It need not be said that this sketch of the English banking movement is necessarily imperfect, if only because of the small space into which it is condensed; but the average reader certainly would not trouble to digest two hundred pages on the subject of banking evolution; so possibly it may prove acceptable in this form. We have seen that the London private banker was a rich man’s banker; but it was otherwise with the country private banker, who was often of great assistance to the small trader, at whom the joint-stock banks will not now look unless he approaches them with his pockets stuffed with securities when anxious to overdraw his account. The maxim of the companies is: “Let the customers take all risks.” And if this rule is broken, then the case is an exceptional one. We need not discuss here whether or not this policy be essential to modern banking; but it is quite evident that the small man of business has lost a good friend in the old-fashioned country banker, whose place has not been taken by that person of peculiar views and training--the bank-manager or clerk-in-charge, whose urbanity must be more than painful to those would-be borrowers without security who ask for bread and are politely offered--a stone. What we have to discover is why the country banker has been practically forced out of the market by the joint-stock system; and the reason is not difficult to explain. In the first place we know that, since 1857, the partners in a private bank have been limited to ten; consequently, however anxious a banker may have been to extend his system of branches and develop his business, the difficulty of insufficient capital presented itself; whereas his rivals, who can appeal to thousands of small investors, could, once having established their credit, easily obtain as much capital as they required. The private banker, therefore, ministered to the wants of a certain town, district, or county; but the joint-stock banks spread their tentacles throughout the length and breadth of England; and, like an octopus, eventually strangled him in a manner which will be explained.