dollar for an old one.

Holders for the past month have offered sparingly, and

the market closes firm, with but a very meager supply to select from.

The sales for the week ending December 5th were 12,000 bales, at cent per pound advance. Sellers were indifferent about offering, owing to advancing markets at the South. Our market closed firm at the following:

PRICES ADOPTED DECEMBER 5TH FOR THE FOLLOWING QUALITIES:

At the

For the week ensuing prices were again slightly advanced on sales of 10,000 bales-the quantity on sale being small tended to limit transactions. annexed the market closed steady :

:

PRICES ADOPTED DECEMBER 12TH FOR THE FOLLOWING QUALITIES:

The transactions for the week ending December 19th were 12,000 bales, at a further advance of a cent per pound. Increased activity in the Southern markets, and favorable foreign advices, tended to the above improvement.

PRICES ADOPTED DECEMBER 19TH FOR THE FOLLOWING QUALITIES:

For the week closing at date the upward tendency in prices still continued, and the demand was alone checked by the small offerings and outside rates asked by holders. The sales were 12,000 bales, a part being in transitu. The market closed firmly at the following :—

PRICES ADOPTED DECEMBER 26TH FOR THE FOLLOWING QUALITIES:

JOURNAL OF BANKING, CURRENCY, AND FINANCE.

MASSACHUSETTS BANKS.

The annexed table indicates that nearly a dozen years have elapsed since the best conducted and conditioned banks of Massachusetts began to rise, in their dividend issues, above the dead level of the old legal interest rate, so generally prevalent before. Quite the majority of them, city or country, have by this time left that limit behind, so that a 3 per cent dividend may be held as rather the exception than the rule. Through the interval in question they have enjoyed an unchecked flow of prosperity, and been, without any doubt, the most popular and trusted of all funds in the market. The Boston banks, in the regular exhibit of them in our papers, April and October, verify the date specified, of their upward start. Of the hundred and fifteen to twenty others within the commonwealth, it may not be uninteresting to compare the half-yearly payments for the same period, made by some twenty of the number, whose palmy state, placing them in the foreground, leads to their selection here :—

Res'd

p'fits,

Aug.,

1846. 1847. 1848. 1849. 1850. 1851. 1852. 1853. 1854. 1855. 1856. 1855.

Beside those here enumerated, the Northampton Bank, which the last month paid 5 per cent, had made for eight years past the annual dividend of 9 per cent. The "Quincy Stone" has coincided so nearly throughout with the Hingham as to make it hardly worth while to swell the catalogue by giving it a separate record. For the last eighteen months. Lynn Mechanics' and Pynchon (Springfield) Bank have paid successively 5 per cent, and the Powow River Bank (Salisbury) the same for a year. The L. M. Bank has 15 per cent reserve; the Quincy Stone, 12; Bunker Hill, 10.

EXTRAS. Brighton, 5 per cent, and Chicopee, 6 do., May, 1848; Ocean, 10, 1851; Central, (Worcester,) 12, and Gloucester, 15, July, 1853; Housatonic, 25, May, 1854, which exhausted nearly its whole surplus; Pacific, 5, November, 1855; Dedham, 4, in 1848, '52, and '55 severally. This last bank, for the twenty-four

• Of Nantucket.

+ Of Newburyport.

a For six months.

VOL. XXXVI.-NO. I.

Of Worcester.

§ Of Stockbridge.

| Of Springfield.
Of Pittsfield.

b Denotes the surplus in these banks at this date, October, 1856.

6

years gone by. (1832-1855, inclusive,) has made thirty-five dividends of 4 per cent, and in but three instances has fallen to 3.

The current premium at which a few of the above stand can be stated:-Lynn Mechanics', 92-3, (for 80;) Haverhill, 116; Merrimack, 81, (for 75;) Bunker Hill, 107-8; Housatonic, 112; Appleton, 113; Lowell, 116; Dedham sold in early summer at over 120.

Two or three blanks are left in the series of the Brighton and Agawam banks, which could not be, with confidence, supplied. The dividend periods of the Dedham are May and November; that recently made is probably the same as in May.

THE ORIGIN OF SAVINGS BANKS.

The origin of savings banks has been attributed to the Rev. Joseph Smith, of Wendover, England, in the year 1799.

Any sum, from two pence upwards, was received every Sunday evening during the summer months. The money was promised to be returned at Christmas, with the addition of one-third as a bounty upon the depositor's economy. The depositors were at liberty to receive their money before Christmas, if they so desired it, but without the promised bounty.

The next institution was established by Mrs. Priscilla Wakefield at Tottenham, in Middlesex. This was called the "Charitable Bank." This bank was opened in 1804.

Mrs. Wakefield kept the accounts, and was assisted by six gentlemen, who acted as trustees, each agreeing to receive an equal part of the sums so deposited, and to allow 5 per cent on all sums of 20 shillings and upwards to such depositors as agreed to leave their money for at least a year in their hands. As the deposits increased, a proportionate increase of trustees was made, in order to diminish the loss, which might otherwise have been considerable, owing to the high rate of interest allowed.

In 1808 a society was formed at Bath, managed by eight individuals, four of whom were ladies, who received the savings of domestic servants, and allowed interest thereon at the rate of 4 per cent.

"The Parish Bank Friendly Society," of Ruthwell, England, was formed in 1810, by Mr. Henry Duncan, who published an account of his institution, in the hope of encouraging the establishment of other similar institutions.

This was the first savings bank regularly brought before the public; and it is owing to the example thus set, that previous to the year 1817, there were 70 savings banks established in England, 4 in Wales, and 4 in Ireland.

