It is said that there is a skeleton in every household. The skeleton is locked up--put away in a cupboard--- and rarely seen. Only the people inside the house know of its existence. But the skeleton, nevertheless, cannot long be concealed. It comes to light in some way or another. The most common skeleton is Poverty. Poverty, says Douglas Jerrold, is the great secret, kept at any pains by one-half the world from the other half. When there is nothing laid by--nothing saved to relieve sickness when it comes--nothing to alleviate the wants of old age,--this is the skeleton hid away in many a cupboard.

In a country such as this, where business is often brought to a standstill by over-trading and over-speculation, many masters, clerks, and workpeople are thrown out of employment. They must wait until better times come round. But in the meantime, how are they to live? If they have acc.u.mulated no savings, and have nothing laid by, they are comparatively dest.i.tute.

Even the Co-operative Cotton-mills, or Co-operative Banks, which are nothing more than Joint-stock Companies, Limited,[1] may become bankrupt. They may not be able, as was the case during the cotton famine, to compete with large capitalists in the purchase of cotton, or in the production of cotton twist. Co-operative companies established for the purpose of manufacturing, are probably of too speculative a character to afford much lasting benefit to the working cla.s.ses; and it seems that by far the safer course for them to pursue, in times such as the present, is by means of simple, direct saving. There may be less chance of gain, but there is less risk of loss. What is laid by is not locked up and contingent for its productiveness upon times and trade, but is steadily acc.u.mulating, and is always ready at hand for use when the pinch of adversity occurs.

[Footnote 1: "The new cotton factories which have been called co-operative, and which, under that name, have brought together large numbers of shareholders of the wage cla.s.ses, are all now in reality common joint-stock companies, with limited liability. The so-called co-operative shareholders in the leading establishments decided, as I am informed, by large majorities, that the workers should only be paid wages in the ordinary manner, and should not divide profits. The wages being for piecework, it was held that the payment was in accordance with communistic principle, 'each according to his capacity, each according to his work.' The common spinner had had no share in the work of the general direction, nor had he evinced any of the capacity of thrift or foresight of the capitalist, and why should he share profits as if he had? The wage cla.s.s, in their capacity of shareholders, decided that it was an unjust claim upon their profits, and kept them undivided to themselves."--_Edwin Chadwick, C.B._]

Mr. Bright stated in the House of Commons, in 1860,[2] that the income of the working cla.s.ses was "understated at three hundred and twelve millions a year." Looking at the increase of wages which has taken place during the last fifteen years, their income must now amount to at least four hundred millions.

[Footnote 2: Speech on the Representation of the People Bill.]

Surely, out of this large fund of earnings, the working cla.s.ses might easily save from thirty to forty millions yearly. At all events, they might save such an amount as, if properly used and duly economized, could not fail to establish large numbers of them in circ.u.mstances of comfort and even of comparative wealth.

The instances which we have already cited of persons in the humbler ranks of life having by prudential forethought acc.u.mulated a considerable store of savings for the benefit of their families, and as a stay for their old age, need not by any means be the comparatively exceptional cases that they are now. What one well-regulated person is able to do, others, influenced by similar self-reliant motives, and practising like sobriety and frugality, might with equal ease and in one way or another accomplish. A man who has more money about him than he requires for current purposes, is tempted to spend it. To use the common phrase, it is apt to "burn a hole in his pocket." He may be easily entrapped into company; and where his home provides but small comfort, the public-house, with its bright fire, is always ready to welcome him.

It often happens that workmen lose their employment in "bad times."

Mercantile concerns become bankrupt, clerks are paid off, and servants are dismissed when their masters can no longer employ them. If the disemployed people have been in the habit of regularly consuming all their salaries and wages, without laying anything by, their case is about the most pitiable that can be imagined. But if they have saved something, at home or in the savings bank, they will be enabled to break their fall. They will obtain some breathing-time, before they again fall into employment. Suppose they have as much as ten pounds saved. It may seem a very little sum, yet in distress it amounts to much. It may even prove a man's pa.s.sport to future independence.

With ten pounds a workman might remove from one district to another where employment is more abundant. With ten pounds, he might emigrate to Canada or the United States, where his labour might be in request.

