rival bank. Our pamphleteer gives full details of the struggle thereanent, and a fierce one it seems to have been. One insinuation made use of against the Bank of Scotland was, that its management was ill affected to the government; to which our author gives a decided contradiction. We know not how far the contradiction was valid; but we have seen some evidences of Mr. David Drummond, who was treasurer (that is, manager) for many years, having been what was commonly called a Jacobite. In Balthayock House, in Perthshire, there are preserved many curious papers of this gentleman, including a series of friendly letters to him from the exiled Earl of Perth, the most hated of the ex-ministers of the Stuarts in Scotland. There is also a subscription list for a fund to provide sustenance and legal counsel to the many Scottish gentlemen confined at Carlisle for their share in the insurrection of 1715. If we are to regard this, as seems not unreasonable, in the character of a muster-roll of those who were friendly to the cause of the Stuarts, it may well surprise us, from the number and character of the subscribers, there being in it the names of nineteen Scottish nobles (Errol, Haddington, Roseberry, Morton, Hopetoun, Dundonald, Moray, Rutherglen, Cassillis, Elibank, Colville, Blantyre, Coupar, Traquair, March, Galloway, Kinnoul, Deskford, and Eglintoune), the Coinmissioners of Excise, the Merchant Company and three of the incorporated trades of Edinburgh, the magistrates of Haddington, the Society of Periwigmakers in Edinburgh, &c. Above all, the subscription was under the charge of Mr. Drummond, treasurer of the Bank of Scotland! Whatever truth there might be in the charge of Jacobitism, as against the management of the Bank generally, certain it is that the gentlemen of the 'equivalent' gained their point, and were enabled in the same year to set a-going with their capital the Royal Bank of Scotland,' which has ever since maintained an honourable rivalry with its great original. Since then, in the course of time, several other chartered banks have been started in Scotland, besides many private joint-stock concerns, most of which have been successful in their career. Amongst them all, the primitive concern of 1695-long affectionately distinguished as the AULD BANK-still rears its venerable head in the Old Town of Edinburgh, with a capital enlarged to a million, and thirty-one branches scattered throughout the provinces. Time may give a sentimental interest even to a bank. One cannot think quite unmovedly of such an institution going on from the days when the soul of Scotland was still thrilling with the Solemn League and Covenant, all through the times of the romantic expeditions of the Highlanders for the House of Stuart, and down through the more wonderful events which marked the conclusion of the last and beginning of the present century, with a credit, which has not once been interrupted for 133 years, and a regularity of routine which nothing during that time has broken, but the necessity of sending the cash for a short time to the castle in 1745, to be out of the way of Prince Charlie. Such things are not only curious historically; they raise our ideas of human probity, and seem to show that the affairs of mortals are not wholly of the inconsistent and fitful character which common-place remark assigns to them.

THE RAIL ROAD SYSTEM.

The Power of Rail Roads to increase Wealth.

By JAMES WILSON, M. P.

