only exacted on the
very smallest loans, for the old-fashioned _gombeen_ man has lost his
customers for larger sums. In old times he was the only means of
obtaining such little sums as five and ten pounds on personal
security; but since 1870 the banks have entered into competition with
him, have undersold him, and, in fact, "run him out of the market,"
except for sums under four or five pounds. The unfortunates who are
short of a sovereign or two must look up their old friend in the back
shop smelling of bacon, tallow, pepper, tea, and whisky, just as their
social superiors seek the intrepid sixty per cent. man of St. James's,
whose snuggery is perfumed by the best Havannahs that other people's
money can buy. But when the soul of Mike rises to the sublime
conception of a loan of five pounds he dismisses the old-fashioned
usurer, and hies him to one of the branch banks which abound in every
petty townlet in Western and Southern Ireland. When I say "abound" I
mean to be taken literally. What would be thought in England, I
wonder, of four banks in a town like Ennis, or of two in pettifogging
places like Kilrush or Ennistynon--mere hamlets of some two thousand
inhabitants? Yet these three places have eight branch banking
establishments among them. It must not, however, be supposed that Mike
gets his paltry four or five pounds on his promissory note without
further security. Nothing of the kind. Mike must go through as much
artful financiering to raise his five pounds as the Hon. Algernon
Deuceace to raise his "monkey." His bill must be well backed by his
friends, Thady and Tim. Now, Thady's name on the back of a five-pound
bill is not good for much. He is but a peasant, like Mike, not a
farmer, properly so called, and even as two blacks will not make a
white, so will the joint credit of Mike and Thady not rise to the
height of five one-pound notes. But they have a potent ally in Tim,
who married Thady's wife's cousin. Tim is a prudent man, has worked
hard at his farm, and, as a rule, has a matter of twenty or thirty
pounds on deposit note at the bank, receiving for the same interest at
the rate of one per cent. per annum. His name at the back of a
five-pound bill is therefore a tower of strength, and, in fact, floats
the entire speculation. In commercial phrase, he "stands to be shot
at" while his own deposit money, on which he receives one per cent.,
supplies the funds for the bank to lend Mike and Thady, at ten or
twenty