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increase his purchases beyond all moderation, and at prices which he himself, when he commenced his purchases, would have deemed ruinous. Many banks are destroyed by such speculators. A bank will loan to them till its safety seems to require that the speculation must be upheld against a falling market; and the effort is made till the continued decline in prices ruins both speculators and sustaining bank.

A Banker should keep independent of his Debtors. When a debtor arrives at a certain magnitude of indebtedness, he becomes the master of his creditor, who is somewhat in the position of Jonah when swallowed by the whale. The debtor can say to a bank thus circumstanced, that to stop discounting for him will ruin him, and that his ruin will involve a loss of the existing debt. No prudent banker will be placed in such a position, but should any banker lapse into so sad an error, he will rarely mend his position by yielding to the proposed necessity for further loans. He had better brave the existing evil than yield to an argument which if already too potent to be disregarded, will acquire additional strength by every further discount, and render his inevitable fall more disastrous to his stockholders, and more disreputable to himself.

Economy. We will close our summary of a banker's duties with a few remarks on his contingent expenses. The more a banker can reduce their amount, the more easily will he make reasonable dividends of profit among his stockholders, without an undue expansion of loans and consequent anxiety to himself. The income of a bank is an aggregate of only petty accumulations. The unnecessary expenditure of every hundred dollars the year, will nullify the interest on four ninety day loans of fifteen hundred dollars each-loans often withheld from meritorious claimants. The economy of which we speak is not any unjust abridgment of proper remunerative salaries to faithful officers and servants, who should, however, labor diligently and perseveringly in their vocations, as men labor in other employments; so that the bank may economise in the number of its said agents, instead of economising in the magnitude of their salaries. A hundred dollars or a thousand, when contrasted with the capital of a bank, may seem a small matter, and probably bank expenditures are often incurred under such a contrast; but the true contrast lies between the expenditure and the nett per centage of a banker's gains. A bank whose nett income will not exceed the legal rate of interest, possesses no fund from which to squander. And banks often expend an unduly large part of their capital in architecture to ornament the city of their location, or to rival some neighboring institution whose extravagance ought to be shunned, not followed. No person has yet shown why banks should be built like palaces, while the owners of the banks are to a good extent poor, and live humbly. The custom is perhaps founded on the delusion of deeming a great capital identical with great wealth.

When several men for any purposes of gain, unite their several small capitals, they may well need a larger building and more agents than each man would require were he unassociated; but that the association can afford an organization increased in splendor as much as in magnitude, is a fallacy somewhat analogous to the blunder of the Irishman, who hearing that his friend intended to walk forty miles during a

day, said that he would walk with him, and then they could walk eighty miles.

PART III-THE MAN.

Having completed our summary of banking, and the duties consequent thereon of a banker, we will subjoin a few suggestions personal to the man who is to perform the duties.

He should be wary of recommendations.-When solicited by a neighbor or a friend, few men possess vigour enough, or conscientiousness enough to refuse a recommendation, or to state therein all they suspect or apprehend. They will studiously endeavor not to make themselves pecuniarily responsible by any palpable misrepresentation, hence they will so qualify the recommendation that it will admit of a construction consistent with truth; but the qualification will be so enigmatical or subtle, that the banker will not interpret it as the recommender will show subsequently it ought to have been interpreted. Besides, the man who merely recommends a loan, acts under circumstances that are much less favorable to caution, than the man who is to lend. When we are required to make a loan, our organization presents the danger with a vividness, that is not excited by the act of recommending. To speculatively believe that we will suffer the extraction of a tooth, is a wholly different matter from setting down and submitting to the operation. Suicide would be far more common than it is, if a man could feel when the act was to be performed; as he feels when he resolves on performing it. This preservative process of nature no banker should disregard by substituting any man's recommendation, for the scrutiny of his own judgment; though he may well give to recommendations all the respect which his knowledge of the recommender may properly deserve.

He should be governed by his own judgment.-By acting according to the dictates of his own judgment a man strengthens his own judgment as he proceeds; while a man who subordinates his judgment to other men's is continually debilitating his own. Nothing also is more fallacious than the principle on which we ordinarily defer to the decision of a multitude of counsellors. If fifty men pull together at a cable, the pull will combine the strength of one man multiplied by fifty; but if fifty men deliberate on any subject, the result is not the wisdom of one man multiplied by fifty, but at most the wisdom of the wisest man of the assemblage, just as fifty men when they look at any object can see only what can be seen by the sharpest single vision of the group:they cannot combine their vision and make thereof a lens as powerful as the sight of one man multiplied by fifty. A banker may, therefore, well resort to other men for information, but he may differ from them all and still be right; any way, if he perform the dictates of his own judgment he performs all that duty requires; if he act otherwise, he performs less than his duty. Let the counsel of your heart stand, says the Bible; and by way of encouragement, it adds, that a man can see more of what concerns himself, than seven watchmen on a high tower.

