THE FREE CHURCH COLLEGE. 95 The Mound.]
Much of all this was altered when the bank was
enlarged, restored, and most effectively re-decorated
by David Bryce, R.S.A., in 1868-70. It now
presents a lofty, broad, and arch-based rear front of
colossal proportions to Princes Street, from whence,
and every other poiiit of view, it forms a conspicuous
mass, standing boldly from among the
many others that form the varied outline of the
Old Town, and consists of the great old centre with
new wings, surmounted by a fine dome, crowned
by a gilded figure of Fame, seven feet high. In
length the facade measures 175 feet; and 112 in
height from the pavement in Bank Street to the
summit, and is embellished all round with much
force and variety, in details of a Grecian style.
The height of the campanile towers is ninety feet.
The bank has above seventy branches ; the subscribed
capital in 1878 was A1,875,000 ; the paidup
capital LI,Z~O,OOO. There are a governor (the
Earl of Stair, K.T.), a deputy, twelve ordinary
and twelve extra-ordinary directors.
The Bank of Scotland issues drafts on other
places in Scotland besides those in which it has
branches, and also on the chief towns in England
and Ireland, and it has correspondents throughout
the whole continent of Europe, as well as in
British America, the States, India, China, Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa, and elsewhere-a ramification
of business beyond the wildest dreams oi
John Holland and the original projectors of the
establishment in the old Bank Close in 1695.
Concerning the Earthen Mound, the late Alex.
ander Trotter of Dreghorn had a scheme foi
joining the Qld Town to the New, and yet avoiding
Bank Street, by sinking the upper end of the
mound to the leve! of Princes Street, and carrying
the Bank Street end of it eastward along the north
of the Bank of Scotland, in the form of a handsomc
terrace, and thence south into the High Street b)
an opening right upon St. Giles?s Church. Thf
next project was one by the late Sir Thomas Dick
Lauder. He also proposed to bring down thc
south end of the mound ?to the level of Prince;
Street, and then to cut a Roman arch through thc
Lawnmarket and under the houses, so as to pas!
on a level to George Square. This,? say!
Cockburn, ?was both practical and easy, but i
was not expounded till too late.??
Not far from the Bank of Scotland, in I(
North Bank Street, ensconced among the might!
mass of buildings that overlook the mound, arc
the offices of the National Security Savings Ban1
of.Edinburgh, established under statute in 1836, an(
certified in terms of the Act 26 and 27 Victoria
cap. 87, managed by a chairman and cominittel
I
if management, the Bank of Scotland being
reasurer.
Of this most useful institution for the benefit of
,he thrifty poorer classes, suffice it to say, as a
ample of its working, that on striking the yearly
iccounts on the 20th of November, 1880, ?the
balance due to depositors was on that date
&r,305,27g 14s. 7d., and that the assets at the
same date were x1,3og,3g2 Ss., invested with the
Commissioners for the Reduction of the National
Debt, and A3,1o4 3s. gd., at the credit of the
3ank?s account in the Bank of Scotland, making
the total assets L1,312,496 11s. gd., which, after
ieductionof the above sum of L1,305,279 14s. 7d.,
leaves a clear surplus of A7916 17s. zd. at the
:redit of the trustees.?
The managers are, ex oficio, the Lord Provost,
the Lord Advocate, the senior Bailie of the city,
:he Members of Parliament for the city, county,
md Leith, the Provost of Leith, the Solicitor-
General, the Convener of the Trades, the Lord
Dean of Guild, and the Master of the Merchant
Company.
In the sanie block of buildings are the offices of
the Free Church of Scotland, occupying the site of
the demolished half of James?s Court. They were
erected in 1851-61, and are in a somewhat
Rorid variety of the Scottish baronial style, from
designs by the late David Cousin.
In striking contrast to the terraced beauty of the
New Town, the south side of the vale of the old
loch, from the North Bridge to the esplanade of
the Castle, is overhung by the dark and lofty gables
and abutments of those towering edifices which
terminate the northern alleys of the High Street,
and the general grouping of which presents an
aspect of equal romance and sublimity. From
amid these sombre masses, standing out in the
white purity of new freestone, are the towers and
facade of the Free Church College and Assembly
Hall, at the head of the Mound.
Into the history of the crises which called
these edifices into existence we need not enter
here, but true it is, as Macaulay says, that for the
sake of religious opinion the Scots have made
sacrifices for which there is no parallel in the
annals of England; and when, at the Disruption,
so many clergymen of the Scottish Church cast
their bread upon the waters, in that spirit of
independence and self-reliance so characteristic of
the race, they could scarcely have foreseen the
great success of their movement.
This new college was the first of those instituted
in connection with the Free Church. The idea
was origipally entertained of making provision for