In the year 1817, in England, legislative provisions were first made for the management of these institutions.

In 1828 an act was passed, entitled "An act to consolidate and amend the laws relating to savings banks." The money was invested in the Bank of England or of Ireland, in the names of the "Commissioners for the reduction of the national debt." The receipts given to the trustees of savings banks for money thus invested bear interest at the rate 24d. per cent per diem, or £3 16s. d. per cent per annum, while the interest paid to depositors was not, in any case, to exceed £3 8s. 51d. per cent per annum.

On the 20th November, 1833, there were 385 savings banks in England holding balances belonging to 414,014 depositors, which amounted to £13,973,243being, on an average, £32 to each depositor. The total for England, Wales, and Ireland was 484 savings banks, with funds amounting to £15,715,111. The number of accounts open was 475,155.

We have compiled these statistics from the "Penny Cyclopedia," and from Porter's "Progress of the Nation."

Elihu Burritt, in his " Year Book of the Nations," states that the capital invested in savings banks in Great Britain in 1840, was £23,471,050; and in 1850, £28,930,982. At this time the sum will exceed, in all probability, £30,000,000 sterling.

The number of depositors in England, Wales, and Ireland was as follows:-In 1830, 412,217 deposits, £13,507,565, including Scotland; in 1841, 841.204 deposits, £24,474,689. The amount paid by the government of Great Britain for interest on the sums due to the trustees of savings banks and friendly societies, from the 6th of August, 1817, to 20th November, 1841, was £13,086,472 16s. 9d. A savings bank was established in the Island of Jersey in January, 1835, between which time and the 20th November, 1841, deposits were made therein by 3,206 persons, out of a population of 47,556, to the amount of £58,630.

The "Encyclopedia Americana" states that the first savings bank in America was opened in Philadelphia in November, 1816. In Boston, one in the same year. The first institution in New York, the Chambers-street Savings Bank, has the largest amount of funds of any similar institution in the country. The next largest amount is in the Seaman's Savings Bank; the Greenwich, Bowery, and Merchants' Clerks' come next-averaging from one to three-and-a-half millions of dollars each.⚫

These institutions are universal all over the country, and are increasing rapidly. They have heretofore been managed with great integrity and propriety, and have been productive of great benefit to the poorer classes.

We have not intended to enumerate the savings banks of our State, and have merely named the most prominent in our city.

The value of these institutions is beyond question. They have encouraged a frugal spirit among the poor, and, in many cases, have been the means of saving capital sufficient to establish the depositor in business, and thereby advancing his fortune in life.

It is, however, a subject of great importance to a savings bank that its managers be composed of honest and careful men, who adhere strictly to the law in their investments, and who may never be tempted by any means to deviate from the strict line of their duty. Every trustee holds a most sacred trust, the savings of the poor, who are easily alarmed by rumors; and it is his duty to keep a faithful guardianship over the funds intrusted to his management.

In many of the savings banks in Scotland an annual meeting is held, of all the depositors, and the managers present their report at these meetings of the condition of their bank. This has a good effect. It enables the depositors to become better acquainted with those who have the charge of their money, and the interest excited in the minds of the managers in seeing their poor depositors around them, cannot fail to exercise a good moral influence upon them.

The conservative influence of savings banks is undoubted.

In England par

ticularly, where the poor man has all his savings in these institutions, which are by law invested in the public funds, he is directly interested in the permanence and stability of the government. In this country they are so, but not to a similar extent, as the funds of the banks are invested in the securities of the States generally, and on bond and mortgage-one-half of the deposits being usually in each class of securities.

Porter says the advantages of these institutions, considered only in their economical effect, are very great; but these advantages sink into insignificance, in comparison with the moral benefits they have conferred. On the other hand, the feeling of honest independence which must, to some extent, be felt by every depositor, cannot fail to have a beneficial influence upon his character; he is no longer forced, at the first approach of sickness or adversity, to become a candidate for the pauper's portion, but can draw upon a store of his own. On the other hand, every person who intrusts his savings to these institutions becomes by that means additionally and personally interested in the stability of the institutions of the country.

Savings institutions are the offspring of constitutional governments, and find a natural and healthy growth in the confidence which they inspire. In despotic or revolutionary countries, the principle of individual hoarding is acted upon, and thus vast amounts are abstracted from the active capital of the country, which otherwise would enter into the productive power of the nation. It will be remembered that when the last loan of the French government was paid in by the subscribers, great numbers of the old coins of France-that had hardly been seen since the first revolution-came into the possession of the government. They had been hoarded for half a century or more; and nothing would seem to indicate more clearly the confidence inspired by that government in the minds of the poorer classes of the provinces.

There are, we believe, but few institutions for savings on the continent of Europe.

Many of the governments have established institutions for the loan of money, on pawn or pledge of articles of value. The Mont de Piete, in Paris, lends fourfifths of the value on gold and silver articles, and two-thirds of the value on all other movable property. Goods pledged are sold at auction, (unless the interest, which is 12 per cent per annum and renewable for three years, be paid,) at the end of thirteen months.

There is a similar institution in Rome--the Monte di Pieta--where the government loans on works of art. In this the poorer classes have no interest. It was established for the benefit of decayed noblemen and the poor of the upper ranks.

It is curious to wander through the galleries of this institution, filled with the finest works of art in the world, both of painting and sculpture. When a person owning a work of art is in want of money, he can here pledge it, and it is retained for a prescribed period. After the expiration of this period, it belongs to the government, on the payment of the balance of its assessed value. Here the spendthrift rake may pawn the portraits of his forefathers, painted by some master's hand.

It will be seen, however, that savings institutions are generally confined to