THE PAWNERS' BANK, BOSTON.

This bank, which went into operation January 2d, 1860, had loaned out on goods, up to October 12th, 1861, the sum of $332,566 42; and the total amount paid in on loans for the same time, was $241,632 84. The average amount loaned to each person was $29 46. Seven per cent. of the loans made by the bank are for $10 and under. On thirtysix out of every one hundred loans, the interest is less than twenty-one cents; and on twenty-seven out of every one hundred loans, the interest is less than eleven cents. On seven out of every one hundred loans the interest is one cent only.

CANADA BANKS.

The following is the statement of the Canada banks for December 31st, 1861:

Deposits on
Interest.

$2,112,988

585,946

362,345

250,391

192,573

1,829,808

U. Canada,.

1,883,028

2,398,799

6,854,468

1,482,251

7,115,978

1,805,573

Gore,.

805,5'74

1,458,949

837,013

4,827,718

Du Peuple,.

222,070

N. District,.

Molson's,.

336,403

378,567

338,160

Toronto,

Ontario,..

E. Townships, .

Brantford,....

Nationale,.....

Total,... .$ 12,662,641 $9,655,363

$9,493,164 $7,037,239 $40,235,472

ILLINOIS BANK LEGISLATION.

The following is the article in relation to banks, reported by the committee on banks and currency to the convention, now in session, for amending the constitution of Illinois :

SEC. 1. No bank or banking corporation, nor any association or corporation with any banking powers, shall hereafter be created in this State. This section shall take effect and be in force immediately, as a portion of and as an amendment of the constitution of this State; and the same shall be and remain in force as such, unless rejected by the people upon the vote hereafter to be taken for or against the adoption of the same, as provided in this constitution.

SEC. 2. The General Assembly shall have no power to pass any laws whereby the charters of any of the existing banks, banking corporations, or any association or corporation with any banking powers, in this State, shall be revived, enlarged, extended or renewed, or whereby any of said. banks, banking corporations or associations, or corporation with any banking powers, shall acquire any rights or privileges which they do not now possess under the constitution of this State, and the laws passed in pursuance thereof.

SEC. 3. That no bank bill, check, draft, note, or written or printed instrument, for the payment of money, issued by or drawn on any bank, banking corporation, or any association or corporation with any banking powers, without this State, of a less denomination than ten dollars, shall be uttered or passed within this State; nor shall any bank bill, check, draft, note, written or printed instrument be uttered or passed within this State unless the bank, banking corporation, or association or corporation with banking powers, issuing the same, or upon which the same is drawn, shall, at the time of uttering or passing the same, redeem its circulation and indebtedness in gold and silver.

SEC. 4. The General Assembly shall, at its next session after the adoption of this constitution, provide by law that any person who shall knowingly and wilfully, and with intent to defraud any person or corporation, violate the provisions of section three of this article, shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary of this State, and for the imposition of such other penalties and forfeitures as the General Assembly may deem proper.

TREASURY NOTES BY THE CART-LOAD.

Some curious experimental philosopher, it seems, has taken the trouble to measure bodily a certain portion-less than one-third-of the huge mass of government credit which our city banks in the last summer and autumn so loyally agreed to shoulder. Twenty-one millions of the amount in treasury notes at 7.30 interest, have just been delivered to the banks by Mr. Cisco, the sub-treasurer. They are found to consist of 72,829 separate obligations, in various denominations, from $50 to $5,000. By careful measurement they are ascertained to form "a column of notes piled single twenty-seven feet high ;" and, moreover, made a “large load for the cart in which they were taken from the sub-treasurer's office."

The Chicago Tribune gives the following as a form of circular which has been received by bankers in that city from the banks in which they keep their accounts here:

"Dear Sir,-This bank will receive, until further notice, United States Treasury notes of its dealers and correspondents, on deposit, and in payment of collections, on the terms of the annexed contract only, which you are requested to sign and return to us, if you desire such notes to be taken on your account.

