The evolution of the Bank of England, we can see, has not proceeded smoothly; but it is remarkable that an institution, which owed its pre-eminence entirely to monopoly, did not gradually begin to sink into a second-rate banking company directly its exclusive privilege of joint stock banking was abrogated and free trade in banking established in England. So conservative was the Bank's policy that it seems little short of marvellous that its joint stock rivals should have quietly endured its studied insults. The new movement was then, however, not only in its infancy, but was under a cloud as well, and through the companies grouping themselves around the Bank they enabled that institution to retain its position in the centre of the money market. The power incident to that position has been fully explained in the previous chapter. The London private bankers, whose lack of enterprise can only be attributed to the fact that they were imbued with those narrow City traditions which make London the home of Conservatism, also quite failed to grasp the situation, and allowed the new companies to expand in every direction, confident that so sudden a change must end in disaster, and, therefore, they were content to look on, to shake their heads sadly at the unprofessional conduct of those new banks, and to soothe their feelings by ever and anon declaring, with due solemnity, that joint stock banking would ruin the country. Certainly, the new companies did not manage well at first, and a few of them were wiped out in consequence; but, in spite of mistakes, they progressed, because their system was adaptable to the requirements of a growing England. In these times it is the fashion to apotheosise man--to picture him as a kind of demi-god; therefore, it is asserted that man makes his mark on the times. But it is surely more rational and logical to assume that the times gradually mould the particular cast of brain that is adaptable to a constantly changing environment, and that the man who chances to possess that cast of brain goes with the tide--which takes him a long way. At any rate, such was the case with the joint stock banks, which owe their success entirely to the adaptability of their system to a changing market. Moreover, that market is still changing. The old-fashioned London bankers found, to their great surprise, that they had not read the signs of the times aright; but the orthodox seldom play the _rôle_ of a prophet successfully, because they have lived too long in one groove, and so are apt to forget that England is not the world, which is steadily increasing in population. Instead of failing, the joint stock banks merely occupied the ground, and, by so doing, confined the business of the London private banker to the one street in which he was established and in which his father lived before him. They had no respect for age--those new companies!