Then, again, the average youngster has more chances in business; for while a few hundred pounds will establish him as a trader, as many thousands will not enable him to become a banker. The banks, so to speak, take their men right off the market, and give them a special training, which fits them for banking alone, but which, as a rule, totally unfits them for any other business; consequently, when a bank-clerk suddenly find himself flung back on the market, he at first usually feels as helpless as a bird which suddenly turned out of the cage in which it was bred, is compelled to sustain life after the manner of its kind. As the bank-clerk generally enters a bank for life, he has a right to expect that the shareholders and directors will at least recognize this fact, and, therefore, pay him a salary based, not only upon the market price of clerical labour, but also upon the assumption that he will pass his days in the service of a company in which he will always be a servant. In other words, as the directors practically hire these men for life, it is their duty to make their circumstances fairly easy, but this is an obligation which the majority of them quite fail to recognize. The smaller banks have a much lower scale than that given in these pages; and certain of those companies which are pushing out small suburban tentacles in every direction pay the managers of these offices from £80 to £120 a year, and the clerks in proportion. Moreover, some boards have passed resolutions to the effect that no clerk in their service shall marry until his salary be such-and-such a sum; and it seems intolerable that a body of men, who are merely traders, be the resolution good or bad, should be allowed to interfere with the liberty of the subject in this arbitrary fashion. Mr. Punch’s advice is doubtless excellent; but who are these men, in their astounding consequence, to override the law of the land? The whole nation should indignantly protest against their impudence, for a mere trading company, whose only object is gain, is unfit to govern the sons of men. Possibly, if these banks were to publish their salary scales their sham philanthropy would be instantly apparent.