96 
GROSSBANKEN. 
exceptions that prove the rule. Originally, bank 
ing formed more or less a side issue of commission 
merchants and forwarding agents who, for the 
convenience of their clients, made and received 
payments for their account, etc., such combinations 
in some cases being still in existence. The oldest 
banking house in Germany still in existence is 
Johann Mertens in Frankfurt a/M., founded in 
1605, a conservative firm of moderate means and 
importance, devoting itself almost exclusively to 
commercial banking. Some Frankfurt firms of 
greater consequence are D. & J. de Neufville, 
Johann Goll & Soehne, B. Metzler Sel. Sohn & 
Cons, and Gebr. Bethmann, which were established 
in the second half of the seventeenth century, 
whilst only in about 1780 Mayer Anselm Roths 
child started the famous house of Rothschild, and 
soon attained a unique position in negotiating 
and issuing Government and other loans. The 
first important transaction undertaken by 
Rothschilds was a loan to the Danish Government 
in 1802 of an amount of £1,500,000 sterling. The 
Rothschilds soon developed into an international 
banking house of unequalled position, four of the 
five sons of Mayer Anselm Rothschild going 
abroad and opening branches in Vienna, Paris, 
Naples, and Manchester. The Manchester house 
was at an early date transferred to London. The