Before proceeding to consider the immediate effect of the liabilities under which the country is now placed to complete works in progress, and for which acts have actually been obtained, which, it will be seen, amount in this country alone to £74,407,520, and in others with which we are intimately connected to the sum of £89,862,170 more, we would shortly refer to two circumstances which of late years have set at liberty an enormous amount of capital for the extension of commercial and other profitable undertakings. The first is, the far more perfect banking system which has been introduced of late years, and its extension more generally throughout the country. By this means an incalculable amount of capital, which was formerly dispersed among the community generally in moderate sums, has of late, by the practice, now almost universal, of keeping banking accounts, and making payments merely by transfers from one banker to another by the use of cheques, been brought together, and a large sum rendered productive which was formerly idle. The other cause to which we refer, is the extraordinary effects of railways themselves, and other means now used to facilitate the transit of goods and save the time of travellers. There is no other means by which the resources of a country can be so well developed, and its wealth so much increased, as by facilities of communication by which interchange is rendered easy and cheap, and when communication is once established, by facilitating it as much as possible. This effect is rendered most apparent when we consider how much both internal and external communication, when rendered more certain and expeditious, as by the use of steam-boats, railways, &c., tends to decrease the amount of capital required to carry on any given amount of trade. In the first place, the rapidity and certainty of conveyance reduce very greatly the amount of stock of goods and produce which it is necessary at all times to keep on hand when communication is slow and uncertain, in order to do a given amount of business; and in the next place, the amount of goods in transit is enormously greater with a slow than a quick conveyance. The amount of capital absorbed in merchandize of all kinds, which was merely in transit, thirty years ago, when our continental and coasting trade was all carried on by slow and uncertain sailing packets, and our internal trade by canals and stagewagons, compared with what the same now is, when conveyed by steam-boats and railways, must be very great. For example, suppose Manchester and Leeds are supplied with colonial produce from London. When it took seven days to convey those goods by canal, there must always have been, on an average, seven days' consumption on the road. If now the same thing is accomplished by railway in one day, it is quite clear that the capital representing six days' consumption, which was

formerly so locked up, is set at liberty for other uses; and when we look to the enormous extent to which this economy has taken place, not only in this country, but on the continent of Europe as well as in America, both by railways and steam-boats, the total amount of capital thus liberated must have been very great indeed. But the same remarks are equally, or even more, applicable to the economy of time which they effect to mankind. A man can accomplish now in a day what he could not do thirty years ago, in three or four days. The labour, therefore, of the whole population is thus rendered infinitely more productive; and is so far exactly in effect what it would be if we increased enormously the productive population of the country without increasing its number of consumers. When a man has a railway, or a new machine, which enables him to perform double the work he did before, the effect upon the country is the same as if each man had a stranger who came and gave him his labour without any remuneration, or without consuming any part of the produce. Railways and steam-boats are, therefore, great new machines by which both the capital and labour of the country has been economised, and each rendered wonderfully more productive; and it is this great advantage experienced by the community individually, which leads to the extensive traffic and high rates of profit which they have made, and which, in fact, is the best indication of their public utility. The best, nay, the only true criterion of the utility of any given outlay of capital, is the extent to which the public find it their interest to use it, and consequently the profit which it creates. Thus, all undertakings which afford the largest profits to individuals (which are not monopolies) are also the most advantageous to the community. The profit is the result and evidence of the usefulness. We are, therefore, at once free to admit, that there has not been any purpose to which the spare capital of the country has ever been employed, or to which it can in future be employed, so well calculated to promote all the great interests of commerce, industry, social improvement, political stability, and general happiness, as rail roads, or which is so well calculated rapidly to reproduce in many ways the national capital absorbed in their construction. And, moreover, they are peculiarly so, when compared with steam navigation with other countries, because, in our internal traffic we are happily released from the shortsighted jealousies which exist between different countries, which mar and interrupt all the great benefits which would otherwise arise from the facilities of communication under a free and uninterrupted intercourse.

However free we are to admit the advantages of railways as a means of investing the accumulations of the country, it is nevertheless a most essential thing that we should not attempt to carry out those improvements faster than the capital of the country will permit, and perhaps as much so in order that the construction of lines in useful and beneficial positions should not be prevented or rendered impossible for a long period, by the attempt to construct a great many lines in inferior and less important situations. Looking to the development of the system so far, it would be difficult indeed to say in what situation a railway would not be a great benefit, and where it might not ultimately be profitable.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Dividends of the Boston Banks, 1845, 1846, 1847, 1848.

BANK OF VIRGINIA.-Charles T. Beale, Esq., has been appointed President of the Branch Bank of Virginia, at Buchanan, in place of James L. Woodville, Esq., deceased.

CANAL BANK OF ALBANY.-The case of Theodore Ollcott, Cashier of the late Canal Bank, for embezzlement of the funds of one of the country banks, came on for trial at Albany, in October, and was given to the jury on the 18th of the month. The jury came into court stating that they could not agree, whereupon they were discharged. It is understood that there were four for conviction and seven for acquittal.

