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• Prefatory Note to the Eleventh Edition
• Prefatory Note to the Twelfth Edition
• Lombard Street To-day By Hartley Withers
• Lombard Street.
• Chapter I: Introductory
• Chapter II: A General View of Lombard Street
• Chapter III: How Lombard Street Came to Exist, and Why It Assumed Its Present Form
• Chapter IV: The Position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer In the Money Market
• Chapter V: The Mode In Which the Value of Money Is Settled In Lombard Street
• Chapter VI: Why Lombard Street Is Often Very Dull, and Sometimes Extremely Excited
• Chapter VII: A More Exact Account of the Mode In Which the Bank of England Has Discharged Its Duty of Retaining a Good Bank Reserve
• Chapter VIII: The Government of the Bank of England
• Chapter IX: The Joint Stock Banks
• Chapter X: The Private Banks
• Chapter XI: The Bill-brokers
• Chapter XII: The Principles Which Should Regulate the Amount of Banking Reserve to Be Kept By the Bank of England
• Chapter XIII: Conclusion
• Appendix I
• Note A. Liabilities and Cash Reserve of the Chief Banking Systems.
• Note B. Extract From Evidence Given By Mr. Alderman Salomons Before House of Commons Select Committee In 1858.
• Note D. Meeting of the Proprietors of the Bank of England. September 13, 1866.(FROM 'economist,' September 22, 1866.)
• Appendix Ii By E. Johnstone
• Note I
• Note Ii

Prefatory Note to the Twelfth Edition

As more than thirty years have elapsed since the first publication of this little book, it has been thought desirable to bring the figures, and some of the examples used, up to the present time.

My best thanks are due to the friend who has placed his services at my disposal for this purpose.

The new matter is confined to notes, and the text of the original work has not been touched.

* * * Like the English Constitution, the English credit system is a living thing, that has grown out of its past and is growing into its future. Past, present, and future are thus one continuing process, and no one can hope to understand its present, still less to peer into its future, unless he knows something of the past that is part of them. Bagehot's "Lombard Street" lights up, with the fire of its author's genius, the road that we have travelled, and helps us to see where we are and to wonder whither we are going. Its usefulness, as a work of reference and a standard of comparison, has been enhanced in this new edition by a careful revision of the Notes, carried out by Mr. A. W. Wright, a member of the staff of theEconomist newspaper, long edited by Bagehot.

Hartley Withers.

February, 1915.