But the year of banking reform was, of course, 1844, when, fortunately for the trade of the country, the Bank of England was stripped of all its privileges except that relating to the issuing of notes. The Bank Charter Act of 1844 gave the Bank of England the monopoly of issuing notes in London and within sixty-five miles of it. No new bank of issue was to be formed, while a provincial bank, upon opening in London, forfeited its issue. The cheque, however, soon became more powerful than the note; and the larger provincial banking companies gladly made the sacrifice in order to establish themselves in the capital. The next step forward was when the joint-stock banks broke up the cabal of private bankers and were admitted to the Clearing House in 1854; though it is a little remarkable that, having posed as martyrs and vigorously denounced their oppressors, they should now take upon themselves to exclude certain companies which have as good a right as they to enter the sacred portals of the House; but the mote in one’s neighbour’s eye is always so much more apparent than the beam in one’s own. By the Act of 1858 a joint-stock bank was allowed to limit the liability of its shareholders; but the Act, was not made compulsory; and though all the companies formed subsequently registered under this Act the members of those in existence prior thereto were liable for the debts of the company in which they held shares to their last shilling. Then came the failures of the West of England Bank and the City of Glasgow Bank in 1878; and shareholders in banks of unlimited liability, with the fate of the members of these two institutions before their eyes, began to weigh their responsibilities, with the result that many sold out at panic prices in haste and regretted at leisure. The more prudent, though they held their shares, began an agitation for reform, which gave birth to the Act of 1879. We need not discuss this Act; though it may just be said that every joint-stock bank in the three kingdoms which is not limited by its charter is now a bank of limited liability under the Companies Acts. At this juncture, perhaps, a few words may be said with reference to the Bank of England, which, with a contempt for evidence that is truly British, the public is convinced cannot suspend payment; yet the Bank’s career has been decidedly checkered; and even after the passing of the Act of 1844 the Old Lady was only saved by the intervention of the Government in 1847, 1857 and 1866, while during the Baring crisis of 1890 she was compelled to borrow from the Bank of France; so, evidently, her system is not by any means a perfect one; but one does not expect perfection in finance. The perfect financial machine and the perfect man are alike impossibilities. As to the latter, did he exist, he would seem positively inhuman.