to us, most irksome, and no less to the poor than to the rich. The arrangement by which various rates of interest were given to different classes of depositors, according to their good or indifferent characters, was eminently arbitrary, if not unfair. We have already alluded to the Edinburgh Savings Bank, instituted after the parent bank at Ruthwell, and to some extent upon its model; the offspring, however, in many points presented a happy contrast to the Ruthwell Bank, in the simplicity and greater fairness with which its affairs were managed. As it is now a matter beyond doubt that many banks formed subsequently were started on the model of the Edinburgh institution, a few words of description of its principal new features may not be out of place. All depositors were paid the same rate of interest; they deposited their savings without any preliminary investigation of any sort; and whilst the management was not left, even in part, to the classes it was designed to benefit, contributors had nothing to do but pay in such sums as suited them, and withdraw at pleasure, altogether as the classes above them would deal in the ordinary bank. From the pamphlet published in the same year as that of Dr. Duncan's, and to which we have already alluded, we are enabled to give some account of the plan of working in the Edinburgh Bank; and it is very interesting at this distant period to see how nearly identical with the modern Savings Bank this early one was, or rather, we think we ought to say, how closely the example of the Edinburgh Bank has been followed. The bank, we find, was open every Monday morning between nine and ten o'clock. No less sum than one shilling could be received. The uniform interest paid was at the rate of four per cent.[26] The money might be paid back at any time on a mere demand and production by the depositor of his _deposit sheet_. Each depositor was furnished, on making his deposit, with a duplicate of the _leaf of the ledger_ in which his account was kept; on each succeeding visit he brought the duplicate with him, and each separate transaction was entered in the ledger and on the duplicate at the same time. This arrangement, as might have been expected, soon gave place to the more convenient bank-book at present in use. It will be observed that up to this time, and some years subsequently, the Savings Banks had no connexion with Government, and the funds realized were accordingly deposited with some banking company, and, as a rule, the interest received was at a higher rate than has since obtained. One feature in the Edinburgh Bank, as in other Scotch banks of the period, is unknown at present. When the deposits of any one person amounted to ten pounds (the minimum sum received by an ordinary bank), he was presented with an interest-note upon any banking firm he chose to name for the amount. Henceforth he held an account with the bank in question, receiving a higher rate of interest, and a strengthened security for his money.