Without this little store of savings, he might be rooted to his native spot, like a limpet to the rock. If a married man with a family, his ten pounds would save his home from wreckage, and his household from dest.i.tution. His ten pounds would keep the wolf from the door until better times came round. Ten pounds would keep many a servant-girl from ruin, give her time to recruit her health, perhaps wasted by hard work, and enable her to look about for a suitable place, instead of rushing into the first that offered.

We do not value money for its own sake, and we should be the last to encourage a miserly desire to h.o.a.rd amongst any cla.s.s; but we cannot help recognizing in money the means of life, the means of comfort, the means of maintaining an honest independence. We would therefore recommend every young man and every young woman to begin life by learning to save; to lay up for the future a certain portion of every week's earnings, be it little or much; to avoid consuming every week or every year the earnings of that week or year; and we counsel them to do this, as they would avoid the horrors of dependence, dest.i.tution, or beggary. We would have men and women of every cla.s.s able to help themselves--relying upon their own resources--upon their own savings; for it is a true saying that "a penny in the purse is better than a friend at court." The first penny saved is a step in the world. The fact of its being saved and laid by, indicates self-denial, forethought, prudence, wisdom. It may be the germ of future happiness. It may be the beginning of independence.

Cobbett was accustomed to scoff at the "bubble" of Savings Banks, alleging that it was an insult to people to tell them that they had anything to save. Yet the extent to which savings banks _have_ been used, even by the humblest cla.s.ses, proves that he was as much mistaken in this as he was in many of the views which he maintained. There are thousands of persons who would probably never have thought of laying by a penny, but for the facility of the savings bank: it would have seemed so useless to try. The small h.o.a.rd in the cupboard was too ready at hand, and would have become dissipated before it acc.u.mulated to any amount; but no sooner was a place of deposit provided, where sums as small as a shilling could be put away, than people hastened to take advantage of it.

The first savings bank was started by Miss Priscilla Wakefield, in the parish of Tottenham, Middles.e.x, towards the close of last century,--her object being mainly to stimulate the frugality of poor children. The experiment proved so successful that in 1799 the Rev. Joseph Smith, of Wendon, commenced a plan of receiving small sums from his parishioners during summer, and returning them at Christmas, with the addition of one-third as a stimulus to prudence and forethought. Miss Wakefield, in her turn, followed Mr. Smith's example, and in 1804 extended the plan of her charitable bank, so as to include adult labourers, female servants, and others. A similar inst.i.tution was formed at Bath, in 1808, by several ladies of that city; and about the same time Mr. Whitbread proposed to Parliament the formation of a national inst.i.tution, "in the nature of a bank, for the use and advantage of the labouring cla.s.ses alone;" but nothing came of his proposal.

It was not until the Rev. Henry Duncan, the minister of Ruthwell, a poor parish in Dumfriesshire, took up the subject, that the savings-bank system may be said to have become fairly inaugurated. The inhabitants of that parish were mostly poor cottagers, whose average wages did not amount to more than eight shillings a week. There were no manufactures in the district, nor any means of subsistence for the population, except what was derived from the land under cultivation; and the landowners were for the most part non-resident. It seemed a very unlikely place in which to establish a bank for savings, where the poor people were already obliged to strain every nerve to earn a bare living, to provide the means of educating their children (for, however small his income, the Scottish peasant almost invariably contrives to save something wherewith to send his children to school), and to pay their little contributions to the friendly society of the parish. Nevertheless, the minister resolved, as a help to his spiritual instructions, to try the experiment.

Not many labouring men may apprehend the deep arguments of the religious teacher, but the least intelligent can appreciate a bit of practical advice that tells on the well-being of his household as well as on the labourer's own daily comfort and self-respect. Dr. Duncan knew that, even in the poorest family, there were odds and ends of income apt to be frittered away in unnecessary expenditure. He saw some thrifty cottagers using the expedient of a cow, or a pig, or a bit of garden-ground, as a savings bank,--finding their return of interest in the shape of b.u.t.ter and milk, winter's bacon, or garden produce; and it occurred to him that there were other villagers, single men and young women, for whom some a.n.a.logous mode of storing away their summer's savings might be provided, and a fair rate of interest returned upon their little investments.

Hence originated the parish savings bank of Ruthwell, the first self-supporting inst.i.tution of the kind established in this country.

