The following Table, giving the condi- | Banks, Sept. 30, '1871, is of interest in this tion in several particulars of the National connection. It is official. Statement showing the number of Banks, amount of capital, amount of bonds deposited, and circulation, in each State and Territory, on the 30th day of September, 1871. There are two National Gold Banks in existence, as follows: Capital. Gold on Deposit. Gold Notes Issued. Circulation. Gold Banks. Massachusetts,.. California,. Total,....... 1 300,000.00 150,000 120,000 120,000.00 375,000.00 495,000.00 There were in the United States in May, | $93,000,000. There has been also a great 1871, 352 chartered banks (not National) increase of private banking houses, and but working under special charters. None some of these having extensive foreign conof them were, of course, banks of circulation, nections and employing a larger capital than but only of discount and deposit. Their any National bank, do an extensive busiaggregate capital was, at that date, about ness. UNITED STATES MINT. countries, the coin of each is assayed, and the quantity of pure metal in each being When this continent was discovered, its inascertained, the par of exchange is known. habitants were savages, who had no idea of property, and no trade beyond the mere exchange of, perhaps, a skin for a bow or a bunch of arrows. Money was unknown, and the value of the precious metals was not understood. The little gold and copper that they had was twisted into rude ornaments; but no man would work for a piece of these metals. When the first emigrants landed, they commenced the cultivation of the earth and the interchange of its products. The accumulation of industrial products formed THE currency, or circulating medium of a country, is of itself a very simple matter, although complicated at times by the theories of financiers, and the efforts to make promises of a thing pass for the thing itself. In the early stages of society the products of industry constitute the wealth of the people, after they have ceased to be merely herdsmen. These products being exchanged against each other, the transac-wealth. tions form barter trade. As wealth increases and wants become more diversified, as well as the products of industry, by being subdivided, some common medium of value becomes requisite to meet all the wants of interchange. The precious metals have generally been adopted as this medium, because the supply is the most steady, the equivalent value most generally known, and the transportation most convenient. Hence all trade comes to be represented by a weight of pure gold or its equivalent of pure silver, and all commodities come to be valued, or called equivalent, to certain quantities of these metals. To ascertain the purity and weight of the metal offered in payment at each transaction would, however, involve difficulties that would neutralize the value of the metals as a common medium of exchange. Every man would require to be an assayer, and to be provided with scales. To obviate this the government steps in, and by means of a mint assays the metals, and weighs them into convenient pieces, placing on each a stamp, which soon becomes universally known, and this is called "money." Every nation makes the pieces of different weights, and puts in more or less pure metal. To ascertain the "par of exchange" between two Their first exchanges were mere barter. As late as 1652 the payment of taxes and other dues was made in cattle, skins, and other products in Massachusetts; and tobacco was a medium of trade in Virginia. Some money existed, but this was mostly the coins brought by the immigrants from the mother country, and did not suffice for the daily wants. Massachusetts, therefore, established a mint for the coinage of shillings, sixpences, and threepences of sterling silver, which were "two pence in the shilling of less valew than the English coyne." This "pine tree shilling," so called from a pine tree on the reverse, was worth about twenty cents. This coinage gave umbrage to the mother country, and when Governor Winslow was introduced to Charles II., that usually good-natured monarch took him roughly to task for the presumption of the colony in assuming to coin money, at the same time producing the coin with the pine tree upon it. The ready wit of the governor, however, turned the rebuke, by assuring his Majesty that it was an evidence of the devotion of the colony, which struck these medals in commemoration of the escape of his Majesty in the Royal Oak, which was executed as well as the poor state of the arts in the colony would permit. The coinage was nevertheless suppressed, and the example of Massachusets was followed by Maryland with the like results. Carolina and Virginia struck some copper coins, but without much effect. There being no mint, therefore, in any of the colonies, foreign coins were circulated freely as a legal tender. The country produced none of the precious metals, but as the trade of the colonies in creased, and they began to have a surplus of fish, provisions, food, tobacco, etc., beyond their own wants, to sell, they built vessels, and carried these articles, mostly fish, to the West Indies and the catholic countries of Europe; and as the mother country did not allow the colonies to buy manufactures except from herself, money was mostly had in exchange for this produce. Guineas, joes, half joes, doubloons, and pistoles of various origin constituted the gold currency, while the silver was mostly the Spanish American dollar and its fractions: the half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth, with the pistareen and half pistareen. This silver coin flowed into the colonies from the Spanish West Indies, in exchange for fish and food; and the Spanish dollar thus came to be the best known and most generally adopted unit of money. The coin had upon its reverse the pillars of Hercules, and was known as the pillar dollar; hence the dollar mark ($), which represents "S," for "Spanish," entwining the pillars. Inasmuch as the "balance of trade" was in favor of England, the largest portion of the coin that flowed in from other quarters was sent thither, and this tendency was increased by the pernicious issues of paper money by the colonies. This paper displaced the coin, and drove it all out of the country. The exigencies of the several colonial governments caused them to make excessive issues of this "paper" or "bills of credit," and it fell to a heavy discount as compared with coin. Not being convertible at the date of the Revolution the depreciation in the several colonies was nearly as follows: ed attention. The country had been flooded with "continental money," which had been issued to the extent of three hundred and sixty millions for war expenses. The states had issued "bills of credit," which were depreciated as in the table; and the debased and diversified foreign coins that circulated were very few in number. Private credit hardly existed. Frightful jobbing took place in the government paper, and industry could with difficulty get its proper reward. The first effort was to give the federal government alone the right to coin money, to prohibit the states from issuing any more "bills of credit," and to get the continental money out of circulation by providing for its payment. Robert Morris had been directed to report upon the mint and a system of coinage, and he did so early in 1782. Many plans were based upon his report, and finally that of Mr. Jefferson was adopted. It conformed to the decimal notation, with the Spanish dollar as the unit: A gold piece of ten dollars, to be called the eagle, with its half and quarter; a dollar in silver; a tenth of a dollar in silver; a hundredth of a dollar in copper. In accordance with the plan of Mr. Jefferson, a law of April 2, 1792, enacted regulations for a mint, located at Philadelphia, and the coinage proceeded. It was found that, owing to the rise in the value of copper, the cent had been made too heavy, and, January 14, 1790, it was reduced to two hundred and eight grains, and January 26, 1796, it was again reduced to one hundred and sixtyeight grains, at which rate it remained until the late introduction of nickle. The mint being established at Philadelphia, the work of coinage went on slowly, for two principal reasons. The first was that the material for coin-that is, gold and silver, no matter in what shape it may be-was obtained only, by the operation of trade, from abroad, and nearly all of it arrived at New York, the property of merchants. Now, although the government charged nothing for coining, yet, to send the metal from New York to Philadelphia during the first forty years. of the government, when there was none but wagon conveyance, was expensive, and accompanied with some risk. It was not, therefore, to be expected that the merchants would undertake this without any benefit; the more so, as the same law, in the second place, still allowed the foreign coins to be legal tender. The merchant who received, |