for continuous circulation would have answered the same purposes, and would have saved much labor.

Pay checks were also issued by railroads, mining companies, manufacturers, and store-keepers in a large number of other cities. Shops and stores and places of amusement in the neighborhood of their issue generally accepted them, and it is, indeed, surprising, considering their variety, their liability to counterfeit, and their general lack of security, how little real difficulty was experienced in getting them to circulate in lieu of cash (Samples Nos. 19-24). Of these issues, whose total, doubtless, ran into the hundred millions, we have no statistical data whatever, except for the estimate in the case of Pittsburg.

So far as one can judge, the banks of the country have never in previous panics suspended payments with quite the same simultaneity as in 1907. In 1873 suspensions were at first confined to the banks of New York City, and, after an interval, "extended to other large cities, because the New York banks could not respond to the demands of their correspondents in those cities, and these, in turn, could not respond to the demands of their correspondents."1 In 1893 the interior banks got into trouble first, and sporadic failures, multiplying here and there, gradually forced other banks, and finally the New York banks, to a temporary restriction of payments." But in 1907 suspension occurred with considerable unanimity throughout the whole United States, and in many localities was adopted as a precautionary measure before any significant runs had been made upon the banks concerned.

The banks of New York City determined upon the issue of their clearing-house loan certificates on Saturday,

1 Report of the Comptroller of the Currency, 1873.

2 Evening Post, New York, April 4, 1908.

October 26, and on the following Monday, October 28, the associated banks of many other cities in all parts of the country followed their example. In several places, however, conditions hung fire for a couple of weeks, and substitutes for cash were not instituted until the week beginning November 11. This was the case in such widely separated cities as Charleston, S.C., Dallas, Tex., Canton, O., Council Bluffs, Ia., Joliet, Ill., Lexington, Ky., Harrisburg and Easton, Penn., and Topeka, Kan. In Cleveland, O., cash substitutes were not resorted to until more than a month after the outbreak of the panic, not, in fact, until December 3, but this was altogether exceptional.

The date of retirement given in the tables is neither exact nor uniform. In cities where banks to which loan certificates were issued failed during the panic, such certificates may have remained uncancelled long after the certificates of solvent banks had been taken up and retired. In cities also where the certificates and checks entered the general circulation and became scattered over wide territory, some may have remained outstanding for a considerable time after the notice of retirement was published. In fact, small amounts, lost or destroyed or taken by collectors, may never be presented for redemption. Some of the replies here tabulated indicate the date when the banks ceased paying out the devices or gave notice of their retirement; others represent the time when substantially all of the certificates and checks of solvent banks had been retired; only in a few cases do they record the time when the entire amount had been redeemed.

It is, perhaps, worthy of record in this connection that in New York the time elapsing between the first issue and the date of final cancellation of the certificates was twentytwo weeks, or three weeks longer than in the crisis of 1893. In Pittsburg, Los Angeles, and New Orleans the emer

gency currency was outstanding also for about five months; but such duration was clearly exceptional. In most places the notes and certificates were rapidly retired soon after the beginning of the new year; i.e., within eight or ten weeks after the date of their first issue.

Surveying the record as a whole, we have here definite figures for 334 millions of emergency currency issued during the panic of 1907, classified as follows:

Making a very moderate allowance for the cashiers' checks and pay checks issued in cities from which their amounts have not been reported, including many of the largest cities like New York and Philadelphia, we may safely place an estimate of the total issue of substitutes for cash above 500 millions. For two months or more these devices furnished the principal means of payment for the greater part of the country, passing almost as freely as greenbacks or bank-notes from hand to hand and from one locality to another. The San Francisco certificates, for instance, circulated, not only in California, but in Nevada and in south-eastern Oregon, some reaching as far east as Philadelphia, some as far west as the Hawaiian Islands. The banks of Pittsburg, on the other hand, reported remittances of certificates and checks, in denominations ranging from $1 up, from as scattered localities as Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Duluth, Philadelphia, Danville, Va., and Spokane. Most of this currency was

illegal, but no one thought of prosecuting or interfering with its issuers. Much of it was subject to a 10 per cent. tax, but no one thought of collecting the tax. As practically all of it bore the words "payable only through the clearing house," its holders could not demand payment for it in cash. In plain language it was an inconvertible paper money issued without the sanction of law, an anachronism in our time, yet necessitated by conditions for which our banking laws did not provide. During the period of apprehension, when banks were being run upon and legal money had disappeared in hoards, in default of any legal means of relief, it worked effectively and doubtless prevented multitudes of bankruptcies which otherwise would have occurred.

A. PIATT ANDREW.

Among the following samples of emergency currency Nos. 1-8 represent clearing-house certificates; Nos. 9-10, clearing-house checks; Nos. 11-15, cashiers' checks payable to bearer; No. 16, reserve agent exchange; Nos. 17-18, deposit certificates; and Nos. 19-24, manufacturers' pay scrip. For Nos. 6, 8, 15, 21, 22, 23, and 24 I am indebted to the collection of Mr. Theodore H. Price, of New York.