That the minister was not wrong in his antic.i.p.ations, was proved by the fact that, in the course of four years, the funds of his savings bank amounted to nearly a thousand pounds. And if poor villagers out of eight shillings a week, and female labourers and servants out of much less, could lay aside this sum,--what might not mechanics, artizans, miners, and iron-workers accomplish, who earn from thirty to fifty shillings a week all the year round?

The example set by Dr. Duncan was followed in many towns and districts in England and Scotland. In every instance the model of the Ruthwell parish bank was followed; and the self-sustaining principle was adopted.

The savings banks thus inst.i.tuted, were not eleemosynary inst.i.tutions, nor dependent upon anybody's charity or patronage; but their success rested entirely with the depositors themselves. They encouraged the industrious cla.s.ses to rely upon their own resources, to exercise forethought and economy in the conduct of life, to cherish self-respect and self-dependence, and to provide for their comfort and maintenance in old age, by the careful use of the products of their industry, instead of having to rely for aid upon the thankless dole of a begrudged poor-rate.

The establishment of savings banks with these objects, at length began to be recognized as a matter of national concern; and in 1817 an Act was pa.s.sed which served to increase their number and extend their usefulness. Various measures have since been adopted with the object of increasing their efficiency and security. But notwithstanding the great good which these inst.i.tutions have accomplished, it is still obvious that the better-paid cla.s.ses of workpeople avail themselves of them to only a very limited extent. A very small portion of the four hundred millions estimated to be annually earned by the working cla.s.ses finds its way to the savings bank, while at least twenty times the amount is spent annually at the beershop and the public-house.

It is not the highly-paid cla.s.s of working men and women who invest money in the savings banks; but those who earn comparatively moderate incomes. Thus the most numerous cla.s.s of depositors in the Manchester and Salford Savings Bank is that of domestic servants. After them rank clerks, shopmen, porters, and miners. Only about a third part of the deposits belong to the operatives, artizans, and mechanics. It is the same in manufacturing districts generally. A few years since, it was found that of the numerous female depositors at Dundee, only one was a factory worker: the rest were for the most part servants.

There is another fact that is remarkable. The habit of saving does not so much prevail in those counties where wages are the highest, as in those counties where wages are the lowest. Previous to the era of Post Office Savings Banks, the inhabitants of Wilts and Dorset--where wages are about the lowest in England--deposited more money in the savings banks, per head of the population, than they did in Lancashire and Yorkshire, where wages are about the highest in England. Taking Yorkshire itself, and dividing it into manufacturing and agricultural,--the manufacturing inhabitants of the West Riding of York invested about twenty-five shillings per head of the population in the savings banks; whilst the agricultural population of the East Riding invested about three times that amount.

Private soldiers are paid much less wages per week than the lowest-paid workmen, and yet they put more money in the savings banks than workmen who are paid from thirty to forty shillings a week. Soldiers are generally supposed to be a particularly thoughtless cla.s.s. Indeed, they are sometimes held up to odium as reckless and dissolute; but the Military Savings Bank Returns refute the vilification, and prove that the British soldier is as sober, well-disciplined, and frugal, as we already know him to be brave. Most people forget that the soldier must be obedient, sober, and honest. If he is a drunkard, he is punished; if he is dishonest, he is drummed out of the regiment.

Wonderful is the magic of Drill! Drill means discipline, training, education. The first drill of every people is military. It has been the first education of nations. The duty of obedience is thus taught on a large scale,--submission to authority; united action under a common head. These soldiers,--who are ready to march steadily against vollied fire, against belching cannon, up fortress heights, or to beat their heads against bristling bayonets, as they did at Badajos,--were once tailors, shoemakers, mechanics, delvers, weavers, and ploughmen; with mouths gaping, shoulders stooping, feet straggling, arms and hands like great fins hanging by their sides; but now their gait is firm and martial, their figures are erect, and they march along, to the sound of music, with a tread that makes the earth shake. Such is the wonderful power of drill.

Nations, as they become civilized, adopt other methods of discipline.

The drill becomes industrial. Conquest and destruction give place to production in many forms. And what trophies Industry has won, what skill has it exercised, what labours has it performed! Every industrial process is performed by drilled bands of artizans. Go into Yorkshire and Lancashire, and you will find armies of drilled labourers at work, where the discipline is perfect, and the results, as regards the amount of manufactured productions turned out of hand, are prodigious.