"Please instruct us as to their receipt in payment of your collections; and in drawing checks hereafter, make them payable in United States, or current bank notes.'

"In consideration that signed, on deposit or otherwise, or shall take or receive in payment of paper held by said bank for collection for account of the undersigned, at their par value, demand notes, or any notes issued or to be issued under the authority of act of Congress, and shall pass the notes, promises to pay, or currency so received, to the credit of the undersigned on its

Bank shall receive from the under

books, or otherwise, the undersigned hereby agrees with the said bank, at any and all times hereafter, to take and receive from said bank, at their par value, similar demand notes, promises to pay, or currency issued, or to be issued, under like authority of Congress, in full satisfaction of all credits so to be given, and of all liability so to be incurred to the undersigned by said bank in manner aforesaid.

"New-York, January 14, 1862."

STRANGE FORGERY OF BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES.

We take the following from the European Times:-On the 7th of January, a remarkable circumstance, involving an alleged felony, punished by a recent act of the legislature with a long term of penal servitude, was brought under the notice of the Lord Mayor. Mr. CoE, superintendent of the bank-note printing department at the Bank of England, produced an engraving on porcelain of a £5 note, executed in all its details with singular fidelity. The material on which it was engraved was said to have been bought for 10s. at a shop in London, and copies of which had been exposed for sale for some days past. The engraving represented a note, dated the 2d of February, 1861, with a fac simile of the well-known signature, "W. P. GATTIE." It was numbered K-I 83,026, and bore imitations of all the usual ornamentation and watermarks of an ordinary £5 note. It appears that a respectable tradesman called at the bank, on Saturday, and, producing a plate in porcelain, on which was engraved a fac simile of a Bank of England note, inquired of the authorities whether there could be any objection to his selling such an article. He was told that it was a serious offence to be in possession, or to dispose of any such article. He said that he bought it of a foreign merchant of high respectability in the city. A reference was immediately made to the merchant in question, who, on being informed of the serious nature of the case, not only offered to give up all the plates in his keeping, which amounted to fifteen, but also undertook to recover, if possible, any that had been sold. He stated that he had received them from a foreign correspondent abroad for sale, and that he had disposed of them in the ordinary way of business, and with no knowledge whatever that any offence was involved in the transaction. The solicitor to the bank pointed out that the engraving might be transferred to paper, and of course the great resemblance it bears to the notes of the Bank of England might lead to very serious results. Moreover, he said, there has recently been a disposition on the part of the public to imitate the bank note in some of its smaller features-occasionally, in its general appearance, though rarely as a whole; and, in some cases, the issue of notes of elegance," as they are called, and of other flash paper, not entitled to be regarded as imitations of the bank notes, has been made the medium of fraud on ignorant persons. For these reasons, the governors had felt it to be their duty to bring the subject under his lordship's consideration in the public interest. The solicitor also quoted an act of Parliament which makes it penal to imitate even any part of a bank note, or any of its ornamentation. In the present case, however, the act would seem to have been done unwittingly, and the parties concerned had volunteered to do all they can to prevent injury resulting from it. It was not, therefore, intended to take proceedings against the parties con

cerned. The Lord Mayor: Could this porcelain plate have been so used as to produce a bank note that might have deceived any one? Mr. CoE said, unquestionably it could. The engraving was quite equal to many of the best forgeries of the bank note. Besides, people were so accustomed to count notes from the corner containing the word "five," that there had been many instances in which flash notes had been passed by being merely placed at intervals among genuine ones. Some further conversation took place on the subject, at the conclusion of which, the Lord Mayor said the possession of such a plate came clearly within the scope of the statute, as argued by Mr. FRESHFIELD, and had the bank authorities deemed it desirable to charge the persons in question with the offence of possession, he should have felt it his duty to commit them for trial. With that the matter ended, and the whole of the copies of the engraving at present available were given up to the solicitor of the bank.

CONTINENTAL MONEY.

