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273 broker would not venture that wealth by guaranteeing them unless he thought them good. The lender thinks, too, that the bill broker being daily conversant with bills and bills only, knows probably all about bills: he lends partly in reliance on the wealth of the broker and partly in reliance on his skill. He does not exercise much judgment of his own on the bills deposited with him: he often does not watch them very closely. Probably not one-thousandth part of the creditors on security of Overend, Gurney and Co. had ever expected to have to rely on that security, or had ever given much real attention to it. Sometimes, indeed, the confidence in the bill brokers goes farther. A considerable number of persons lend to them, not only without much looking at the security but even without taking any security. This is the exact reverse of the practice which Mr. Richardson described in 1810: then the lender relied wholly on the goodness of the bill; now, in these particular cases, he relies solely on the bill broker, and does not take a bill in any shape. Nothing can be more natural or more inevitable than this change. It was certain that the bill broker, being supposed to understand bills well, would be asked by the lenders to evince his reliance on the bills he offered by giving a guarantee for them. It was also most natural that the bill brokers, having by the constant practice of this lucrative trade obtained