that time of the question of poor-rates, and the endeavours on the part of many of his friends to prevent their introduction into Scotland. It is also clear, that though Mr. Whitbread's name is never mentioned, the parish minister had heard of his scheme, and had been much struck with it. The result of Mr. Duncan's reflections on the subject were given in the _Dumfries Courier_, with which paper he seems to have had some literary connexion. A discussion ensued in the columns of this paper, in the course of which some books and pamphlets on cognate subjects were forwarded to Mr. Duncan by Mr. Erskine, afterwards Earl of Mar. Among the pamphlets he found a very curious and ingenious paper by John Bone, the originator of a charitable institution in London, the plan of which was there sketched. The Society was called by the whimsical title of "Tranquillity, or an institution for encouraging and enabling industrious and prudent individuals to provide for themselves, and thus effecting the gradual abolition of the Poor's Rate." This pamphlet, which we have carefully examined, contains, among much matter of a visionary and impractical kind, many proposals for the safe keeping of the savings of the poor similar to those acted upon in the case of the charitable bank at Tottenham. These subordinate provisions attracted the notice of Mr. Duncan, as he himself admits, and he thought that if he could in any way reduce them to a regular scheme, the result would be beneficial to the working classes, wherever they might be adopted. He resolved to form some such scheme and give it a fair trial in his own parish, when, if successful, he would endeavour to get it introduced elsewhere. With this object he published a paper, as a sequel to the discussion he had commenced in its pages, in the _Dumfries Courier_, in which paper he directly proposed to the gentlemen of the county the establishment of a Bank for Savings in all the different parishes of the district. "The only way," said Mr. Duncan in making these proposals, "it appears to me, by which the higher ranks can give aid to the lower in their temporal concerns, without running the risk of aiding them to their ruin, is by affording every possible encouragement to industry and virtue; by inducing them to provide for their _own_ support and comfort; by cherishing in them that spirit of independence which is the parent of so many virtues; and by judiciously rewarding extraordinary efforts of economy, and extraordinary instances of good conduct. Friendly Societies, excellent as they are in their way, do not in every respect appear to be calculated for this intended effect; advantages are held out which cannot always be realized, but in simple Parish Banks there can be no objection of this sort." Mr. Duncan met with little response to his appeals from the gentlemen of the neighbourhood, but he resolved to make the attempt single-handed. The fact that an institution of the