facilities being granted by bankers generally throughout the country. The Bank of England have nine country branches, which keep separate accounts for the Issue and Banking departments, and the particulars of each day’s transactions, together with the balance sheets, are posted nightly to the Branch Banks Office in London, through which office all the correspondence and business transactions connected with the branches are carried on. There is also one branch in London at the West-End. The economy of the Bank of England is controlled by the Governor, the Deputy-Governor, and twenty-four Directors. The clerical machinery is divided into the “Cash side” and the “Accountant’s side.” The former, under the practical charge of the chief cashier, comprises the transaction of all business where actual cash is concerned, together with the necessary book-keeping which it involves; the latter, under the charge of the chief accountant, takes cognizance of all matters of pure book-keeping where no actual cash is concerned, such as those which relate to the National Debt accounts, the registration of Bank notes, and so on. In olden times these divisions were kept much more distinct than they are at present. There was formerly a certain antagonism between the two “chiefs” which, however, has long since disappeared, and they now live together in a state of remarkable harmony, without even fighting over the question of precedence which the chief accountant is supposed to claim—mainly, I fancy, on alphabetical grounds, because A comes before C. The supervision of each office on both “sides” of the Bank, is intrusted to a principal and deputy-principal, who are accountable in the first place to the chief cashier or chief accountant, as the case may be, and afterwards to a committee of directors. The secretary is a separate officer of the Bank. He stands midway, as it were, between the two “sides,” having certain relations with each. He nurses the charter, and sees that its forms and ceremonies are complied with; he records the proceedings of the courts, summons and attends all committees, and “picks up their bits.” He waits upon the governors, and does odd literary jobs, stops notes, puts the candidates for clerkship through their preliminary examination, collects income-tax, and grants orders to view the Bank, &c. His duties, in short, are as multifarious as those of the General Post Office, and it is satisfactory to think that they are as equally well performed by the present incumbent and his staff.