Audiobook: Banking Under Difficulties

An account of life on the Goldfields of Victoria, New South Wales, and New Zealand by a Bank Official. At the present time—1888—it may appear almost impossible to many that a bank agency should have been in a tent; that bankers should have, often on foot, gone long distances to purchase gold from small storekeepers, the said gold often being carried by them on their backs, till the security (?) of some rough bush shanty had been reached; that instead of cedar counters, massive ledgers, impregnable strong-rooms, and all the appliances of modern banking, a gin case to write on, a note-book or piece of wrapping paper, and a saddle-bag should then have been considered quite the correct thing; yet that such was often the case is a fact. - Summary taken from the book by George Ogilvy Preshaw