s in these tickets at an immense reduction,
and by such not very creditable means, with some windfalls during the
South Sea agitation, he realised a fortune of L500,000. Half a million
was then almost a fabulous sum, and it was constantly increasing, owing
to his penurious habits. He died at the age of eighty-one, leaving by
will L240,000 to the hospital which bears his name. His body lay in
state at Mercers' Chapel, and was interred in the asylum he raised,
where, ten years after his death, a statue was erected to his memory.

[Illustration: THE CLEARING HOUSE.]

Sir John Barnard, a great opponent of stockbrokers, proposed, in 1737,
to reduce the interest on the National Debt from four to three per
cent., the public being at liberty to receive their principal in full if
they preferred. This anticipation of a modern financial change was not
adopted. At this period, L10,000,000 were held by foreigners in British
funds. In 1750, the reduction from four to three per cent. interest on
the funded debt was effected, and though much clamour followed, no
reasonable ground for complaint was alleged, as the measure was very
cautiously carried out. Sir John Barnard, the Peel of a bygone age, was
commonly denominated the "great commoner." Of the stock-jobbers he
always spoke with supreme contempt; in return, they hated him most
cordially. On the money market it was not unusual to hear the merchants
inquire, "What does Sir John say to this? What is Sir John's opinion?"
He refused the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1746, and from the
moment his statue was set up in Gresham's Exchange he would never enter
the building, but carried on his monetary affairs outside. The Barnard
blood still warms the veins of some of our wealthiest commercial
magnates, since his son married the daughter of a capitalist, known in
the City as "the great banker, Sir John Hankey."

Sampson Gideon, the famous Jew broker, died in 1762. Some of his shrewd
sayings are preserved. Take a specimen: "Never grant a life annuity to
an old woman; they wither, but they never die." If the proposed
annuitant coughed, Gideon called out, "Ay, ay, you may cough, but it
shan't save you six months' purchase!" In one of his dealings with Snow,
a banker alluded to by Dean Swift, Snow lent Gideon L20,000. The
"Forty-five" followed, and the banker forwarded a whining epistle to him
speaking of stoppage, bankruptcy, and concluding the letter with a
passionate request for h