Savings Banks and the other provident measures of which we have spoken are principally to be regarded as preliminary means, the first or stepping-stones to higher things. When a man has become, for example, a depositor in any of the numerous kinds of Savings Banks, he has only taken, as it were, the first step on the road to competence; but one step leads to another.[206] A very slight knowledge of human nature will show that when once a man gets his foot upon the round of the social ladder, and keeps it there till he is secure of his footing, he is soon ambitious of taking the next step. So true is this regarded, that in common parlance many kinds of journeymen are said to have made their fortune when they have saved their first pound. When George Stephenson's wages were raised to twelve shillings a week, he declared "he was now a made man for life;" when he had saved his first guinea, he proudly said to one of his mates, that he "was now a rich man." And in one sense he was right; he had taken the first step; and further, "The man who," says Mr. Smiles, "after satisfying his wants, has something to spare, is no longer poor." We have said that Savings Banks are preliminary means. We think, however, that they are the _safest_ initiatory steps that could be taken by those of the labouring classes who wish to rise from small beginnings to those higher things spoken of.[207] Thousands of people of small means are content with them; with the Savings Bank they begin, continue, and end, and many of them have had reason to congratulate themselves upon having taken such a course: they have been saved endless trouble and disaster, have in the great majority of instances felt that their earnings were safe, that the profits were not going up and down like those of their neighbours, but were always steady, always to be relied upon, and always calculable to a penny. That these returns are really not so insignificant as many suppose, and that if small earnings are allowed to accumulate at compound interest they must make a decent provision against the winter of life, the following case will demonstrate.[208] The late Mr. Thomas Allen of Gledholt, Huddersfield, on the 28th of March, 1818, gave to each of his seven servants a sovereign to become depositors on the opening of the Huddersfield Savings Bank. On that day Esther Sykes became a depositor to the extent of 1_l._