We come now to Sir Robert Peel’s famous Bank Charter Act of 1844, entitled “An Act to regulate the issue of Bank Notes, and for giving to the Governor and Company of the Bank of England certain privileges for a limited period.” It confirms the curtailed privileges of the Bank for eleven years, subject afterwards to redemption on twelve months’ notice being given and the repayment of the debt due by the Government to the Bank. A clause in the subsequent National Debt Act of 1870, however, provides that the Bank of England shall continue to be a corporation until all the public Funds shall be redeemed by Parliament, thus practically granting it a lease in perpetuity. The Act of 1844—to some of the special provisions of which I shall presently refer—practically regulates the whole banking system of the country, and at the present time governs the Bank of England in the conduct of their business. In accordance with its provisions, the issue of Bank of England notes was first kept distinct from the banking business proper by the creation of the “Issue Department” and the “Banking Department,” with which probably most of my readers are perfectly familiar, at least by name. Besides these Issue and Banking Departments, there is in the Bank a third most important department, devoted to what is generally, though somewhat inaccurately, termed “the management of the National Debt.” In their capacity of bankers to the State the governor and company of the Bank of England have always acted as the financial agents of the Government for distributing, and paying the dividends on, the funded debt, as well as for the performance of other book-keeping duties in connection therewith. Of late years the Bank have undertaken similar duties for the Indian and several Colonial Governments, for the Metropolitan Board of Works, and for various corporations and municipalities. The considerable portion of the Bank premises devoted to this agency business is now generally spoken of by financial and banking writers as “The Department for the Management of the National Debt”—an imposing title doubtless, which says a good deal more than it means, and one, for aught I know, adopted nowadays by the Bank themselves; but, possibly influenced by the recollections of days long gone by, I confess my partiality for the old familiar title of “Stock Offices.”