BANK 273 United State3. Its capacity is limited to the performance of simple tunes, and it is purely an instrument of accompaniment. Its head and neck are shaped like the guitar, while the hody is a circular frame like the head of a drum, over which parchment is stretched in place of a sounding hoard. Five strings, of which the fifth is shorter than the others, pass over this parchment, and are played with the fingers. BANK, in trade and business, a place of deposit for money. In nearly all languages the words for bank and banker are derived from those meaning table, bench, or coun- ter: TpairetfriK among the Greeks, mensarius among the Romans, and banchiero among the Italians of the middle ages. The banker was originally a changer, and he stood in the market place and furnished such different kinds of money as were demanded. By degrees he took funds on deposit, made advances upon securities, merchandise, pledges, titles to prop- erty, family papers, &c., and became finally what we now know as a banker. The lending of money with the taking of interest for its use is a custom which dates from the earliest antiquity of which there are records. Con- stant reference is made to it in both the Old and the New Testament. In ancient Greece the business of receiving money on deposit and lending it out was an important one, and the money changer stood high in credit and in the confidence of both the government and the people of Athens. The state bank of New Ilium, of the precise nature of which we are not in- formed, in the second century before Christ, borrowed money for the state, and paid for its use 10 per cent. Banks are designed to afford safe places of deposit for the money of indi- viduals, corporations, or governments ; for fa- cilitating the exchange of money from the hands of parties who have payments to make to those of snch persons as are to receive them, thus becoming clearing houses for the com- munities in the midst of which they are situ- ated ; and for extending aid to business by granting loans or discounts on notes, bonds, stocks, or other securities. These institutions are of three kinds, and may be classed as fol- lows : Banks of deposit receive on deposit the money of individuals, corporations, or govern- ments, and hold it subject to the draft of its owner or owners, or under such other agree- ment as may be entered into. Banks of dis- count furnish loans upon drafts, promissory notes, bonds, or other securities. Banks of circulation payout their own notes, which may or may not, according to circumstances, be payable in coin on demand. Banks which exercise the last of these functions generally unite the first and second. The bank of Venice, the first establishment of the kind in Europe, was founded in 1171, and owed its existence to wars and the necessity for the government obtaining the means for con- ducting them. Having exhausted every other resource, the state was obliged to resort to a forced loan from its most opulent citizens. Then was organized the chamber of loans, which by degrees assumed the form under which, as the bank of Venice, " it was for many ages the admiration of Europe, the chief instrument of Venetian finance, and the chief facility of a commerce not surpassed by that of any European nation." Funds once de- posited in the bank could not be withdrawn, but were transferable at the pleasure of their owners upon its books. So thoroughly did the bank credits become the means through and by which the financial operations of the people were conducted, that during its entire exist- ence, with but slight exceptions, these credits were at a premium over coins, which latter were clipped and worn, as well as of various . countries and uncertain values. That the people were well satisfied with this institution and its workings may be inferred from the fact that " no book, speech, nor pamphlet have we found," says an eminent economical writer, " in which any merchant or dweller in Venice ever put forth any condemnation of its theory or its practice." The bank of Venice con- tinued in existence without interruption until the overthrow of the republic in 1797, by the revolutionary army of France. The bank of Genoa was projected in the year 1345, but did not go into full operation till 1407. It was for centuries one of the principal institutions of its class in Europe. Within a space of less than 60 years first in 1746, and again in 1800 it was twice pillaged by a foreign foe, in the latter instance by the French army under Mas- sena. From the effects of this disaster it has never recovered, and it has ceased to perform the functions of a bank. The bank of Bar- celona was established in the year 1401, that city having been during the middle ages one of the most enterprising and flourishing of the trading cities of Europe. Here it was that the system of negotiation of bills of exchange was first instituted. The bank of Amsterdam was founded in the year 1609, Holland being then possessed of an important foreign trade. It was a bank of deposit only, and the money in its possession was transferred on the books of the institution at the pleasure of its owner or owners. The primary object of the establish- ment of the bank was to give a standard or certain value to bills which might be drawn upon Amsterdam rendered necessary by the depreciation of the coins, owing to their having been worn or clipped. Here these coins were received on deposit, and had their value estab- lished by weight and fineness. It was not the design on founding the institution that the funds should at any time be lent out, but should remain in its vaults. However, the directors having lent to the governments of Holland and Friesland and to the East India company 10,500,000 florins, the fact became known on the invasion of the French army in 1794, and produced the ruin of the institution. The amount of treasure in the vaults of the bank in
