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MONEY SA VERS AND THEIR METHODS. By JOHN HARSEN RHOADES, President Greenwich Savings Bank, New York. ANY a book might be written about the idiosyncraAnd now that she is old and feeble she wishes to use her sies of the savings bank depositor. He is always surplus earnings, and we cannot help her. M an interesting study, for he represents nearly every A woman appeared at the paying teller's window some variety of the genus homo. Rich or poor. old or young, by time ago with a book that had been mutilated beyond rehe very nature of his act of putting out his money at incovery. Erasures had been made and entries that were so erest he becomes an investor and a man of thrift-a person palpably false that her book was sent to me for adjustment, of interest to both the philanthropist and the financier. and it leaked out in the course of my conversation with her The passion for saving is often an acquired habit, and I that she had not one but nearly a dozen pass books of achave no doubt that I could pick out a number of full-fledged counts with different banks, all of which had been altered and disfigured by the "man" to whom the books had been misers from our list of depositors, who have become so intrusted. Her thousands had been stolen by the one to from the gradual accumulation of their original deposits. whom she had given her life. There are some people who love to hoard. They go without A pawnbroker came to me during a run on the bank food and clothing in order that the entries in their bank book may grow in arithmetical progression. some time ago and demanded the right of drawing out At the other extreme are those who come to the bank his money without the customary notice, and to strengchen his case said he was not only a depositor, but a real esfor a pastime and regard the depositing and drawing of their tate owner and a borrower from us to the tune of several money as a game, a recreation. And between these two there is a line that includes all classes, cases of jolly thrift thousand dollars. By investigation I found that his loan was past due and demanded payment in order that we might and sorrowing poverty, of those who exult in their ownership and in their winnings, and those who eke out an existpay him; but he preferred to keep the money in his own ence on the scant interest their little principal earns for pocket for his "3 per cent a month" rather than pay it out them. on the possibility of getting it back through the regular channels of the bank. Out on the line there is a woman with a shiny. patched dress, Her aristoers ic hands are covered with gloves worn The habit of thrift is often produced in simple ways. The white at the seams Too feeble to work, she lives on the wives of the great wage-earning class largely have the care plainest fare in the most humble quarters. Her obligations of the earnings of the family. Many of them do their shopare met with religious punctuality. and are paid for with ping mainly in the district in which this bank is situated. he pittance she draws twi a year from her interest acFor convenience and security they deposit these earnings count. from time to time with the bank, and, as they make their In the next room is an old Irish woman, seventy years of purchases, they withdraw the money needed, so that their age. She has a draft in her hand drawn by her Dublin bank accounts are active, and in one sense not properly savings nd payable in London for $1,500. The draft is probably perbank accounts; but there is always a small balance left fectly good, but the woman cannot be identified. Lacking over at the end of each six months, upon which interest is in education and unable to do more than make her mark, she credited. Many of these people, who have never caught the must wait until some one not only identifies her but also idea of saving before, seeing the gradual accumulation, beIdentifies the draft as belonging to her. come possessed with the idea of increasing the amounts so Her story is that all her life she has labored and saved, deposited, and thus, in this unusual way, the habit of thrift and her money has been sent to and deposited in Ireland. is extended among thousands of families in this great city.