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Show OPENING OF POSTAL BANKS. It will bo some months at best before any postal banks will be opened for business, as many details in regard to their organization and management have to be worked out still. The plan is to try out . the system at first in a number of typical places, and then extend it gradually until the whole country is covered. It may surprise many people to learn that Daniel Defoe, the author of "Robinson Crusoe," was the first man to suggest small savings banks. But his suggestion fell on deaf ears for the people then kept their savings in stockings, chimney-holes, etc., and had no faith in public places of deposit. Mrs. Prisoilla Vakefield established estab-lished a savings bank for children in England over a century ago and it became a great success. Jeremy Bentham had advocated the 'idea of popular savings institutions and gradually the people were won over to them. A Scotch preacher named Duncan is recognized as the father . of the modern savings bank, and the centennial of his first bank at Kuthwell has just been celebrated at Edinburg. In order to con. vince the depositors that their money would not be stolen, Mr. Duncan Dun-can had the cash and papers kept in a strong-box which had three different locks to it, and the keys of these three locks were in the hands of three different men of trust. As it was impossible for any one of these men to open the box unless the other were there also, it was supposed that the money would be entirely safe. Dposits soon poured in, and from that time the credit of savings banks was established. estab-lished. In 1861 the British postal savings bank was started, and the idea has spread now until nearly all the leading nations have something some-thing of the sort. The United States has been very backward in the matter, but has at last, under pressure, got in line with modern progress pro-gress in this respect. |