Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/215



at a bank balance-sheet shows at once one of the great advantages that shareholders in these institutions enjoy, namely, the enormous sums handled in relation to the amount of the shareholders' capital employed. The consequent diversification of risk is evident. Here are the figures on December 31, 1924, of the Westminster Bank, which we will take as the oldest of the London Joint Stock Banks, apart from the Bank of England, which stands by itself.