Finally. As virtue's strongest guarantee is an exemption from all motive to commit evil, a banker must avoid all engagements that may

make him needy. If he wants to be more than a banker, he should cease from being a banker. Should he discover in himself a growing tendency to irritability, which his position is apt to engender, let him resist it as injurious to his bank and his peace; and should he find himself popular, let him examine whether it proceeds from the due discharge of his duties. A country banker was some few years ago dismissed from a bank which he had almost ruined, and was immediately tendered an honorary public dinner by the citizens of his village, into whose favor his misdeeds had unwisely ingratiated him. The service of massive plate that was given to a president of the late United States Bank was in reward of compliances which soon after involved in disaster every commercial interest of our country. Could we trace actions to their source, these mistakes of popular gratitude would never occur. The moroseness that we abhor proceeds often from a sensitiveness that is annoyed at being unable to oblige; while the amiability that is applauded, proceeds from an imbecility that knows not how to refuse.

A banker should possess a sufficiency of legal knowledge to make him suspect what may be defects in proffered securities, so as to submit his doubts to authorized counsellors. He must, in all things be eminently practical. Every man can tell an obviously insufficient security, and an obviously abundant security; but neither of these constitute any large portion of the loans that are offered to a banker. Security practically sufficient for the occasion is all that a banker can obtain for the greater number of the loans he must make. If he must err in his judgment of securities, he had better reject fifty good loans than make one bad debt; but he must endeavor not to err on the extreme of caution or the extreme of temerity; and his tact in these particulars will, more than in any other, constitute the criterion of his merits as a banker.

BANK STATISTICS.

Branch of the Bank of Tennessee at Rogersville, 17 May, 1849.

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$15,784,772 $16,808,829

There has been an increase of Capital Stock since April, 1846, of $510,286, among the banks of the whole State, viz:

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Since April, 1848, the following banks have increased their capital stock, viz:
Hartford-Phenix Bank,

66 Farmers and Mechanics Bank,
New Haven-New Haven County Bank,
Norwich-Merchants' Bank,

Thames Bank,

Connecticut Bank,

Meriden-Meriden Bank,

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Tolland-Tolland County Bank,

Falls Village-Iron Bank,

East Haddam-East Haddam Bank,

And the following new banks created:

Saybrook-Saybrook Bank,
Waterbury-Waterbury Bank,

Birmingham-Manufacturers Bank,

Total increase of Bank Capital since April, 1848,

Our space in this No. will not permit the insertion of the Annual Report for 1849 of the Bank Commissioners of Connecticut. It will probably appear in our July No. Since the publication of the report, the Winsted Bank has commenced operations with part of its capital paid in.

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Illustrated by a fine steel engraving of the Mint, executed by the medal-ruling machine, under the direction of Mr. J. Saxton, and designed as a frontispiece to the third volume of the Bankers' Magazine.

The United States Mint was established in 1791, and by several successive acts of congress, has been continued at Philadelphia. In 1829, the present building (see engraving) was commenced in Chesnut street, near Broad street. It is a splendid building, faced with marble, and presents a front of 122 feet, divided into a portico 62 feet long, and two wings each of 30 feet. The building is of the Ionic order, taken from the celebrated Grecian temple on the river Ilissus, near Athens.

Our present information is derived entirely from two yaluable works, published under the authority of the officers of the mint, entitled 1st, A Brief Account of the Collection of Coins belonging to the Mint of the United States, more particularly of the Antique Specimens. By William E. Dubois, Assistant Assayer of the Mint. Philadelphia, 1846. 2d, A Manual of Gold and Silver Coins of all Nations-showing their History, Legal Basis, Actual Weight, Fineness, and Value: with Treatises on Bullion and Plate, Counterfeit Coins, Specific Gravity of Precious Metals, and Statistics of the Coinage throughout the World. By J. R. Eckfeldt and William E. Dubois, one vol. 4to-illustrated with engravings of nearly 300 coins. Philadelphia, 1842.

The mint at Philadelphia was the only one in operation, until 1838. The branches at New Orleans, Charlotte, N. C. and Dahlonega, Ga. then commenced operations. In addition to the volumes now mentioned, there is a beautiful volume with several hundred illustrations, from the London press, entitled "History of Coins." From this last work, our readers will find copious and interesting extracts in the early part of our second volume.

Our readers will find full statements of the annual coinage of the mint and branches, on page 93 of our present volume.

Bullion is brought to the mint in every form; amalgamations from the ore, bars, plate, jewelry, and foreign coin. All these present a great variety as to quality. Some of the metal will be nearly pure; other portions will be of lower grade, and in every proportion, down to twothirds fine, or less. Part will also be ductile, and fit to work; part will be brittle, and will require a process of toughening. Once more, a deposit will often consist of the two metals, gold and silver, in a mixed mass, requiring to be parted by chemical agents. To ascertain all these points is the business of the assayer.

To bring this heterogeneous mass into good malleable metal, and to separate the gold from the silver, are not strictly mint operations. In some countries, these preliminary processes have to be performed by private refiners. At the Mint of the United States, a department is provided for the parting, refining, and standarding of the metals, and casting them into ingots or small bars, suitable for the manufacture of coin.

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