Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/357



CHAPTER XIV.—.

The amount of circulation of the safety fund banks of New York, January 1, 1839, was $19.3 millions. During the year 1839, the withdrawal of safety fund notes exceeded $7 millions, while the issue of new notes was about $6 millions, so that there was a net diminution in that year of $1.7 millions. The Comptroller said: There is a reasonable and necessary depreciation of bank note currency as it is carried away from the place of issue equal to the expense of transporting gold and silver to the same point. "Any further depreciation is unjust to the community which has to sustain it." He proposed that the banks under the general banking law should appoint agents to meet weekly to assort, count, and arrange in separate packages all the notes received at the agency, and adjust the balances between the different banks, with an allowance of time according to the distance, for the payment of the debtor balances. He was of the opinion that the safety fund banks and the general banking associations acted antagonistically to one another, and must do so unless some means of uniform redemption of their issues could be devised.

April 25, 1840, the Legislature, in pursuance of these suggestions passed an act providing that every bank, banking association, and individual banker, except those in New York, Albany and Brooklyn, should appoint an agent in New York City to redeem their notes at not more than one-half of one per cent. discount. If the agent of any bank should fail to redeem its notes, that bank should pay interest on the same at the rate of twenty per cent. per annum, and if the redemption was delayed over twenty days, the bank should be liable to be proceeded against by the Bank