over, the phantom fled, and "rascal," "swindler," " thief," " fugitive," " bankrupt," and similar devices stamped upon the brows of the vast majority.

It must not be inferred from the above that we are opposed to banking, because we are not; but, on the contrary, do believe that sound and legitimate banking is as necessary to a commercial nation as is credit. It is the magnitude of the power conferred upon corporations in giving them banking privileges, and the disastrous consequences consequent upon the abuse of the power, which we have attempted to illustrate, and there can be no doubt whatever that the right to issue paper money is conferred with far too little discrimination, and with too much recklessness by our law makers; and hence originates a large amount of the financial and commercial revulsions which retard the prosperity of the country.

THE MYSTERY OF EXCHANGE ON ENGLAND.

A Pittsburgh paper comes to the rescue of such of its readers as are bothered in calculating the rates of exchange, and the terms made use of by money brokers, when buying or selling drafts, bills of exchange on England, or Bank of England notes, when the decimal method is substituted for the £ s. D. in England. It will be an easy mat ter, it says, to know when exchange is at par or against the country. We will not fatigue our readers with the dry details of the apparent mystery why a £ (pound) sterling is rated at $4 80 in America and $4 44 in England, both being identically the value of the same piece of gold, called a Victoria or Sovereign, but we will furnish them with a method to calculate by, when it is said exchange on London is at a premaium. If $4 80 is par, it is called in this country 8 per cent premium.

When a party sells a sovereign in this country for $4 84, (the present price, and which in reality is a premium of one per cent,) then look out for a close, tight money market, as gold will then fly out of the market, if it be coin, as sovereigns, or any other denomination of an equivalent standard; if not, dust or ingots go. It would be the same as selling a silver dollar for one hundred and one cents. The demand for sending away the gold is the only cause for the premium.

In addition to the above, we will append a table that will be found very useful to some of the readers of the Merchants' Magazine :·

·

TABLE SHOWING THE VALUE OF STERLING MONEY IN FEDERAL CURRENCY, FROM ONE

EXCHANGE IN NEW ORLEANS.

RATES OF SIGHT EXCHANGE ON NEW YORK AND THE EASTERN CITIES, AND NEW ORLEANS,

The banks of San Francisco are naturally important, as being the depositories of the wealth that thousands are hourly accumulating on the rich "placer" fields. These

buildings are of brick, and have fire-proof cellars; and although at the time they were erected the outlay was enormous, both for material and labor, it was a mere trifle in comparison with the profits of their owners. The banks line one side of Montgomery-street, the principal thoroughfare of the city; and as the space on all sides has been entirely cleared for some distance by the fire, this row of buildings stands alone just now and solitary, like the speculative terrace," with "extensive marine view," that fronts an unpopular watering-place in England. At the corner of a street is Burgoyne's Bank; you enter and find it very crowded and full of tobaccosmoke; instead of the chinking of money, you hear a succession of thumps on the counter, as the large leathen bags of gold-dust come down on it. Some of the clerks are weighing gold-dust, some are extracting the black sand with a magnet, and others are packing it in bags and boxes. The depositors are, generally speaking, miners, who have come down from the diggings, fellows with long beards and jack-boots, and of an unwashed appearance for the most part. However, many of these are not by any means what they seem; they have just arrived, perhaps, from a toilsome, dusty journey, and deposit their gold as a first precaution; and before the evening they will have been metamorphosed into very respectable-looking members of society, and will remain so until they return again to the diggings. Large blocks of quartz lie about the room, in all of which are rich veins of gold. These have been sent down from

the mountains to be assayed; and the rich yield that these solitary specimens afforded led some time afterwards to a great deal of very ruinous speculation, for it had been represented that these specimens were average samples of great veins, and it was only when money had been expended in large sums that it was discovered that these rich morsels were merely accidental deposits of gold, and by no means indicated the value of the veins.

REAL AND PERSONAL PROPERTY IN PHILADELPHIA.

The following is given as the official assessment of the value of the property in the city of Philadelphia, as assessed for city and State purposes :

The real estate as assessed in the various wards, the money at interest, &c., will be seen by the following table:

ACT RELATING TO BANK CHARTERS IN NEW JERSEY.

The Legislature of New Jersey at its last session passed the subjoined act, introducing some new provisions, with a view to the greater security of the circulating notes of the incorporated banks of that State :

And be it enacted, That if the said corporation shall at any time hereafter become insolvent, the whole assets of the said corporation, at the time of its becoming insolvent, shall be first liable for the redemption of its bills or notes then in circulation, and shall be first applied to the payment thereof; and in case of a distribution of the assets of said corporation among the creditors thereof, under an order of decree of the Court of Chancery, or other court, the holders of such bills or notes shall be equal in priority, and shall have a preference over all other creditors.

