The number of clerks and porters and other employees who are retained by the Bank, is one thousand or more, and their salaries amount to half a million of pounds, or two and a half millions of dollars annually.
In 1808 an arrangement was made by the English Government with the Bank, by which the latter undertook the management of the English national Debt, at a rate of £340 for each million of the debt up to 600 millions of pounds, and £300 for every additional million.
The Bank of England was established (1694) chiefly by Mr. William Paterson, the projector of the Scotch Colony of Darien, who commenced by founding a National Bank, 1691. To carry on the war with France (1694) Government required a loan of £1,200,000, and imposed new taxes, expected to yield a million and a half. The subscribers to the loan were incorporated under the title of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, and empowered to buy land, to deal in gold and silver, and in bills of exchange. The interest on the loan was 8 per cent., besides which Government agreed to pay £4,000 a year for the cost of management, or £100,000 in all.
In the vicinity of the Bank of England there is a dense traffic, and it is necessary that suitable provender should be found for the large number of bankers and bankers' clerks, who, living in cosy little villas at Brompton, Paddington, and Maida Hill, and are compelled to eat their warm lunches in the city during business hours.
The Poultry, Bucklersbury, King William, Prince and Leadenhall streets, are lined with these comfortable, pleasant looking eating-houses and dining-rooms, where the moneyed men and their smart looking clerks sit back in easy little boxes, with turtle soup, salad, and juicy rump steaks before them, and long necked wine bottles in ice coolers between their feet, chatting about stocks and Change and Turkish Loans.
In the parlor lobby of the Bank is a portrait of Mr. David Race, who was in the service of the institution over fifty years, during which time he amassed a fortune of £200,000.
BANKERS' EATING HOUSE.
The Bullion Office, on the western side of the Bank, consists of a public chamber and two vaults—one for the open deposit of bullion free of charge, unless weighed, the other for the private stock of the Bank.