BANKS OF SOUTH CAROLINA.-The following dates are given in an exchange paper, as the years in which the charters of the several Banks will expire, to which are added the par value of the stocks and the present amount of capital.

Bank Capital of Charleston, $9,153,583, from which should be deducted the capital allotted to the Branches of the Bank of the State of South Carolina, at Camden and Columbia.

ROBBERY OF THE AUGUSTA BANK.-The Augusta Bank, (Maine,) was broken open between Saturday night, 30 December, and the following Monday morning.

The Augusta Bank is situated in the basement of the new hotel, which forms a part of a brick block recently erected on Water street. The hotel is unfinished and unoccupied. The vault of the Bank adjoins one of the lower rooms of the hotel, and is only separated from it by a brick wall one foot thick. The mortar used in the construction of this wall is comparatively green. The burglar first entered the room adjoining the vault, and with a small crowbar knocked away the bricks sufficiently to afford an entrance to the vault.

The plundered property was confined in a safe of most approved construction, secured by Hull's celebrated patent gunpowder lock. It was opened by a key which must have been prepared before the sale was put into the vault. When the plunder had been removed the safe was coolly locked again. In the hurry of leaving the building, a box containing some $500 in specie was dropped outside, besides some $50 in scattered pieces.

A more definite statement than that given above, makes the loss of the Bank $21,562 in specie, of which about $9,000 was silver, besides foreign bills amounting to about $4,000, belonging to the Augusta Bank, and a package (value unknown) belonging to the Ticonic Bank.

The burglars have since been arrested and nearly all the money recovered.

BRANCH MINT IN NEW YORK.-The Common Council of New York City has authorized the special committee having this matter in charge, to visit the seat of government at Washington, for the purpose of urging upon Congress the necessity of establishing a mint in this city, and to negociate with the authorities in relation to the same. This course was rendered necessary by certain information received by the committee from the representatives of this city. From what we have been able to ascertain, there can be but little doubt that if the proper measures are adopted, the bill will become a law at the present session. As the passage of this bill is demanded alike by the commercial position of New York, and the interest of our citizens, no consideration of pecuniary expense should deter the city authorities from prosecuting it with vigor.-[New York Courier and Enquirer.]

AMERICAN STOCKS.-[From the Circular of Barings & Co. dated 29 December, 1848.]-The business has been limited during the past fortnight; the price of 98 per cent. ex. div., has been repeatedly paid for U. S. 6 per cent. stock ex. div.; but since the arrival of the steamer's letters to-day, holders refuse to sell at that rate. All State stock, and the market is scantily supplied, are firmly held at advanced prices, and it is not easy to quote rates at which purchases to any extent could be made.

NEW YORK BANKS.

Dividends of the New York City Banks, 1844–1849.

11 Banks, Capital,

$6,974,646

Those Banks marked with a star pay the taxes charged by the State and City. The others pay the State tax only, leaving their stockholders to be assessed individually.

NOTICE. We have in type an additional article upon "Grace on Sight Bills" from the Code Reporter. It is excluded this month by a press of other materials.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.-Our correspondent at Salem will find on reference to other pages of the "Legal Miscellany" that the demand of payment must necessarily be made on the third day of grace: but that the protest or preparation of the document may be made at a subsequent day.

Our correspondent at Smyrna, Delaware, will find the information sought for, in the copious articles under the head "Legal Miscellany," in which we believe all the material points with reference to demand, notice, protest, &c. of Bills of Exchange are fully discussed.

COINS AND COINAGE.-The copious information in our present No. in relation to Coins and the Coinage, will no doubt be acceptable to our Bank readers. We are largely indebted to a volume entitled "A Manual of Gold and Silver Coins of all Nations," by Messrs. Eckfeldt and DuBois, assayers of the U. S. Mint. This volume is richly illustrated by engravings of Coins, executed by the medal-ruling machine, and under the direction of Mr. Saxton of the Mint. These engravings are among the most beautiful specimens of the art in this country. As a historical and statistical work it possesses great value and should have a place in every Bank. Published at the Mint in Philadelphia, 1842.

DEATHS.

AT NORFOLK, on Wednesday, 27th December, Eugene J. Higgins, Esq., President of the Branch Bank of Virginia.

AT NEW ALBANY, on the 29th November last, Mason C. Fitch, Esq., President of the New Albany Branch of the State Bank of Indiana, in the 52d year of his age. Mr. Fitch had been President of this Branch from its organization in 1834, till his death.

Notes on the Money Market.

NEW YORK, 27 JANUARY, 1849.

