The Girls Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 | Page 6

at Yarmouth. But the baron felt his inability
to speak English a great drawback to prosecuting his inquiries as fully
as he would have liked, although M. de Courcy was very kind and did
all any friend could have been expected to do; still, it was not the same
as speaking the language himself, as the baron felt, and he bitterly
regretted he had never tried to master its difficulties. Many of the
Yarmouth fishermen and boatmen remembered the Hirondelle and the
handsome French gentleman to whom she belonged, but not one had
ever seen the sign of a baby on board her, though this did not throw
much light on the matter, as the baby might easily have been kept
below or removed at night.

At last, after spending a week or ten days in fruitless inquiries, the
baron and his friend returned to France, the baron convinced in his own
mind that some hope of his child being safe still existed, a hope which
he dared not communicate to the baroness, but which, nevertheless,
lingered in his breast for many a long day.
(To be continued.)

THE ROMANCE OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND;
OR,
THE OLD LADY OF THREADNEEDLE STREET.
BY EMMA BREWER.
INTRODUCTION.
A gentleman asked me the other day upon what subject I intended next
to write, and on telling him that the Editor had kindly permitted me to
deal with the Bank of England and the National Debt, he said,
"Nonsense! what do girls want to know about the Bank of England and
the National Debt? Let them be content to leave all such knowledge to
men, and rest satisfied if they get their dividends all right and know
how to spend them properly and keep out of debt."
He seemed to forget that to do even the little he permitted us would
require knowledge and education of a liberal character, and that without
these our desires might outrun our income, and getting into debt might
prove our normal condition.
A thorough knowledge of our circumstances is better than partial
blindness, and to see things all round and weigh them justly is better
than sitting with hands folded while men see and judge for us.
The subjects of the Bank of England and the National Debt are well
worth a study, and will not fail to afford us both varied and interesting

information.
Among other things they will tell us how the Bank of England came
into existence; what the nation did previous to its existence; how our
country came to have a debt which it has never been able to pay off,
and how it would prove a calamity if it were possible to pay it off
suddenly.
Again, we shall learn the meaning of "selling out" and "buying in"
money, and what is understood by "consols," "reduced threes," "stocks
going up and down," "a run upon the Bank," "panic," and many other
such terms.
There is no reason why girls should not be able to give answers to all of
these, and every reason why they should, seeing that an intimate
knowledge of these subjects is as much a part of our nation's history as
is the history of our kings and queens, our wars, and our institutions.
And even beyond this, it is a matter of importance that girls having
property, little or much, should understand the character of those to
whom they entrust it.
There are many and valuable books published upon these subjects, but
they are expensive to buy and take a long time to wade through; in
addition to this, they are so learned that we women-folk fail often to get
the simple information we require, even when we have read them.
The Bank of England, either by name or by sight, is known, I suppose,
to all of us; but its origin, its working, its influence, is not so familiar to
us, and it does not seem to me that we should be going at all out of our
province if we were to ask the "Old Lady of Threadneedle-street" to tell
us something of her history, her household, and her daily life, seeing
that most of us contribute to her housekeeping, some more, some less.
We trust her so completely that "safe as the Bank of England" has
passed into a proverb; yet, for all that, we should like the old lady's own
account of how she came into existence, and how she became such a
power in the land, and what she does with all the money we lend her,

and out of what purse she pays us for the loan.
She certainly ought to be able to tell an interesting tale--for her palace,
her servants, her house-keeping, her treasures, her cellars, her
expenditure, her receipts and clearing,