On efficient drilling and discipline, men's success as individuals, and as societies entirely depends. The most self-dependent man is under discipline,--and the more perfect the discipline, the more complete his condition. A man must drill his desires, and keep them under subjection,--he must obey the word of command, otherwise he is the sport of pa.s.sion and impulse. The religions man's life is full of discipline and self-restraint. The man of business is entirely subject to system and rule. The happiest home is that where the discipline is the most perfect, and yet where it is the least felt. We at length become subject to it as to a law of Nature, and while it binds us firmly, yet we feel it not. The force of Habit is but the force of Drill.

One dare scarcely hint, in these days, at the necessity for compulsory conscription; and yet, were the people at large compelled to pa.s.s through the discipline of the army, the country would be stronger, the people would be soberer, and thrift would become much more habitual than it is at present.

Military savings banks were first suggested by Paymaster Fairfowl in 1816; and about ten years later the question was again raised by Colonel Oglander, of the 26th Foot (Cameronians). The subject was brought under the notice of the late Duke of Wellington, and negatived; the Duke making the following memorandum on the subject: "There is nothing that I know of to prevent a soldier, equally with others of His Majesty's subjects, from investing his money in savings banks. If there be any impediment, it should be taken away; but I doubt the expediency of going further."

The idea, however, seems to have occurred to the Duke, that the proposal to facilitate the saving of money by private soldiers might be turned to account in the way of a reduction in the army expenditure, and he characteristically added: "Has a soldier more pay than he requires? If he has, it should be lowered, not to those now in the service, but to those enlisted hereafter." No one, however, could allege that the pay of the private soldier was excessive, and it was not likely that any proposal to lower it would be entertained.

The subject of savings banks for the army was allowed to rest for a time, but by the a.s.sistance of Sir James McGregor and Lord Howick a scheme was at length approved and finally established in 1842. The result has proved satisfactory in an eminent degree, and speaks well for the character of the British soldier. It appears from a paper presented to the House of Commons some years ago,--giving the details of the savings effected by the respective corps,--that the men of the Royal Artillery had saved over twenty-three thousand pounds, or an average of sixteen pounds to each depositor. These savings were made out of a daily pay of one and threepence and a penny for beer-money, or equal to about nine and sixpence a week, subject to sundry deductions for extra clothing. Again, the men of the Royal Engineers--mostly drawn from the skilled mechanical cla.s.s--had saved nearly twelve thousand pounds, or an average of about twenty pounds for each depositor. The Twenty-sixth regiment of the line (Cameronians), whose pay was a shilling a day and a penny for beer, saved over four thousand pounds. Two hundred and fifty men of the first battalion, or one-third of the corps, were depositors in the savings bank, and their savings amounted to about seventeen pounds per man.

But this is not all. Private soldiers, out of their small earnings, are accustomed to remit considerable sums through the post office, to their poor relations at home. In one year, twenty-two thousand pounds were thus sent from Aldershot,--the average amount of each money order being twenty-one shillings and fourpence. And if men with seven shillings and seven-pence a week can do so much, what might not skilled workmen do, whose earnings amount to from two to three pounds a week?

Soldiers serving abroad during arduous campaigns have proved themselves to be equally thoughtful and provident. During the war in the Crimea, the soldiers and seamen sent home through the money order office seventy-one thousand pounds, and the army works corps thirty-five thousand pounds. More than a year before the money order system was introduced at Scutari, Miss Nightingale took charge of the soldiers'

savings. She found them most willing to abridge their own comforts or indulgences, for the sake of others dear to them, as well as for their own future well-being; and she devoted an afternoon in every week to receiving and forwarding their savings to England. She remitted many thousand pounds in this manner, and it was distributed by a friend in London,--much of it to the remotest corners of Scotland and Ireland. And it afforded some evidence that the seed fell in good places (as well as of the punctuality of the post office), that of the whole number of remittances, all but one were duly acknowledged.

