ve been very successful, for the premises, after
having been twice enlarged, are, it is said, now too small; and it
is understood that a plot of land in Ann Street, near the corner of
Newhall Street, has been secured, and that Mr. F.B. Osborne is engaged
upon plans for the erection, on this site, of a new banking house,
which will be no mean rival to those already in existence, adding
another fine architectural structure to the splendid line of edifices
which will soon be complete from the Town Hall to Snow Hill.

There only remains one more bank to mention, and I cannot remember its
name. It was opened some ten or twelve years ago in the tall building
at the west corner of Warwick House Passage, now occupied by Mr.
Hollingsworth. It was under the management of Mr. Edwin Wignall, who
had been sub-manager at the District. It had but a short life. The
careful manner in which the stone pavement of the vestibule and the
steps leading from the street were cleaned and whitened every morning,
and the few footmarks made by customers going in and coming out,
gained for it the name of the "Clean Bank," by which title it will
be remembered by many. The business that had been collected was
transferred to the Midland, and the New Street bank was closed.

My sketch of the Birmingham Banks is now complete. It is very
satisfactory to reflect that in the long space of sixty-three years
over which it ranges, there have been only two cases in which the
creditors of Birmingham banks have suffered loss; and really it is
greatly to the credit of the good old town that these losses have
been, comparatively, so insignificant. In the bankruptcy of Gibbins
and Co., in 1825, the creditors received 19s. 8d. in the pound. In the
more recent case--that of Attwood and Co.--they received a dividend
of 11s. 3d. Both these cases compare favourably with others at a
distance, where dividends of one or two shillings have not been
infrequent. The banking business of the town is now in safe and
prudent hands, and there is strong reason for hoping that the several
institutions may go on, with increasing usefulness and prosperity, to
a time long after the present generation of traders has ceased to draw
cheques, or existing shareholders to calculate upon coming dividends.

As I stood, not long ago, within the splendid hall in which the
Birmingham and Midland Bank carries on its business, my mind reverted
to a visit I once paid, to the premises, in the City o