The manager, evidently, has very little real power under this system, and, practically, the branches are managed from the head-office, the agent being a kind of clerk-in-charge, who reports to, and announces the decision of, his directors. Indeed, the rules and regulations are framed for this very purpose, and the banks make it part of their policy to effectually hold their managers in check, and to so arrange the work of an office that but little is left to their decision, while it is the duty of the accountant to instantly report any irregularity to the general managers. The average bank-manager, it must be remembered, has had neither a business nor a financial training, and it would therefore be extremely risky to give him a large field in which to make experiments. Of the two evils the boards of the banking companies choose by far the lesser, and, by allowing him a small “power,” they tether him like a donkey to a stake, thereby limiting his grass to the length of his rope. In a large manufacturing city a manager’s discretionary power would not exceed £1,000 to £1,500, and in the smaller cities it would range from £500 to £1,000, while in the provincial towns it would be from £300 to £500, according to population. Each month the manager, as a rule, has to send to the head-office a report upon all accounts that are _over_ his power, together with a separate one relating to bills discounted, and at least twice a year he must submit a long return of every overdrawn account on the books of the branch certified by the accountant and himself. The head-office, in short, watches him as a cat does a mouse, and criticizes those advances he himself is allowed to make severely should they not meet with the approval of those in authority.