stock owned by the State, will, if reserved as a sinking fund, redeem the State scrip in twenty years, and leave the State the clear amount of $5,060,625. "To produce this result it is assumed that the bank will make semi-annual dividends of three per cent., after paying into the treasury oneseventh part of its profits, according to the experience in other banks; assuming also that the proposed sinking fund can be invested at five per cent. per annum, payable semi-annually, and that the State will add to this sinking fund the State tax on its own portion of the stock."
The memorialists think that within two years the stock of the bank would, if wisely managed, bring as high price in the New York market and on London Exchange as the average value of the stocks of the large banks in the middle and southwestern States—a premium of from ten per cent. to twenty-five per cent.
In 1838, the Committee on Banks was ordered to inquire into the expediency of this scheme; the bank to have branches in each county; the State to own part of the capital and to control the direction.[1]
The banks of Rhode Island were organized, in 1836, around the Merchants' Bank of Providence, on the Suffolk system, the Merchants' itself being a satellite of the Suffolk.[2] The number of banks in 1838 was sixtyfour, "being nearly one for every fifteen hundred persons. Almost every village has one, and their capitals vary from $20,000 to $500,000."[3]
Connecticut.—The charter of the City Bank of New Haven, May 28, 1831, varied considerably from the Connecticut type. The bank was bound to subscribe $100,000 to the Hampshire and Hamden Canal, and was not to be obliged to take in the State of Connecticut or any society as a stockholder; it was to be free from taxation until the canal should pay six per cent. on its capital. Being subject to charges and investigation, in 1837, the bank replied that it had been forced to invest its funds out of the State because the additional banking Capital was not needed; that the canal men got up the bank in order to get the capital; that the canal had been sold out and the subscription of the bank lost. It claimed to be almost the only bank north of the Potomac paying its promises in "constitutional currency." The chartered banks of the State resented the appointment of Bank Commissioners, in 1837, and refused to pay their share of the expenses of the commission, as provided by law. The Legislature did not try to force them, but paid their quota from the State Treasury.
New York.—An amendment to the safety fund law was adopted May 11, 1835, which was chiefly aimed against usurious devices. The Bank Commissioners were to examine the officers on oath on these points, and obtain an injunction against any bank violating this law. In April, 1836, there were in the city seventeen safety fund banks and six others; in the country, sixty safety fund banks and four others. January 1st, the safety fund was estimated at $540,285.[4]
