during the same period be represented by 1000, and the amount of each denomination of notes be proportionally ascertained; then place these two series of numbers in juxtaposition, and it will immediately be seen what denomination of notes remain out the longest. For instance, if the average amount of a banker's circulation consist of 20,0007. in 57. notes; 15,000l. in 107. notes; 10,000l. in 207. notes; and 50007, in 507. notes; then the proportionate numbers will stand thus:

Then if during the same period the amount of notes paid of different denominations have been-15,0007. in 57. notes; 15,000l. in 107. notes; 12,0007. in 207. notes; and 80007. in 50%. notes, the proportional numbers will stand thus:—

By placing these numbers under the preceding ones, it will be perceived that the amount of 51. notes paid is less than the proportional amount in circulation; and consequently, notes of this denomination remain out the longest; the 107. notes remain out a less time; the 207. a still shorter term; and the 50%. notes the shortest term of all.

To ascertain how long a banker's notes remain out, take the average amount in circulation for any given period, say three months; ascertain the amount of notes paid during that period. If the amount paid during the three months is twice the average amount in circulation, then the notes have remained out six weeks. If the amount paid is three times the amount in circulation, then the notes have remained out one month. The term which any particular denomination of notes remains in circulation can of course be ascertained in the way I have already described. These calculations are easily made by a table of logarithms.

In passing through the books a purchase of Annuities, debit the account of Annuities for the purchase money. Then calculate how much per annum the annuity will yield upon the capital invested, recollecting that the annuity will expire on the first quarter in the year 1860. Supposing this rate to be 4 per cent., you will, when the annuity is received in July or January, debit Annuity account 4 per cent. interest on the

purchase money, and credit the same account the amount of the annuity received. The first entry will be passed to the credit of Profit and Loss Account. The second entry will be passed to the debit of Cash Account, as a return of capital. The balance of the Annuity Account after each entry is made, will show the amount of capital that then remains invested in Annuities.

The stock brokers charge one-eighth commission on all purchases and sales of stock; one shilling per cent. on Exchequer Bills and India Bonds. The charges are made on the amount of stock, not on the amount of money invested.

If the stock stands in the name of several persons, any one may receive the dividends, but they must unite to execute a sale. If one or more of the parties die, the stock is transferred by the survivors, without the concurrence of the executors or representatives of the deceased party. Hence, if a father wished to give his son a certain amount of stock at his death, he might place the stock in their joint names, and upon his death his son would become the actual possessor of the property. Powers of attorney made and executed for the sale or transfer of stock must be deposited at the bank, for examination, before two o'clock, the day previous to being acted upon; if only for receiving dividends upon stock, it is sufficient to present the power of attorney at the time when the first dividend thereon becomes payable. A power of attorney for receiving dividends costs 58.; and for sale of stock, 11s. 6d.

The stamp duties for conveyance or transfer, whether on sale or otherwise, are:

(1.) Of any stock of the governor and company of the Bank £ s. d.

(3.) Of any debenture stock or funded debt of any company
or corporation:

For every 1007., and also for any fractional part of
1007., of the nominal amount transferred

026

The dividends on the 3 per cent. Consols are paid in January and July. The dividends on the 3 per cent. Reduced, and on the New 3 per cent., are paid in April and October. This last stock bore interest at 34 per cent. until October, 1854; it was then reduced to 3 per cent.; but the interest cannot be farther reduced until October, 1874.

The following quotations from Waterston's Commercial

Dictionary,* will serve to explain the operations connected with foreign bills of exchange:

"A foreign bill of exchange is an order addressed to a person residing abroad, directing him to pay a determinate sum of foreign money to the person in whose favour it is drawn, or to his order. The amount of foreign money, therefore, to be paid is fixed by the bill; but the amount of British money (or money of the country in which the drawer resides), to be given for the purchase of the bill, is by no means fixed, but is continually varying."

"Of the two terms of comparison between the money of one place and that of another, one is fixed, the other is variable. The place whose money is reckoned at the fixed price is, in commercial language, said to receive the variable price: the other is said to give the variable price. Hence the higher the exchange between any two places, the more it is in favour of that which receives the variable price; the lower, the more in favour of that which gives the variable price;-the exchange being said to be favourable or unfavourable to any place, according as a smaller or larger amount of the currency of that place is required for discharging a given amount of foreign payments. Thus London receives from Paris a variable number of francs and centimes for 17. sterling; and taking the par at 25 francs 34 centimes for 1., exchange will be 5 per cent. in favour of London when it rises to 26 francs 62 centimes, and about 5 per cent. against London when it falls to 24 francs 7 centimes."

