admission into the Association; but admission is only granted by a meeting of the Association generally, and upon the vote of three-fourths of those present. New members are required to pay an entrance fee according to their respective capitals, as follows:

Any bank afterwards increasing its capital is required to pay an additional fee corresponding with these rates. The annual expenses of the Clearing House (not including the expense of printing for the several banks, which is apportioned equally) are borne as follows:-Each bank is assessed £40; and the balance after that amount, pro ratâ, according to the average amount sent by them to the House, during the preceding year.

Two other Standing Committees are appointed, each consisting of five members, elected annually. A majority of one of these Committees has power, in conjunction with a majority of the Clearing House Committee, to suspend temporarily any member of the Association. The other, the Committee of Arbitration, hears and determines all disputes that may be submitted to it. In the annual re-appointment of these Committees, at least two members of each are new members; the two senior members retiring with that view, but being again eligible after an interval of one year.

But few steps in the history of the Clearing House call for any remark. It will be remembered that a general suspension of specie payments took place throughout the Union, at the close of 1861, and from that time the transactions of the Clearing House were on the currency basis. In 1872 a special exchange was established for clearing cheques payable in gold, but this was discontinued upon the resumption of specie payments on 1st January, 1879. In 1878 the Assistant Treasurer of the United States became a member of the Association, and as he is generally debtor to the Clearing House and pays in gold coin, the House becomes the intermediary by which new coinage is distributed to the public.

The arrangements of the New York Clearing are so different from any of those to which I have yet referred, that, in order to describe their operations, I cannot do better than give an account as furnished to me by the kindness of Mr. W. A. Camp, the manager of the establishment :

"The clearing room is about 80 feet long by 30 wide, and is provided with a continuous line of desks, 61 in number, one for each bank, each

desk bearing the name and number of the bank by which it is occupied, the banks being numbered according to the date of their organisation. Each bank is represented every morning by two clerks; one, a messenger, who brings with him the cheques, drafts, &c., that his bank has received the day previous upon the other banks, assorted for each bank and placed in envelopes. On the outside of each envelope is a slip on which is listed the amounts of the various items it contains. These envelopes are arranged in the same order as the desks for the several banks. The messengers, 61 in number, take their places in a line outside the line of desks, each opposite the desk assigned to his own bank; while on the other, or inside, of the desk is a clerk with a sheet containing the names of all the banks arranged in the same order, with the aggregate amount his messenger has against each bank. The hour for making the exchanges is 10 o'clock a.m. Just previous to that time the manager or one of his assistants takes his position at an elevated desk that overlooks the whole room, and calls the house to order. At a signal from a bell, struck precisely at 10 o'clock, each messenger moves forward to the desk next his own and delivers the envelope containing the cheques, &c., for the bank represented by that desk to the clerk on the inside, together with a printed list of the banks in the same order, with the amount opposite each bank. The clerk receiving it signs his name opposite that of the bank he represents and returns it to the messenger, who immediately passes it to the next desk and so on, until he has reached his own desk, the starting point, having made a circuit of the room and delivered to each bank the exchange he had for them. Every other messenger does the same, the whole line moving on at the same time; in other words, each messenger has visited every bank and delivered to each everything his bank held against them, taking a receipt from each; while the clerk upon the inside has, of course, received from every other bank the amount each had against his bank. This operation takes exactly ten minutes. The clerks after receiving the envelopes containing the cheques, &c., and which are not allowed to be opened or disturbed at the Clearing House, immediately enters from the slips, upon their own sheets, the aggregate amount from each bank, the difference between the total amount they have received and the total amount brought by them being the balance either due to or from the Clearing House and by or to each bank. The messengers then return with their exchanges to their banks, reporting their condition, Debtor or Creditor, as the case may be. The clerks report to the Assistant Manager the amount they have received, they having reported the amount each brought upon first entering the room. These amounts are entered by the Assistant Manager in separate columns in what is termed a "proof sheet," and if no error has been made, the Manager finding the columns agree announces that the "proof is made," and the clerks return to their respective banks. If any difference appear on the proof sheet, the clerks are required to revise their work until the error has been discovered. Thirtyfive minutes are allowed after the delivery of exchanges for the clerks to enter and prove their work, and for errors discovered after that time fines are imposed."

