high standing and acquired great wealth, should become, more or less, bankers too, and should receive money on deposit without giving any security for it.
But the effects of the change have been very remarkable. In the practice as Mr. Richardson described it, there is no peculiarity very likely to affect the Money Market. The bill broker brought bills to the banker, just as others brought them; nothing at all could be said as to it except that the bank must not discount bad bills, must not discount too many bills, and must keep a good reserve. But the modern practice introduces more complex considerations. In the trade of bill broking, as it now exists, there is one great difficulty: the bill broker has to pay interest for all the money which he receives. How this arose we have just seen. The present lender to the bill broker at first always used to discount a bill, which is as much as saying that he was always a lender at interest. When he came to take the guarantee of the broker, and only to look at the bills as a collateral security, naturally he did not forego his interest: still less did he forego it when he ceased to take security at all. The bill broker has, in one shape or other, to pay interest on every sixpence left with him, and that constant habit of giving interest has this grave consequence:—the bill broker cannot afford to keep much money unemployed. He has become
