arious stocks are all close to or branch out from the
Rotunda. The dividends are paid in two rooms devoted to that purpose,
and the transfers are kept separate. They are arranged in books, under
the various letters of the alphabet, containing the names of the
proprietors and the particulars of their property. Some of the
stock-offices were originally constructed by Sir Robert Taylor, but it
has been found necessary to make great alterations, and most of them are
designed from some classical model; thus the Three per Cent. Consol
office, which, however, was built by Sir John Soane, is taken from the
ancient Roman baths, and is 89 feet 9 inches in length and 50 feet in
breadth. The chief cashier's office, an elegant and spacious apartment,
is built after the style of the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Rome, and
measures 45 feet by 30.

"The fine court which leads into Lothbury presents a magnificent display
of Greek and Roman architecture. The buildings on the east and west
sides are nearly hidden by open screens of stone, consisting of a lofty
entablature, surmounted by vases, and resting on columns of the
Corinthian order, the bases of which rest on a double flight of steps.
This part of the edifice was copied from the beautiful temple of the
Sybils, near Tivoli. A noble arch, after the model of the triumphal arch
of Constantine, at Rome, forms the entrance into the bullion yard."

The old Clearing House of 1821 is thus described:--"In a large room is a
table, with as numerous drawers as there are City bankers, with the name
of each banker on his drawer, having an aperture to introduce the cheque
upon him, whereof he retains the key.

"A clerk going with a charge of L99,000, perhaps, upon all the other
bankers, puts the cheques through their respective apertures into their
drawers at three o'clock. He returns at four, unlocks his own drawer,
and finds the others have collectively put into his drawer drafts upon
him to the amount, say, of L100,000; consequently he has L1,000, the
difference, to pay. He searches for another, who has a larger balance to
receive, and gives him a memorandum for this L1,000; he, for another; so
that it settles with two, who frequently, with a very few thousands in
bank-notes, settle millions bought and sold daily in London, without the
immense repetition of receipts and payments that would otherwise ensue,
or the immense increase of circulating medium that would be otherwise
necessary."

T