SAVANNAH RIVER 



5225 



SAVINGS BANKS 



Count Casimir Pulaski and Sergeant William 

 Jasper were mortally wounded. Ten years later 

 the city was incorporated. 



During the War of Secession it was the depot 

 of supplies for the Confederate army ; hence it 

 became the objective point in General Sher- 

 man's famous march to the sea, and was taken 

 by him in December, 1864, and held by the 

 Federals until the close of the war. Twice the 

 city was ravaged by fire; the loss in 1796 was 

 estimated at $1,000,000 and in 1820 at $4,000,- 

 000. The first steamship to cross the Atlantic 

 Ocean, the City oj Savannah, sailed from this 

 point to Liverpool in 1819. TJ. 



SAVANNAH RIVER, a river which forms a 

 large part of the boundary between Georgia and 

 South Carolina. The main stream is formed by 

 the junction of the Tugaloo and the Seneca (or 

 Kiowee) rivers, which rise near the southern 

 boundary of North Carolina and unite on the 

 Georgia-South Carolina boundary a few miles 

 west of Anderson, S. C. From this point the 

 river flows in a south-easterly direction, empty- 

 ing into the Atlantic through Tybee Sound. A 

 channel twenty-eight feet deep has been cut 

 from the ocean to the city of Savannah, a dis- 

 tance of eighteen miles, for the use of heavy 

 vessels (see SAVANNAH). Smaller vessels can 

 ascend the river 230 miles, as far as Augusta, 

 Ga., a city of cotton mills. The main stream is 

 about 450 miles long. 



SAVE, sahv, a river of Europe which rises 

 in Austria in the crownland of Carniola and 

 falls into the Danube at Belgrade, Serbia, about 

 450 miles from its source (see map of Europe 

 following page 2092) . It is navigable for steam- 

 ers for over three-fourths of its course, though 

 occasional shallow places, shifting sandbanks 

 and a varying current offer difficulties to navi- 

 gation. The principal tributaries of the Save 

 are the Kulpa, the Unna, the Vrbas, the Drina 

 and the Bosna. The Drave, another tributary 

 of the Danube, and the Save flow in courses 

 almost parallel. 



SAVINGS BANKS. Until modern times 

 Christian people were forbidden by their 

 Church to accept interest in return for the use 

 of their money. This prohibition and that in 

 Deuteronomy, "Thou shalt not lend upon usury 

 to thy brother" (in which usury means merely 

 interest, not excessive interest), were justi- 

 fied by the fact that in former days people 

 r borrowed money unless in trouble, when 

 kindness would inspire a gift instead of a loan. 

 But with the advent of the age of capital and 

 industry, and the development of the idea that 



those who do not have present need of their 

 money can serve the world by lending to those 

 who are able to employ it productively, re- 

 ligious objections to interest vanished. To- 

 wards the end of the eighteenth century men 

 began to see that the hope of interest might 

 encourage people who otherwise squandered 

 their earnings and swelled the ranks of the 

 poor, to see, with Ben Franklin, that 

 A penny saved is two pence clear, 

 A pin a day 's a grroat a year. 



Then the churches began to encourage the es- 

 tablishment of savings banks, the first of which 

 had been founded in Brunswick, Germany, in 

 1765. 



Though the first savings banks in the United 

 States, founded in 1816, were called the Phila- 

 delphia Savings Society and the Provident In- 

 stitution of Boston, savings banks in America 

 have on the whole been business enterprises 

 rather than charitable foundations. In Great 

 Britain and some other countries, on the con- 

 trary, depositors are guaranteed a fixed rate of 

 interest by the government, which is obliged 

 to pay out money every year because the banks 

 do not earn enough to pay the established rate. 

 In the United States there are two important 

 classes of savings institutions, the mutual banks, 

 whose depositors are its owners, and the more 

 numerous stock banks, whose stockholders make 

 a profit by investing the money given to them 

 as savings. Fpr both types the state govern- 

 ment, in order to protect depositors, usually 

 prescribes the nature of investments that may 

 be made. But though these banks guard $5,000,- 

 000,000 in savings for more than 11,000,000 peo- 

 ple, the greater part of the savings funds of 

 the country are in the savings departments of 

 regular banks (see BANKS AND BANKING). 



In Canada there are a few banks specially 

 for savings, but, as in the United States, the 

 chartered banks handle most of the savings 

 accounts. 



Postal Savings Banks. England was the first 

 country to utilize the organization of the post- 

 office and the confidence which people feel in 

 their government, in a savings scheme. The 

 English system was inaugurated in 1861 and 

 was copied in Canada six years later. Though 

 nearly all prominent nations have had postal 

 savings banks fora number of years, the United 

 States did not establish them until 1910. 



In order to insure that postoflice banks shall 

 benefit only those whose funds are small, there 

 is in Canada a rule that the deposits of any 

 one person must not exceed $1,000 in any one 