And be it enacted, That all the directors of said corporation shall be residents of this State, and shall be jointly and severally liable for the payment of all the bills or notes of said corporation, which may be in circulation at the time of its becoming insolvent, and may be jointly and severally prosecuted, at law or in equity, by any receiver or receivers that shall or may be appointed, for the payment of any such tills or notes, as if the same were their joint and several bills or notes, executed by them in their individual capacity; and it shall not be lawful for any director of said corporation to resign his office to avoid such liability; and if any director shall so attempt to resign his office, he shall be and continue liable the same as if no such resignation had been attempted; and such liability of directors shall continue after they cease to be directors, either by resignation or otherwise, if the said corporation was insolvent when they ceased to be directors; and it shall not be lawful for any director to assign or transfer his stock or other property to avoid such liability; and in case of the payment of any such bills or notes by any of said directors, the other who may be liable shall account in the same way as other joint debtors are accountable to each other; provided, that no property that shall or may be levied on, or taken in execution under or by virtue of any judgment or decree in favor of any receiver or receivers, under the provisions of this act, shall be sold until after the expiration of four months from the date of said judgment or decree.

And be it enacted, That if the assets of said corporation and the property of said directors shall prove insufficient to redeem the whole of the said bills and notes, then the amount that shall or may be realized from said assets and property, shall be distributed rateably among the holders of the said bills and notes.

And be it enacted, That the stockholders of said corporation, at the time of its becoming insolvent, other than said directors, shall be jointly and severally liable to any receiver or receivers that shall or may be appointed as aforesaid, to an amount sufficient to redeem the said bills and notes, after the assets of said corporation and the property of said directors shall have been distributed as aforesaid; provided, that no stockholder other than said directors shall be made liable to an amount exceeding the par value of the stock held by him at the time said corporation becomes insolvent, and if that amount shall not be required for the full redemption of said bills and notes, then the said stockholders shall be liable in the ratio of the said stock so held by them, and it shall not be lawful for any such stockholder to assign or otherwise transfer his stock or other property to avoid such liability.

SAN FRANCISCO SHIPMENTS OF GOLD FOR NINE MONTHS.

The San Francisco Price Current furnishes a statement of the value of gold, the produce of California, manifested and shipped from that port during the quarter ending September 30th, 1855, from which we have condensed the following statement:— SHIPMENTS FOR THE QUARTER ending september 30, 1855.

ous six months amounted to $18,999,290 82; being a total for the first nine months of 1855 of $31,987,482. Shipped during the same period last year, $37,216,831 18 exhibiting a difference in favor of 1854 of $5,279,349 18.

PROJECT OF AN IRON CURRENCY IN CHINA.

In his contributions to the History of the Insurrection in China, published in the North China Herald, May 6, 1854, at the conclusion of an account of the new experiment of a paper currency recently adopted by the Chinese government, Dr. Macgowan thus refers to the project of an iron currency in China :

"Among the plans submitted to the Board of Revenue for meeting the present emergency, that of the governor of Shansi, which contemplates the issue of an iron coin, is the most singular. It does not appear that any report was made in relation to it, because, doubtless, the members of the Board were better read in history than the memorialist, and knew that previous attempts of the kind had signally failed. Chinese writers on numismatics bring evidence from history showing that, from eleven to fourteen centuries before our era, coins both of iron and lead were sometimes in use. The experiment of iron coinage by the founder of the Liang dynasty, in A. D. 523, is best known.

"In 650, coins of iron and lead were common, ten of the former being equivalent to one of the latter. About that period a prince of Fuhkien issued an iron coin, bearing his name--Tienteh. In general, it may be stated, that from A. D. 523 to 960, many attempts were made to employ the Spartan metal for money, during which period fruitless efforts were made to preserve a fixed relation between it and copper; but the law of supply and demand was stronger than imperial edicts, and rendered nuga. tory these unnatural restraints of government. It is singular that no Chinese government has hitherto undertaken coinage of silver, although attempts have been made by local officers and private persons to imitate the Spanish dollar; for some reasons, not obvious, these experiments have failed. En passant, we may remark, that a full history of circulating media of China would form a curious monograph, which, besides throwing much light on the mode of civilization, would be found replete with facts of no small interest to the political economist; tortoise shells and the shells of molluscs, silk, cloth, buskin, paper, baked earth, tin, tutenague, lead, iron, copper, silver, and gold-sometimes separately, sometimes one or more in combination--have ali been used as money; and also, to eke out the list, brick-tea, at present circulating among the northern nomads."

COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS.

CUSTOMS REGULATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES.

The Secretary of the Treasury, under date of the Department, November 1, 1855, prescribes for the government of collectors and other officers of the customs, the subjoined regulations, which are published in the Merchants' Magazine for the information of ship-owners, and commercial interests generally. It will be seen that they relate to-1st. The abatement of duties for damages during the voyage of importa tion. 2d. To foreign-built vessels wholly owned by citizens of the United States, as follows:

ABATEMENT OF DUTIES FOR DAMAGES DURING THE VOYAGE OF IMPORTATION.

1. In pursuance of the 52d section of the General Collection Act of the 2d March, 1799, no abatement of duties on merchandise on account of damage occurring during the voyage of importation can be allowed, unless proof to ascertain such damage shall be lodged in the custom-house within ten working days after the landing of such merchandise.

2. The term "during the voyage," means after the vessel has started from the foreign port of exportation, and during the voyage to, and before her arrival at her port of destination in the United States.

3. The proof of damage required to be lodged with the collector within ten days after landing, will consist of the claim of the owner or importer for allowance, in writing, subscribed and sworn to by him, specifying by marks and numbers the particular