Let's talk about money, which, some people have said, is the root of all evil. Some people have too much; some people too little. Everybody wants it; everybody needs it. It would be difficult to live without it.

Let's think about how money was handled up to the latter years of the 17th Century in Scotland. Many, many years before the Bank of Scotland was established, banking (the on-the-face-of-it, safe keeping of other people's money)_ was handled by shopkeepers and merchants. They combined buying and selling cloth, shipping wine, etc. with lending money to customers and negotiating bills. Most of the people lived in Edinburgh, although it is true that shopkeepers in rural areas in Scotland also were involved in this business.