THE MODERN TRUST COMPANY 437 



Since 1873 the growth of the trust companies has been 

 very rapid. It is not possible to show this throughout the 

 United States by authentic figures, because no official statistics 

 are available except in the scattered reports of state officials, 

 and many of those run back only for a comparatively short 

 time. The United States census makes no enumeration of 

 financial institutions, and the comptroller of the currency has 

 no authority to compel statements from state corporations. 

 No attempt, indeed, has been made to analyze the statements 

 of all of the companies in the United States except by Mr. Ed- 

 ward T. Perrine, formerly treasurer of the United States 

 Mortgage and Trust company of New York. Mr. Perrine found 

 that in June, 1903, there were about 1, 100 trust companies in the 

 United States. The statements of 912 of these he analyzed and 

 tabulated. Mr. Perrine has been good enough to lend me the 

 results of his work on the subject, and to it I am indebted for 

 some of my facts and figures. 



At that date, June, 1903, trust companies amounted, ap- 

 proximately, to one fifth of the number of national banks, 

 but ranked nearly one half in point of resources. That is, 

 the aggregate resources of 912 trust companies were $2,910,- 

 063,340.11: aggregate resources of 4939 national banks were 

 $6,286,935,106.16. 



It agrees with what I have said about the business of trust 

 companies to find that, on an analysis of these figures, the trust 

 companies, in proportion to their assets, hold more securities 

 than the banks, about equal loans, less cash, more real estate, 

 more surplus, and larger individual deposits. 



In view of trust companies having grown up under various 

 state laws and different conditions, we may expect to find a 

 great variation in their distribution: 



New YorkCity has 48 



Philadelphia " 42 



Pittsburg. " 31 



Boston " 17 



Chicago " 14 



Cleveland " 12 



Baltimore " 11 



St. Louis " 10 



You will observe that Pittsburg and Philadelphia have 

 together some 73 companies, which leads one to suspect — what 



