The foremost ambition of the average immigrant is the saving of money. The purposes of this saving are many—to guarantee his own future prosperity, to ease the lot of friends and relatives at home, to pay off mortgages and other debts, and, perhaps the most important of all, to provide the means whereby friends and relatives on the other side may join him in the new world. The prepaid ticket is the final end of much of the saving of aliens. These accumulations naturally come in small amounts. Out of a month’s earnings, the immigrant may save $10 or $15 or even as high as $30. The living conditions of many of the immigrants make it unsafe for them to try to keep this money in their lodgings; they are unfamiliar with, and distrustful of, American banks. The disposition of their savings which seems to them the wisest and safest is to intrust them to a fellow-countryman who is familiar with the ways of the country and has some means of keeping them safe. This individual may be the padrone or boss, the lodging-house keeper, a saloon keeper or grocer, or the steamship agent from whom the immigrant expects eventually to purchase the prepaid ticket. In time, immigrants in these positions get into the habit of receiving small sums from their fellow-countrymen for safe keeping or on deposit against some future purchase. As these amounts accumulate, they become of considerable value to the holder, who may deposit them in a regular savings bank at interest, to his own profit, or may invest them in his business, or may make other speculative investments with them. To attract such deposits, and increase their amount, he adds the term “bank” to the name of his business, so that he now becomes a “Grocer and Banker,” a “Ticket Agent and Banker,” etc. This adds a dignity to his position and increases the confidence of the people in his integrity. It has been intimated in the preceding paragraph that the immigrant “banker” makes no distinction between the funds deposited with him and his own property. This is generally the case. Occasionally the banker will keep the deposits in his safe, in the original wallets in which they were delivered to him,[249] or deposit them in a bank in his wife’s name,[250] but these are exceptional instances. Ordinarily all the money in the banker’s possession is lumped together, so that the assets of the “bank” are identical with the general resources of the proprietor. Furthermore, there is a great amount of laxity in the giving of receipts to depositors. Sometimes no written acknowledgment whatever is given; from this point the character of the receipt varies all the way up to a regular pass book, and a thorough system of bookkeeping. From such a beginning as this, these banks have developed a variety of forms, varying in functions and in stability. They have been classified by the Immigration Commission into three main groups, as follows: