REPORT

OF

THE COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,

OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY,

Washington, December 3, 1877. I have the honor to submit for the consideration of Congress, in compliance with section three hundred and thirty-three of the Revised Statutes of the United States, the fifteenth annual report of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Carefully prepared tables accompany this report, among which are those showing the average amount of capital aud deposits of national banks, State banks, savings banks, and private banks of the country, by States and geographical divisions, for two different periods in each of the years 1876 and 1877; the items of the public debt of the United States at the date of its maximum, August 31, 1865; the amounts and kinds of circulating-notes of the United States and of the national banks, yearly, from 1865 to 1877; the specie held by the banks, and the estimated amount in the country, on June 30, 1877; the issue and retirement of bank circulation, by States, under the operation of the acts of June 20, 1874, and January 14, 1875; the amounts and kinds of United States bonds held as security for national-bank notes on November 1, 1877; the number and denominations of legal-tender notes and national-bank notes outstanding on the same date; a classification of the loans of the national banks in New York City, in October, for the last three years; together with the average rate of interest in New York and London for those years; the number and amount of national-bank notes issued, redeemed and destroyed, from 1863 to 1877; the amount of circulation and deposits of the banks, and a classification of the reserve required and held, at five different dates in each year, from 1871 to 1877; of the weekly movement of legal tender reserve in the New York City national banks, in the month of October, from 1872 to 1877; the operations of the clearing-house in New York City, for the last twenty-four years; the capital, and amount and rate of taxation, of the national banks, State banks and private bankers, for a series of years; the amount of losses charged off by national banks in the several States and Territories during the years 1876 and 1877; the capital, surplus, dividends and earnings of the national banks, by States and geographical divisions, semi-annually, from 1869 to 1877; the national banks in voluntary liquidation, and insolvent national banks, with their capital stock, claims proved and dividends paid, since the establishment of the national system. The report also contains statements of the State

banks and savings banks organized under the laws of the different States, so far as they could be obtained from official sources.

Tables are also given showing the aggregate resources and liabilities of all the national banks at all the dates for which reports have been made during the past fifteen years, and by States and reserve cities at five different dates for the present year; together with separate statements of the condition of every national bank in the Union, on the first day of October of the present year.

The total number of national banks organized since the establishment of the national banking system, on February 25, 1863, is 2,372; of these, two hundred and thirty-three have gone into voluntary liquidation, by vote of shareholders owning two-thirds of their respective capitals, and fifty-nine have been placed in the hands of receivers for the purpose of closing up their affairs, leaving 2,080 in existence on November 1 of this year. Included in the aggregate number organized are nine national gold banks, located in the State of California, which redeem their circulating notes at their places of issue, and in the city of San Francisco, in gold coin. These have an aggregate capital of $4,300,000, and an aggregate circulation of $1,432,120.

During the past year twenty-nine banks have been organized, with an authorized capital of $2,589,000, to which $1,244,520 in circulating. notes has been issued. Ten banks have failed within this period, having an aggregate capital of $3,344,000; and twenty-six banks, with a total capital of $2,589,500, have voluntarily discontinued business.

The following table exhibits the resources and liabilities of the na tional banks in operation at corresponding dates for the last eight years:

Oct. 9, Oct. 8, Oct. 2, Oct. 3, Sept. 12, Oct. 2, Oct. 1, Oct. 2, Oct. 1, 1869. 1870. 1871. 1872. 1873. 1874.

1877.

RESOURCES.

1875. 1876.

1.617 1,615 1,767 1,919 1,976 2,004 2,087 2,089 2,080 banks. banks. banks. banks. banks. banks. banks. banks. banks.

Totals

1, 497. 2 1, 510. 7 1, 730. 6 1, 755. 81, 830. 6 1,877.2 1,882. 2 1, 827.2 1, 741.1

The following table exhibits the resources and liabilities of the banks at the close of business on the first day of October, 1877-the date of their last report; the returns from New York, from Boston, Philadelphia, and

Baltimore, from the other reserve cities, and from the remaining banks of the country, being tabulated separately.

Section 333 of the Revised Statutes of the United States requires the Comptroller to present annually to Congress a statement of the condition of the banks and savings banks organized under State laws. Returns of capital and deposits are made by these institutions and by private bankers, semi-annually, to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, for purposes of taxation. The following statement, compiled in this Office from these returns, exhibits in a concise form, by geographical divisions, the total average bank capital and deposits of the whole

The reserve cities, in addition to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, are Albany, Pittsburgh, Washington, New Orleans, Louisville, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Saint Louis, and San Francisco.

country, exclusive of the national banks, for the six months ending May 31, 1877:

The capital of the 2,078 national banks in operation on June 22, 1877, was $481,044,771, and the average capital of 3,825 State banks, private banks, and savings-banks having capital stock, was, for the six months ending May 31, 1877, less than half that amount, being $223,503,172. The net deposits of the national banks were $768,245,746, and the average deposits of the other banks above designated were $508,712,845. The deposits of 676 savings banks having no capital stock were, for the same period, $843,154,804.

The table below, arranged in similar form, gives the average capital and deposits of the same class of banks and bankers for the six months ending November 30, 1876:

If the number, capital and deposits of the national banks on June 22, 1877, be combined with the number, average capital and average deposits of the State banks, private banks, savings-banks, and trust and loan companies, as shown by the foregoing table, for the six months ending May 31, 1877, it will give a total number of 6,579, a total banking capital of $704,547,943, and total deposits of $2,120,113,396. A similar combination of the national banks for October 2, 1876, with the State banks, savings banks, &c., for the six months ending November 30, 1876, will give for the latter date a total number of 6,564, a total banking capital of $722,079,176, and total deposits of $2,082,735,984.

Tables similar to the above, for the two periods of six months each, ending respectively on November 30, 1875, and May 31, 1876, together with other tables giving the assets and liabilities of State institutions, so far as they could be obtained from the official reports of the several States, will be found in the Appendix.

A table, arranged by States and principal cities, giving the number, capital and deposits, and the tax on capital and deposits, of banking institutions other than national, for the six months ending May 31, 1877, will be found on page 48 of this report. A similar table for the six months ending November 30, 1876, is printed in the Appendix.

THE BANKS AND RESUMPTION.

Section 3 of the act of January 14, 1875, provides that "on and after the first day of January, anno Domini eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, the Secretary of the Treasury shall redeem, in coin, the United States legal-tender notes then outstanding, on their presentation for redemption at the office of the assistant treasurer of the United States in the city of New York in sums of not less than fifty dollars." This legislation is not without precedent, for Congress, on April 30, 1816, by resolution declared that "from and after the 20th day of February next, no duties, taxes, debts or sums of money, accruing or becoming payable to the United States, ought to be collected or received otherwise than in the legal currency of the United States, or in Treasury-notes or notes of the Bank of the United States, or in notes of banks which are payable and paid, on demand, in the said legal currency of the United States." The New York legislature took similar action at about the same time; and again on March 22, 1875, it passed an act providing that "all taxes levied and confirmed in this State on and after January 1, 1879, shall be collected in gold, United States gold-certificates, or national-bank notes which are redeemable in gold on demand," and that "every contract or obligation made or implied after January 1, 1879, and payable in dollars, but not in a specified kind of dollars, shall be payable in United States coins of the standard of weight and fineness established by the laws of the United States at the time the contract or obligation shall have been made or implied."

The banks in this country, with the exception of those in the New England States, suspended specie payment in September, 1814. The New York banks resumed specie payment on February 20, 1817, but resumption was not general throughout the country until about the close of the year 1819. There was also a general suspension in May, 1837; but in May of the next year the New York and New England banks again resumed specie payment. The banks in Pennsylvania finally resumed, under the coercion of the State legislature, in March, 1842. Banks in other portions of the country resumed at about the same date. A general suspension again occurred in October, 1857, the banks resuming specie payment in the following year.

It would be instructive to compare the condition of the banks during previous periods of suspension and resumption with that at the present time, but detailed statements of the assets and liabilities of the banks during the first period of suspension, which continued for five years, cannot be obtained. The published statistics of the State banks during the later periods mentioned are not wholly satisfactory for the purpose desired, for the reason that the bank reports were not of uniform date in the several States, while the items of specie, circulation, and deposits vary greatly in amount throughout the country at different dates in the same year. The specie, as reported, was not separated from checks payable in coin, and it is known that, in some instances, the same specie was more than once returned.

From such data as are now obtainable, the following table has been