Any errors occurring in the charges are settled directly between the banks concerned, and not through the Clearing House.

Unpaid cheques or drafts, or any items that may be wrongly delivered, must be returned the same day before 3 p.m., direct to

the banker presenting them, the amount being immediately repaid in gold coin or legal-tender notes. But any articles to be refused for want of endorsement, or for any other informality, may, if certified by the bank refusing them, and if not exceeding £1,000 in amount, be returned in the exchanges of the following morning. The balances due having been reported, the Debtor banks must pay their respective amounts to the Manager at the Clearing House before 1.30 p.m., either in coin, in coin-certificates, or in legaltender notes. As soon as this has been done, the Creditor banks receive the various sums due to them, at the same place, and in the

same manner.

Gold coin, when used for payment of balances, is generally packed in bags, each containing $5,000; which are sealed and bear the name of the bank paying them out, and the date of payment.

Even in this form there is considerable loss by the abrasion of the coin. In Boston, it has recently been estimated that upon £1,400,000 of gold held by the banks, there is a loss of about £3,000 per annum. The bags being passed from bank to bank, the constant friction in handling and weighing wears away the edges and faces of the coin, until in time a bag falls short in weight and causes much trouble in determining which bank is responsible for the deficiency.

The coin-certificates used were formerly those issued by the govern ment for gold coin deposited in the Treasury, but the issue of these was discontinued in December, 1878,* and the New York Clearing House, in October, 1879, established a depository of gold coin for the convenience of its members. The vaults are in the Bank of America, and their full capacity is about eight millions sterling, which amount is, or was recently, deposited there. The certificates are issued by the Bank of America on behalf of the association, and are of the denomination of one, five, and ten thousand dollars each. No amount or proportion of these deposits is prescribed for any of the banks, it being entirely optional whether they hold any of the certificates or not. Formerly the Treasury issued also certificates of deposit of legal-tender notes, but these are no longer used, the notes being fully in circulation throughout the country. The legal-tender notes are also comparatively scarce in New York, and enter very little into the clearing settlements.

* Silver-certificates have been issued by the Treasury since 1878, but they were excluded from the Clearing House settlements by resolution of November, 1878. By section 12 of the National Banking Act of the present year the issue by the Treasury of gold-certificates is directed to be resumed; and, in accordance with another clause of the same section, the New York Clearing House Association has withdrawn the above-mentioned resolution respecting the silver-certificates,

During the year ending 1st October, 1881, the balances paid amounted to £355,200,000. Of this amount £278,993,200 was in Clearing House certificates; £1,722,800 in legal-tenders; and £74,484,000 in gold coin. On one day in 1879 the amount paid to and received from the Clearing House was £1,660,000, and weighed about 15 tons. On another day the Assistant-Treasurer alone paid to the Clearing House banks one million sterling, weighing more than eight tons. The cost and labour of handling and delivering these large quantities of coin must be very great, and there would seem to be room for the exercise of some ingenuity to find a suitable mode of economising in these respects.

The record of the transactions of the New York Clearing House is very complete, and is given by calendar years in the following table. In the same table is quoted, year by year, the number of clearing houses in the United States, and the total of their transactions.

In conuection with these large annual transactions, some special features of trade and banking in New York should be carefully borne in mind. Especially we must notice that, from 1862 to 1878 inclusive, business was conducted in paper money, and the amounts recorded are in currency value. During that period the fluctuations were very numerous and very wide, the paper dollar falling even to one-third of its nominal value; and, therefore, to compare the figures for some of these years with the clearings of other countries, very large reductions would have to be made.

Another point to be considered is the enormous proportion of speculative transactions constantly taking place throughout the States, though more particularly in New York. In 1881 it was estimated that of the total transactions of that city in cotton and grain only one twenty-fifth part was for real trade. The extraordinary magnitude of their stock speculations is well known, and it was calculated that, of the total clearings in New York on a certain day of last year, three-sevenths were on account of stock speculations. This calculation would probably be applicable to the whole year, as the day was not specially selected with any view to this estimate, and the Stock Exchange in New York has no fixed settling days.

The largest amount cleared on any one day was on 28th November, 1880, when the exchanges amounted to £59,164,000, the largest amount previously reached having been £40,511,000, on 3rd November of the preceding year.