Again, there is not a regiment returning from India but brings home with it a store of savings. In the year 1860, after the Indian mutiny, more than twenty thousand pounds were remitted on account of invalided men sent back to England; besides which there were eight regiments which brought home balances to their credits in the regimental banks amounting to 40.499.[1] The highest was the Eighty-fourth, whose savings amounted to 9,718. The Seventy-Eighth (Ross-shire Buffs), the heroes who followed Havelock in his march on Lucknow, saved 6,480; and the gallant Thirty-second, who held Lucknow under Inglis, saved 5,263. The Eighty-sixth, the first battalion of the Tenth, and the Ninth Dragoons, all brought home an amount of savings indicative of providence and forethought, which reflected the highest honour upon them as men as well as soldiers.[2]

[Footnote 1: The sum sent home by soldiers serving in India for the benefit of friends and relatives are not included in these amounts, the remittances being made direct by the paymasters of regiments, and not through the savings banks.]

[Footnote 2: The amount of the Fund for Military Savings Banks on the 5th of January, 1876, was 338,350.]

And yet the private soldiers do not deposit all their savings in the military savings banks,--especially when they can obtain access to an ordinary savings bank. We are informed that many of the household troops stationed in London deposit their spare money in the savings banks rather than in the regimental banks; and when the question was on a recent occasion asked as to the cause, the answer given was, "I would not have my sergeant know that I was saving money." But in addition to this, the private soldier would rather that his comrades did not know that he was saving money; for the thriftless soldier, like the thriftless workman, when he has spent everything of his own, is very apt to set up a kind of right to borrow from the fund of his more thrifty comrade.

The same feeling of suspicion frequently prevents workmen depositing money in the ordinary savings bank. They do not like it to be known to their employers that they are saving money, being under the impression that it might lead to attempts to lower their wages. A working man in a town in Yorkshire, who had determined to make a deposit in the savings bank, of which his master was a director, went repeatedly to watch at the door of the bank before he could ascertain that his master was absent; and he only paid in his money, after several weeks' waiting, when ne had a.s.sured himself of this fact.

The miners at Bilston, at least such of them as put money in the savings bank, were accustomed to deposit it in other names than their own. Nor were they without reason. For some of their employers were actually opposed to the inst.i.tution of savings banks,--fearing lest the workmen might apply their savings to their maintenance during a turn-out; not reflecting that they have the best guarantee of the steadiness of this cla.s.s of men, in their deposits at the savings bank. Mr. Baker, Inspector of Factories, has said that "the supreme folly of a strike is shown by the fact that there is seldom or never a rich workman at the head of it."

A magistrate at Bilston, not connected with the employment of workmen, has mentioned the following case. "I prevailed," he says, "upon a workman to begin a deposit in the savings bank. He came most unwillingly. His deposits were small, although I knew his gains to be great. I encouraged him by expressing satisfaction at the course he was taking. His deposits became greater; and at the end of five years he drew out the fund he had acc.u.mulated, bought a piece of land, and has built a house upon it. I think if I had not spoken to him, the whole amount would have been spent in feasting or clubs, or contributions to the trades unions. That man's eyes are now open--his social position is raised--he sees and feels as we do, and will influence others to follow his example."

From what we have said, it will be obvious that there can be no doubt as to the ability of a large proportion of the better-paid cla.s.ses of working men to lay by a store of savings. When they set their minds upon any object, they have no difficulty in finding the requisite money. A single town in Lancashire contributed thirty thousand pounds to support their fellow-workmen when on strike in an adjoining town. At a time when there are no strikes, why should they not save as much money on their own account, for their own permanent comfort? Many workmen already save with this object; and what they do, all might do. We know of one large mechanical establishment,--situated in an agricultural district, where the temptations to useless expenditure are few,--in which nearly all the men are habitual economists, and have saved sums varying from two hundred to five hundred pounds each.

Many factory operatives, with their families, might easily lay by from five to ten shillings a week, which in a few years would amount to considerable sums. At Darwen, only a short time ago, an operative drew his savings out of the bank to purchase a row of cottages, now become his property. Many others, in the same place, and in the neighbouring towns, are engaged in building cottages for themselves, some by means of their contributions to building societies, and others by means of their savings acc.u.mulated in the bank.

