dividends to go to it. The loans were to be apportioned in the counties according to the number of voters.
The Committee on Banks, in their report of December, 1843, said: "There never was, perhaps, a set of banks that have done so much business and sustained fewer losses than the Kentucky banks within the last two years." In the following year the same committee said: "Your Committee do not believe that there has existed, at any former period in the history of the State, a system of banking under its authority more eminently successful in establishing a currency free from fluctuation, and in affording the surest guarantees to the holders of its circulation than the present; or which more fully possess the public confidence."
A committee was appointed, January 20, 1844, to inquire of the banks what loans they have made under the act of March 8, 1843; whether they mean to call twenty per cent. of the loans, as the law allows; on what terms they will grant renewal and delay; whether they cannot increase their circulation.
The right to issue notes under $5 was extended to the banks for the duration of their charters, January 21, 1846.
In 1850, the charter of the Southern Bank of Kentucky was extended to 1880, provided that no interest should be paid to the bank on the State scrip issued to it, so long as it held the same; and that it should pay the interest on the scrip if it should sell it.
Ohio.—In January, 1842, the irritation against banks, on account of troubles with the circulation, led to a riot in Cincinnati, in which two or three banks had their books, papers, and furniture destroyed. There were runs on these banks, not for specie, but for some paper better than their own. The militia were called out and some persons were wounded, but the militia acted very unwillingly.[1] The next day there was a similar riot in Louisville.
January 21, 1842, the Legislature passed resolutions exhorting the neighboring States to resume specie payments, and pledging Ohio to do the same. In the first months of 1842, a number of bank charters were repealed or annulled. February 18th, an act was passed that banks not redeeming their notes shall be held to have forfeited their charters; they are prohibited from assigning. The Bank Commissioners are to apply for injunction, or the note-holders may do so, the facts to be found by a jury. Debts are divided into two classes,—those which, according to the contract, are to be paid in depreciated notes, and those not so payable by the contract. In the first case, the bank notes are allowed as a set-off, the jury to decide the facts. In the second case, no bank notes are allowed as a set-off, but payment must be in gold or silver. Notes redeemed by the receivers are to be burned. In case of an appeal by the bank of a suit against it, if the plaintiff gets as much on appeal as before, the bank is to pay twenty-five per cent.
- ↑ Gouge; Journal of Banking, 232.
