New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1853-12-01
SAYINGS B.ANKS.

In most Of the large towns and cities of tn,
Union Savings Banks have been established
and have been found to be important aids in
improving the condition and morals of the in
dustrious classes. The only difficulty with us
in establishing such institutions is to find men
sufficiently reliable and honest to be placed at
the head of their affairs. That there are men
among us honest and reliable, there can be no
doubt but to induce them SO far to neglect the
objects Of ambition and individual emolument
as to undertake the supervision of such institu-
tions, is the great difficulty. A Savings Bank
might be established in this city and without
any great sacrifice of the time and interests of
those who would take its affairs in hand
In times Of great public distress and calami-
ty, and when epidemics are sweeping off our
population by hundreds, there have been found
those among our permanent citizens who have
not hesitated to relinquish the care of their own
private affairs to go forth among the needy and
to administer aid to the unfortunate and help
less. striking example of this benevolent
self-sacri6cing disposition was illustrated here
during the horrors Of the late epidemic. If the
good citizens who composed any of these benevo-
lent societies could be convinced that there were
enemies lurking in our midst more fatal in their
influences than the pestilence, and that they
were annually hurrying off to prisons or the
grave thousands of the young and misguided,
they would be aroused to action and would set
about inyenting some means to counterfeit their
effects. We have such enemies amongst US,
known by the not revolving names of e1trava-
gance, improvidence, dissipation! These are the
vices which are the besetting sins of our people,
and to counterfeit which should be an object of
solicitude with every philanthropist.
The establishment of Savings Bank, by
opening a safe repository for the small gains of
the industrious classes, would arrest many of
the great evils to which those classes are SUBJ
ject. 1t would prevent extravaganza and i'm
providence by transferring from the possessions
of the masses their small earnings to place of
security and profit; and it would prevent diss-
patton by taking from the thoughtless, in their
of reflection, the means of its ready in
diligence. There are thousands in this city who
are able to spare from their superhuity small
sums, which in the course Of time would lay the
for fortunes. These small gains they
spend in dissipation, and are thereby rendered
pests instead of useful members of society. A
Savings Bank, while it would improve the NOR
ais of the many, would add to the general
wealth. The earnings of the laboring classes,
instead of being squandered in grog-shops and
brothels, would be husbanded for investment in
real property, thus improving the condition of
he depositor and creating an independent class
If property owners, interested in the welfare of
he city and permanently attached to the soil
n the present state of things, all the extra
arnings of the poor go to the support of coffee
ouses and sinks of iniquity, and while there is
10 prosperity among this particular class, they
re constantly fattening the cemeteries or peo-
ling the fellons' cells. Misery and degreda-
ion flow from one state of things, while from the |
Their would arise virtue, happiness and general
There is way to establish such institutions
nd to bring about the wished for results Let
hose philanthopists who have the good of the
masses at heart undertake some such scheme,
nd thereby prevent much of the misery they
re now called upon to cure. Let such meas
re be headed by men whom standing in society
nd the purity of whose past lives would be a
uarantee of their good faith, and a confidence in
lie experiment would at once be established
lat would procure for it all the advantages
hich we have set forth. The necessities of
If vast population require some such institu-
on, and he would deserve well of his fellow-citi-
ms who would invent any plan by which such
boon could be conferred