"Bill merchants study the exchanges, not only between the place at which they reside and all other places, but also between all those other places themselves, by which means they are generally enabled to realize a profit by buying bills in one place and selling them in another;--in this way preventing any great fall in the price of bills in those countries in which the supply exceeds the demand, and any great rise in those countries in which the supply happens to be deficient. Sometimes exchange operations are conducted with little outlay of capital. Thus, if a bill merchant in London can sell a bill on Amsterdam at half per cent. premium, and buy one at Paris at half per cent. discount, and with the latter buy one at Paris on Amsterdam at par, he will have gained 1 per cent. by the transaction, without the employment of any capital;-the bill remitted from Paris to Amsterdam arriving in time to meet the bill drawn there upon his correspondent. Again, a bill merchant, in order to take advantage of a premium on the exchange, may obtain a credit abroad upon which he may draw bills, under the calculation that at some future and not very distant period he will be able to replace the funds at a lower rate of exchange, and thereby realize a profit by the operation. The central points for such transactions are Hamburgh, Amsterdam, Vienna, Paris, New York, and above all, London, the great money change of the world.” "In this country the buying and selling of bills on foreign countries is conducted by brokers, all such transactions centring in the metropolis. In London the days for the negotiation of foreign bills are Tuesdays and * A Cyclopædia of Commerce, Mercantile Laws, Finance, Commercial Geography, and Navigation, by William Waterston, Esq.

Fridays, the foreign post days, as they are still called. The brokers go round to the principal merchants, and discover whether they are buyers or sellers; and a few of the more influential, after ascertaining the state of the market, suggest a price at which the greater part of the transactions are settled, with such deviations as particular bills may be subject to from their high or low credit. For the bills they buy on one post-day, houses of established credit pay on the following post-day, when they receive the second and third bills of the set; foreign bills being usually drawn in sets of three. The brokerage charged on bills is 1 per mille, or one-tenth per

cent.

"On the evenings of Tuesdays and Fridays, the market rates for bills on all the principal foreign cities, with the current prices of bullion, are published in Wetenhall's 'Course of the Exchange." "

All bills are drawn in the money of the country in which they are to be paid.

We often find in the City Article of the Times, the Economist, and other journals, paragraphs like the following:—

The premium on gold at Paris is 7 per mille, which, at the English mint price of 3/. 17s. 10'd. per ounce for standard gold, gives an exchange of 25-32; and the exchange at Paris on London, at short, being 25-25, it follows that gold is 0·30 per cent. dearer in Paris than in London."

"By advices from Hamburgh, the price of gold is 435 per marc, which, at the English mint price of 31. 17s 10 d. per ounce for standard gold, gives an exchange of 13·104; and the exchange at Hamburgh on London, at short, being 13.10g, it follows that gold is 0 17 per cent. dearer in London than in Hamburgh."

"The course of exchange at New York on London is 1081 per cent.; and the par of exchange between England and America being 10923 per cent., it follows that the exchange is 108 per cent. against England; but the quoted exchange at New York being for bills at 60 days' sight, the interest must be deducted from the above difference."

The real par of exchange between two countries is that by which an ounce of gold in one country can be replaced by an ounce of gold of equal fineness in the other country. In England gold is the legal tender, and its price is fixed at 37. 178. 10d. per ounce. In France, silver is the currency, and gold, like other commodities, fluctuates in price according to supply and demand. Usually, it bears a premium or agio. In the above quotation, this premium is stated to be 7 per mille; that is, it would require 1,007 francs in silver to purchase 1,000 francs in gold. At this price the natural exchange, or that at which an ounce of gold in England would purchase an ounce of gold in France, is 25-32. But the commercial exchange-that is, the price at which bills on London would sell on the Paris Exchange-is 25 francs 25

cents., showing that gold is 0.30 per cent. dearer in Paris than in London. Tables have been constructed to show the results of each fluctuation in the premium of gold in Paris, Amsterdam, &c. &c.

It is useful sometimes to know how many persons enter a bank in the course of a day, and during what hours the greater number arrive. To do this, set a person in the hall, with a paper marked 9 to 10, 10 to 11, and so on. Then, when a person enters a bank between the hours of 9 and 10 o'clock, he will make a mark like a figure 1. This mark he will repeat as every additional person enters. He will go on in this way all through the day. When the bank closes, he will ascertain by counting the marks how many persons have entered the bank during each hour, and how many altogether. The cashiers should go to dinner during the hour in which the fewest people come to the counter. And if a clerk wants a day's holiday he should fix on the day in which the fewest people enter the bank. It is in this way that a man standing in the street is able to keep a register of the number of omnibuses that may pass him during the day.

"If you are a clerk in a public office, and are behind your time a quarter of an hour every morning, in three hundred days that will amount to seventy-five hours; more than equal at six hours a-day to a holiday of twelve days in the course of the year. A large number of small parts will make a great whole.

"The following anecdote proves, by multiplication, the importance of punctuality:

·

'A member of the Committee being a quarter of an hour behind the time, made an apology, saying, the time passed away without his being aware of it. A Quaker present said "Friend, I am not sure that we should admit thy apology. It were matter of deep regret that thou shouldest have wasted thine own quarter of an hour; but there are seven besides thyself, whose time thou hast also consumed, amounting in the whole to two hours-and one-eighth of it only was thine own property.'"

Banking Documents.--By banking documents, I mean reports, bonds, deeds, letters, or other writings, used in connexion with banking such as prospectuses, applications for shares, deeds of settlement, bonds of security by managers and clerks, declarations of secrecy by the same, agreements with reference to lodgment of deeds as securities, cash credit, bonds, certificates of shareholders, deeds of transfers, notices of calls for