St. Landry democrat., 1878-04-27
Why the Average Savings Bank
is N. G..

OF course, savings banks might be
made really safe, and there are undoubt-
eddy savings banks now in the city which
are at least as trustworthy as govern
ment which repudiates an eighth of its
debts. Still the confidence which people
put in the mere name of savings bank
is as unreasonable and indefensible as the
confidence of the African in his fetch.
What did the majority of the depositors
in the Sixpenny savings bank know of
Mr.. Miles and the other officers of the
bank? What good reason had they to
believe that these men had honesty and
intelligence enoug b to make them fit to
be trusted with other peoples money ?
So long as people in this blind way will
trust their money to virtually unknown
men, need we be surprised that to be a
savings bank officer is perhaps the most
profitable career of crime upon which an
erterprising malefactor can enter?
The real foundation of this belief in
savings banks is the theory that when
one irresponsible man takes to himself
two or three other irresponsible men, and
they jointly call themselves bank off
GERS, they become ipso facto trustworthy.
The native African king believes that
if lion drinks water over which fetch
man has cast spell, the beast instantly
changes his nature and becomes gentle
and inoffensive. We, who pity the ig-
ncrance of the native kings, believe the
words "savings bank" exercise a magi.
cal influence upon men who call them
selves savings bank ficers, and that they
are thus made incapable of stealing or OF
wasting in foolish speculations the funds
intrusted to them. No one in his sense
would think of rushing into the street
and asking the first stranger whom he
might meet to accept without security
the loan of few thousand dollars.
Even the depositors of the Sixpenny
savings bank would have thought them
selves fit to represent western constit-
uency in congress had they opened the
city directory at hazard and on noticing
the name of William Miles had with
out any further knowledge of him,
gone to his house and begged him to take
their money and give them receipt for
it. The Sixpenny savings bank was
nothing more than a partnership between
President Miles and 9 few other men
equally unknown to the general
public; but hundreds of people who
would not have lent a dollar to Mr.. Miles
orhis associatespersonally, GLADLY brought
their money to those gentlemen as soon
as5they found them sitting at the receipt
ofdeposits ina bank building. Of course,
there is but one explanation of this. The
public believes that men undergo mi
raculous mortal transformation when
they become the managers of savings
banks, and that the bank fetch will
render it impossible for bank officers to
steal.
In like manner, we all know about the
real nature of savings banks. Year by
year we have seen them explode and
vanish, leaving a fantastic mockery
known as "receiver" behind them.
Cashiers and presidents in a long and
uninterrupted succession have marched
toward the Canada border, or to the
wharyes of transatlantic steamships,
carrying the assets of their banks with
them. Yet, knowing all these things, we
still cling to our belief in savings banks,
and cannot get rid of the delusion that it
is safe to lend money without any se>
curity, provided the borrowers occupy
aibuilding over the door of which is the
sign "Saviugs Bank. I'm. Y. Times.
Won oan hI1v eaYsa fish-yeofa for