companies of Edinburgh have been comparatively free. The five or six great banks of old standing amongst us not only came out safe in the late crisis, but they were able to hold out help to some at a distance which were less fortunate. As a humble individual of this community, I must say I feel a pride in the old Edinburgh banks, as an exponent of business procedure amongst us. If we overlook only the brief civil war of 1745, when the grandfather of our present sheriff-clerk—being cashier to the Royal Bank—marched up in his tartans, pistols, and claymore, to deposit the bank’s money in the castle, that it might be safe from his less scrupulous countrymen, and when the Bank of Scotland was but too happy to follow the example—there we see doors which have never for a day been closed for a hundred and forty-four years! I was going to have said a hundred and sixty-four years; but on looking into the history of the Bank of Scotland, I find there was a brief stoppage of cash-payments in 1704 occasioned by a malicious run, and another caused by the civil troubles of the year 1715. As it is, overlooking only the unavoidable cessation of business in the Forty-five, the doors of the ‘Auld Bank’ have been in the ordinary condition of those of the temple of Janus at Rome for a hundred and forty-four years. It cannot have been without consummate prudence that this glory has been achieved. During the late crisis, moreover, the number of failures in our city, including Leith, was comparatively small. It will be said, perhaps, that Edinburgh is not a city of much business—a saying against which I take leave to reclaim. It is, for one thing, the centre of monetary business for the kingdom. The life-assurance companies and societies of Scotland—hitherto, like our old banks, of untainted character—have, with but little exception, their headquarters here; and let us just passingly observe, three of these establishments in St Andrew Square enjoy an annual income of six hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and have the management of accumulated funds to the extent of five and a half millions.[2] When we further consider the legal business of Edinburgh, its agenting of property throughout the country, its large publishing establishments, its glass-works and foundries, its merchandise in wine and drysaltery, it is, even leaving Leith out of view, in reality very much a city of business. While, then, I acknowledge that we are still everywhere under more or less of commercial error, I think it may at the same time be allowable to describe the mercantile community of Edinburgh, as one in which experience has proved that a more than usually sound and prudent practice—with happy fruits—has the ascendant. FOOTNOTES: [1] For these interesting particulars, I am indebted to Joseph Robertson, Esq., Record Office, Edinburgh.