We have evidences of an increased activity in the Money Market, as well as in the various channels of trade. Stocks have generally advanced 2 or 3 per cent. since our last quotations, and there is a more buoyant feeling among business men.

We thought the California fever had reached its height in the latter part of December, but there is at this moment more speculation and more solidity in the movements with reference to the Gold Regions of that distant section. A large emigration is now taking place from the several Atlantic Cities for San Francisco, and heavy shipments are making of merchandise, household goods, &c.

We cannot arrive at this time, at any fair estimate of the amount of Gold to be realized in California. It is entirely a matter of speculation and doubt. The California regions may produce thirty millions during the year, or it may be only ten millions. The discovery of large quantities of Gold is destined to effect important changes in the commercial and financial condition of our country. It is hardly credible that these deposits, great as they undoubtedly are, will prove so much beyond any which have been previously discovered in any part of the world, and produce any sudden or violent change in the value of Gold.

Whether the emigration into the new region be fifty or five hundred thousand, and whether they will establish a regular system of government, or be more or less lawless, with crime as abundant as Gold, are questions deeply interesting, but to which answers must be too conjectural to afford any basis for satisfactory conclusions.

The Committee of Ways and Means of the lower house of Congress have reported a Bill authorising the coinage of gold dollars. We do not consider any change in our coinage as at all desirable by the business community. Our silver and gold pieces are sufficiently numerous already and meet the wants of the people. It is of far more importance to establish speedily a Branch Mint in California, so as to obviate the present necessity of shipping gold dust and tran-shipping coin.

A Bill has been introduced in the Senate of Kentucky to repeal existing laws against the circulation of bank notes under five dollars. At the same time a Bill has been brought forward in the Legislature of New Jersey to prohibit the circulation of small notes; all such legislation is superfluous. The laws of various States prohibiting the circulation of small notes, have been totally disregarded by the people. If the currency be unsound, the people will refuse it; and if it be sound, their own convenience will induce them to adopt it. As long as the note is convertible into coin it serves a good purpose. A metallic currency is now an exploded notion, a relic of the age of barbarism. The people of this country, utilitarian to the extreme in their measures, will not now substitute a currency of metals for that of bills of exchange and bank notes.

The Legislature of New York have a Bill before them to the following effect: SEC. 1. Every draft or bill of exchange hercafter drawn or made payable at sight, shall be deemed and taken to be due and payable on presentment thereof, without grace.

SEC. 2. This act shall take effect immediately.

The Bill designating the holidays to be observed in the acceptance and payment of bills of exchange and promissory notes, names the 1st of January, the 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas, as the days to be observed.

There is an increasing demand for money as the spring trade approaches. Paper of the best houses is sold in Wall Street at 7 to 8 per cent. Loans on prime securities at call, 6 per cent., and second rate paper 1 per cent. per month.

A large amount of the new government loan has been transferred to parties in Europe within the last month. Sales of U. S. sixes of 1868 at 1091. Sales of Maryland six per cents. at 95, being an advance of 8 per cent. in the last twelve months.

Exchange on London, 60 days, 108 a 1083.

THE LAW OF POPULATION AND MORTALITY AS EVIDENCED IN THE HEALTH-REPORTS OF BALTIMORE, MD.

BY J. H. ALEXANDER, ESQ.

(Continued from p. 474.)

WANT of space in the last No. of this Journal compelled a postponement to the present one, of what remained to be said on this subject in relation to one of its most important aspects; namely, the influence of Age upon mortality. It is to be regretted that this influence cannot be expressed at once, and fully, by a statement of the relative mortality at the given ages. But for this, a population distributed according to the same ages is an indispensable element; and such a distribution we do not possess, nor can it be made otherwise than approximately and by tedious methods of interpolation, which I do not feel myself called on to execute. Even for the two census years, 1830 and 1840, included within the existing registers of mortality here, the form which has been thought sufficient for the returns of population, precludes a resort to them; for the colored population has been classed under much more extensive intervals of age, and at epochs not identical with the white. And if we would limit ourselves, upon these returns, to the relative mortality of one race-the white-alone, we are met by the difficulty in the municipal reports which, as to age at the time of decease, do not distinguish between races at all. If one is permitted to make a suggestion as regards both these documents, it would be to point out the importance (not only for a purpose like the present, but for any scientific application) of maintaining a systematic and uniform classification throughout. Thus, if any particular epochs are chosen for the enumeration of one race, the same should apply to the other; and distinction being made for sex and color in one aspect of general mortality, the