The National Intelligencer says: "As we have repeatedly seen it stated that the continental Congress, under articles of confederation, exercised the right of declaring Treasury notes lawful money, and made them a tender in payment of debts, it may be proper to remind the reader that this statement is somewhat inaccurate. The Congress of that date had no power to enact any such law, but merely recommended the legislatures of the several States to adopt measures to this effect.

"In the journals of Congress, for January 14th, 1777, we read that that body, on that day, resolved itself into committee of the whole, to take into consideration the state of the Treasury and the means of supporting the credit of the continental currency, and, after some time spent thereon, the president resumed the chair, and Mr. NELSON reported that they, having had under consideration the matters to them referred, had come to sundry resolutions, which were then submitted and agreed upon. The closing paragraph of the report was as follows:

"Let it be recommended to the legislatures of the United States to pass laws to make the bills of credit issued by the Congress a lawful tender in payment of public and private debts, and a refusal thereof an extinguishment of such debts; that debts payable in sterling money be discharged with continental dollars, at the rate of 43.6 sterling per dollar; and that, in the discharge of all other debts and contracts, continental dollars pass at the rate fixed by the respective States for the value of Spanish milled dollars.'

"In accordance with the recommendation contained in these resolutions, continental money was made a legal tender in Connecticut in October, 1776; in Massachusetts, December, 1776; in Rhode Island, July, 1776; in New-Jersey, August, 1776; in Pennsylvania, January, 1777; in Delaware, February, 1777; in Maryland, April, 1777; in Virginia, May, 1777.

"In correcting a historical inaccuracy with regard to the source which declared the continental money a legal tender, the reader will, of course, understand that it is no part of our purpose to augur or suggest that Treasury notes issued by our government at the present day, under circumstances so different from those surrounding the continental congress, would be subject to any similar depreciation.

JOURNAL OF MERCANTILE LAW.

ALTERATIONS OF CHECKS AND NOTES.

I. CHECKS PAYABLE TO BEARER-HOW THEY CAN BE ALTERED. II. NO ALTERATION CAN BR MADE THAT IS NOT IMMATERIAL, OR FOR WHICH THERE IS NO AUTHORITY GIVEN, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. III. WHAT CAN BE WRITTEN OVER A BLANK ENDORSEMENT.

THE following note was received too late for notice in our last number, and we therefore have been compelled to delay answering it till now: 308 Broadway, N. Y., January 24, 1862.

EDITOR HUNT'S MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE:

I presume more readers than myself would be pleased to see in your pages an answer to the following questions:

1. If I receive a check, made payable to myself or bearer, I being the legitimate owner of said check, have I a legal right, for my security, to erase the word bearer and insert order, thereby making it payable only after my endorsement?

2. If I receive a check endorsed in blank, have I a right to place above the endorsement, "Pay to JOHN SMITH, or order," thereby making it payable only after SMITH has endorsed it?

Yours,

L. A. R.

Answer. The idea that an alteration made in a check or note after its execution will avoid the contract and discharge the previous parties to it, is, as a general proposition, clearly correct. But yet there are two exceptions to the rule; one, that the alteration must be material, and the other, it must be made without authority. In other words, where there is express or implied authority to make the alteration, or where the alteration is immaterial—in these two cases, the right to make it is well settled.

First. Take the case of an alteration made, where authority is given to make it. Of course, if the authority is clearly expressed, there could be no doubt as to the right; but where it is simply implied, the question becomes more difficult. Yet, we think, a reference to a few decisions will clear up this apparent difficulty. For instance, when an endorser of a note commits it to the maker, with the date in blank, the note carries on the face of it an implied authority to the maker to fill up the blank. As between the endorser and third person, the makers, under such circumstances, must be deemed to be the agent of the endorser, and as acting under his authority and with his approbation. Though it is not essential to the legal validity of a note, that it should be dated, yet, as that is necessary to its free and uninterrupted negotiability, and it is intended for circulation, all the parties to it must be presumed to consent that the person to whom such note is intrusted, for the purpose of raising money, may fill