bankers essentially consists. They have the advantage of using your money, and you that of reading their figures; and, inas- much as money may be made to yield a vast amount of profit-which figures don't they grow rich, and you remain as you were. This is the sorcery which transforms them into the dinner-eating, chair-taking, estate-buying, highly respectable gentry they always are, and makes us so resigned to hear of their promotion in the world, and so entirely satisfied at the prospect of the sons and daughters of their houses taking strong fancies to our own.