Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER II. PERSONAL CREDIT. My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand that he is sufficient: yet his means are in supposition. Merchant Of Venice. The leading subject of your daily education as a banker will be to learn whom to trust. Given a certain individual as principal or surety in a proposed transaction, the question which you have to solve is—how many hundreds, or how many thousands, as the case maybe, will he be 'good for' to the Bank; atwhat figure can you safely put his individual responsibility ? To insure a reliable solution, you have first to ascertain what the man is ' worth '—that is to say, what he would have remaining for himself, in money or money's worth, after clearing off the whole of his debts and other liabilities. For the most part you will have to rely for this knowledge on hearsay and the opinion of others. You will consequently have to sift the information which you may gather as to the position of individuals, with the utmost care, because on no other subject of daily gossip is there a greater tendency to exaggeration or mischievous credulity. You will have early occasion to observe, amongst other things, that the opinions afloat as to the means and position of.people are mostly of stereotyped character. The origin of these opinions is always more or less obscure : but when it once comes to be said—it does not seem to matter when nor by whom—that So-and-so is good for so much, his worth will pass current for that amount foryears without challenge ; until some day he collapses, to the ruin of some, the injury of many, and the wonderment of all. When therefore you are confidently assured, by some one who professes to know, that Mr. Bounderby, for example, is worth twenty thousand pounds, put your informant...