CHESTER COUNTY BANK.-The Cashier of the Bank of Chester County, at Westchester, Pa., gives notice that none of the old issues of that Bank, of a date prior to 1848, will be redeemed, unless satisfactory evidence is given that the notes were honestly obtained. It will be recollected that the President of the Bank was robbed of $50,000 of their circulation in December, 1847; since when the Bank has redeemed such portions of their paper as were shown to be received in regular business.

TRIAL FOR FORGERY.-The case of George Miller, for forgery, came on for trial before the Municipal Court at Boston, early in October. The jury returned a verdict of guilty. His counsel filed a bill of exceptions, and Mr. Miller was ordered to find new securities in the sum of $15,000 for his appearance.

Notes on the Money Market.

NEW YORK, OCTOBER 23, 1848.

There is some little relief in the money market since the publication of our last No.; but the street rates for good paper are yet exorbitant. The price of sterling bills has come down to 8 a 8, the latter being the quotation of the best drawers in Wall Street. Messrs. Corcoran and Riggs have, it is positively asserted in the daily journals, effected a sale of three millions of the new loan subscribed for by them. This had some effect upon foreign exchanges, and with other causes has tended to relieve the money market in some degree.

It has been made known that the Secretary of the Treasury has, within the past month, advanced $800,000 of coin to holders of treasury notes-taking the notes at par, and the same amount to be returned to the partics within two months. This circumstance is one of the strongest arguments against the Sub-Treasury. It is apparent that the government will, at times, accumulate more specie in its vaults than is required for the operations of the Treasury. Thus the government must frequently assume a position inimical to the commercial interests of the country. Every dollar retained in the Sub-Treasury is so much withdrawn from circulation, and its utility for the time being destroyed. The government should foster instead of repressing trade; and in lieu of hoarding up the capital of the country for its own purposes, should allow it to have free circulation and contribute to the welfare of the whole. BOSTON.-The money market at Boston has been stringent for some weeks past. Several heavy failures have occurred, among which we regret to name that of Henshaw, Ward & Co., whose liabilities are stated at four hundred and twenty thousand dollars. The operations of the tariff of 1846 are now most severely felt by capitalists and manufacturers. The cotton mills of New England are reducing their stocks, finding that they cannot profitably compete with foreign capital where money is worth only three per cent. per annum; nor with European labour, which costs twothirds of ours. The iron interests of Pennsylvania, likewise, are now suffering for want of protection. Cotemporaneously, we find our great staple, cotton, reduced fifty per cent. from its prices as compared with 1847. Thus the most important interests of the whole country are depressed.

The exports of bread-stuffs to Europe afford a more cheering prospect to the agricultural portion of the community; but the results of these shipments upon the country at large are not favorable. A rise in grain abroad is sure to be accompanied by a fall in cotton at home.

PHILADELPHIA.-Money has been scarce for some weeks at Philadelphia, and several failures of houses of previously high standing have added to the screws upon the money market. Good bills are selling at 1 a 2 per cent. per month. Dividend day is at hand for nearly all the banks of Philadelphia. We refer our readers to our monthly quotations of stocks, by which it will be seen that the banks of Philadelphia maintain prices far above those of other cities. Their dividends are ordinarily larger than in any other city of the Union.

CHARLESTON.-Exchange on New York is selling at a 1 premium.

NEW ORLEANS, October 14th.-Sterling bills 7 a 9 premium. Francs 5. 13 a 5. 20. New York sight bills a 1 premium. The receipts of cotton thus far are 153,000 bales against 87,000 bales for same period in 1847.--(Say from 1 September to 14 October.) The banks of New Orleans have on hand in coin $7,600,000, and their circulation is $5,700,000. One-third of this coin is held by the Bank of Louisiana.