FINANCE, INDUSTRY, TRANSPORTATION. 



455 



STATISTICS OF SAVINGS BANKS. 



NUMBER OF DEPOSITORS, AMOUNT OP DEPOSITS, AND AVERAGE TO EACH DEPOSITOR, 1899-1900. 



STATES 



AND 

 TERRITORIES. 



Maine 



New Hampshire. . . 



Vermont 



Massachusetts 



Rhode Island 



Connecticut 



New York 



New Jersey 



Pennsylvania 



Delaware 



Maryland 



Dist. of Columbia. 



West Virginia 



North Carolina 

 South Carolina 



* Partially estimated, t 'Savings deposits in State institutions having savings departments abstract of re- 

 port included with State banks. J Estimated. 



No returns for 1899-1900 from the following States and returns for previous years are given : Alabama, 1893-94, 

 depositors, 2,500 ; amount of deposits, $102,347. New Mexico, 1894-95, depositors, 217 ; amount of deposits, $37,951. 

 Washington, 1894-95, depositors, 5,512; amount of deposits, $1,148,104. Oregon, 1895-96, depositors, 1,631; amount 

 of deposits, $972,298. Georgia, 1896-97, depositors, 5,384; amount of deposits, $288,010. 



Approximate Value of the Product of Gold and Silver in the United 



States in 189^ ^/ fO~u "> ctv 



Wild-cat Banks. The fraudulent in- 

 stitutions known as wild-cat banks were started 

 principally in the West and South after the 

 closing up of the United States Bank and the 

 transfer of its deposits to State banks in 1832. 

 The scarcity of capital in these regions made 

 it comparatively easy to put in circulation any- 

 thing that purported to be money. Hence, any- 

 one with a very limited capital or, in fact, 

 without any capital at all could open a bank, 

 issue $10,000 or more in small notes, and pass 

 them over in easy loans to land speculators, 

 who, in their turn, paid them out in country 

 villages and among farmers, where the stand- 

 ing of the bank of issue would necessarily be 

 unknown. Hundreds of these banks were 

 started, and immense amounts of so-called 

 money were loaned to build cities in the wil- 

 derness, and to contractors anxious to build rail- 

 roads without material, tools, or means of pay- 

 ing wages. In some cases the real place of 

 issue was, for instance, New Orleans or Buffalo, 

 while the bills purported to be issued and pay- 



able in, say, Gaorgia or Illinois. This method 

 of doing business lasted four years, when the 

 panic of 1837, one of the most painful and pro- 

 longed crises in the financial history of the 

 United State's, overtook the country. Fortu- 

 nately this led to the adoption in nearly all the 

 States of such banking laws as rendered similar 

 schemes impossible in the future. These in- 

 stitutions were called wild-cat banks, owing to 

 their utter lawlessness and because their vic- 

 tims were " most awfully clawed." 



Trade Dollars. Previous to the coin- 

 age of this dollar, which was brought into ex- 

 istence through the demand on the Pacific 

 coast for a coin to be used in commercial rela- 

 tions, particularly with China and Japan, the 

 old silver dollar of 37 1 grains was the only 

 one known. The new dollar contained 420 

 grains, and eventually was extensively circu- 

 lated all over the Union, but was retired after 

 the Forty-fourth Congress enacted that it waS 

 not a legal tender. 



Clearing 1 House. The clearing house is 