A respectably dressed working man, when making a payment one day at the Bradford savings bank, which brought his account up to nearly eighty pounds, informed the manager how it was that he had been induced to become a depositor. He had been a drinker; but one day accidentally finding his wife's savings bank deposit book, from which he learnt that she had laid by about twenty pounds, he said to himself, "Well now, if this can be done while I am spending, what might we do if both were saving?" The man gave up his drinking, and became one of the most respectable persons of his cla.s.s. "I owe it all," he said, "to my wife and the savings bank."

When well-paid workmen such as these are able to acc.u.mulate a sufficient store of savings, they ought gradually to give up hard work, and remove from the field of compet.i.tion as old age comes upon them. They ought also to give place to younger men; and prevent themselves being beaten down into the lower-paid ranks of labour. After sixty a man's physical powers fail him; and by that time he ought to have made provision for his independent maintenance. Nor are the instances by any means uncommon, of workmen laying by money with this object, and thereby proving what the whole cla.s.s might, to a greater or less extent, accomplish in the same direction.

The extent to which Penny Banks have been used by the very poorest cla.s.ses, wherever started, affords a striking ill.u.s.tration how much may be done by merely providing increased opportunities for the practice of thrift. The first Penny Bank was started in Greenock, about thirty years since, as an auxiliary to the savings bank. The object of the projector (Mr. J.M. Scott) was to enable poor persons, whose savings amounted to less than a shilling (the savings bank minimum) to deposit them in a safe place. In one year about five thousand depositors placed 1,580 with the Greenock inst.i.tution. The estimable Mr. Queckett, a curate in the east end of London, next opened a Penny Bank, and the results were very remarkable. In one year as many as 14,513 deposits were made in the bank. The number of depositors was limited to 2,000; and the demand for admission was so great that there were usually many waiting until vacancies occurred.

"Some save for their rent," said Mr. Queckett, "others for clothes and apprenticing their children; and various are the little objects to which the savings are to be applied. Every repayment pa.s.ses through my own hands, which gives an opportunity of hearing of sickness, or sorrow, or any other cause which compels the withdrawal of the little fund. It is, besides, a feeder to the larger savings banks, to which many are turned over when the weekly payments tendered exceed the usual sum. Many of those who could at first scarcely advance beyond a penny a week, can now deposit a silver coin of some kind."

Never was the moral influence of the parish clergyman more wisely employed than in this case. Not many of those whom Mr. Queckett thus laboured to serve were amongst the church-going cla.s.s; but by helping them to be frugal, and improving their physical condition, he was enabled gradually to elevate their social tastes, and to awaken in them a religious life to which the greater number of them had before been strangers.

A powerful influence was next given to the movement by Mr. Charles W.

Sikes, cashier of the Huddersfield Banking Company, who advocated their establishment in connection with the extensive organization of mechanics' inst.i.tutes. It appeared to him that to train working people when young in habits of economy, was of more practical value to themselves, and of greater importance to society, than to fill their minds with the contents of many books. He pointed to the perverted use of money by the working cla.s.s as one of the greatest practical evils of the time. "In many cases," he said, "the higher the workmen's wages, the poorer are their families; and these are they who really form the discontented and the dangerous cla.s.ses. How _can_ such persons take any interest in pure and elevating knowledge?"

To show the thriftlessness of the people, Mr. Sikes mentioned the following instance. "An eminent employer in the West Riding," he said, "whose mills for a quarter of a century have scarcely run short time for a single week, has within a few days examined the rate of wages now paid to his men, and compared it with that of a few years ago. He had the pleasure of finding that improvements in machinery had led to improvement in wages. His spinners and weavers are making about twenty-seven shillings a week. In many instances some of their children work at the same mill, and in a few instances their wives, and often the family income reaches from a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds per annum. Visiting the homes of some of these men, he has seen with feelings of disappointment the air of utter discomfort and squalor with which many are pervaded. Increase of income has led only to increase of improvidence. The savings bank and the building society are equally neglected, although at the same mill there are some with no higher wages, whose homes have every comfort, and who have quite a little competency laid by. In Bradford, I believe, a munificent employer on one occasion opened seven hundred accounts with the savings bank for his operatives, paying in a small deposit for each. The result was not encouraging. Rapidly was a small portion of the sums drawn out, and very few remained as the nucleus of further deposits."[1]

[Footnote 1: From Mr. Sikes's excellent little handbook ent.i.tled "Good Times, or the Savings Bank and the Fireside."]