The Banking System

The followiiig exlracts from n late number of Ni!es' Register, as we fipd them ntheOakland G.vette, may be inst motive to oui readers. It seems the ablest statesmen have not yet devised any system of banking which may be truly called good, and which will ccrtainly secure the bnnks from mismnnagement and failure, and the public from loss. "TriK Safety Fl'.vu System, which has beenin operation for a suffioienl time in the state of New York to develope some of ils properties, appears to us to work beneficially so far asto entitle it to be gradually incorporated into the banking system of other States. By the report of the comptroüer of the State of Hew Yoik, of the lst inst. we learn, that to redeem the notes of the tensafety fund banks which have tailedsinco the system has been adopted in that state, $1,502,170 has been paid from the sofety fund and he estimates that $1,017,000 will yet be required of sol vent banks for that object, the total loss being $2,519 170. Of thissum the ten defaulting banks had only contributed $76,032,42 towards the fund, prior to failure. Besidesthis heavy levy on the sol vent banks to make up their deficit, iit least $-350,000 had been ■=unk by the depreciation of their notes in the hands of note holders - and adding the loss of at least threemillions of dollars sustained by the stockholders of the broken banks, and we have an aggregate loss of $5,869,170 experienced by the failure of those ten "Safety Fund Banks" of New York.This, for the time the system has been in operation, will figure largely in comparason with losses sustained in any other system; but the loss does not fall upon bill kolders but mainly upon stockkolders - as it ought to. The f ree bank system, has also been in operation for a sufh'cient length of time in N. Y., lo furnish somewhat of a test. There are novv seventy banks in the state under that law. Twcnty-nine ihat commenced operation, have been closed by legal process f rom the comptroller, and en others have been wound up by their wn slockholders. What losses have jeen sustained by them in these cases we re not aware. As a new system, its reults so far seem to aflbrd no certain reief f rom the evil to wliich the old system of banking was lia ble."