The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1859-09-03

SIVop on llle Ddllk Ol Hartford, 1Or IN
stance village down in Egypt as difficult
Of access as the summit of Pixies Peak, and
where is his facility for ready conversion
into coin? Let him even hunt up the vii
bank is located, and then find the cashier,
and finally after a week toll, present his
bills The cashier tells him blsndly, cant
pay" He scours the county and finds
notary before whom he protests Then
he goes to Springfield and there is inform
ed that if his paper isn't redeemed in ten
DAYS, the auditor will redeem it and wind
up the bank. Meantime a very polite young
gentleman calls on him privately, and says;
you have $1,000 on the bank of Hart
ford, and want the hard?'
Exactly"
"Two-and a-halfper cent will make your
money as good as specie?'
Yes, sir
We'll, here are twenty-five dollars
Now go off and say no more about it.
The man, completely tagged out and
worn down, gladly accepts the offer, with
draws his protest and the bank goes ahead
again all right
Now, is any body so dull a. not to see
that it is not exchange to the merchant
or gold to the tax payer that is high priced,
but that our bank paper is low priced;
and that the reason why it is so is, because
the banks don't pay specie. 1t is the vi
ciousness Of our banking law, this allow
ing the banks ten days to redeem, and
this further allowing them to locate their
counters in inaccessible places.
Let any one sit down and figure for
himself out of how much the people of
/ Illinois are annually swindled by this dis
honesty of our banks. In the way Of
paying taxes alone the swindle cannot be
less than 5000; ard in the way of pur-
chasing exchange it must run up to hun
ircds of thousands.
All 81 Louis, at Cincinnati, Cleveland,
&c, exchange on New York Is worth to
per cent.-scldom higher because the
banks of those State. pay specie Oh de-
mand, and the merchant in buying ex-
change, therefore generally pays only the
expense of carrying coin between those
I points,
1t is needless to dwell on the injustice
and dishonesty Of this non-paying system
of the mass of our State banks Its plum
| The farmer is plundered, the mechanic
| and the merchant are plundered. And
not only these, but there are a few banks
/ in the State, located at prominent and
easily accessible points, that pay specie on
| demand, and these are in still greater
degree the victims Here is the City
Bank, Ottawa, for instance, which redeems
its bills on presentation. The farmer
about home boards its bills, for they are
as good as specie to him in paying his
taxes; the merchant boards them until
he wants to buy exchange; SO the bank
loses the advantage of a home circulation,
for the bills are constantly coming back
for redemption; and if it ventures to send
its bills off any distance the non-paying
robber banks gather them up, get the
specie on them, and send east to make eH
change Thus our few specie-paying banks
are robbed for their honesty; and the
whole tendency of the system, instead OF
being to keep the specie among Us, as the
plea went for having local banks, is to
drive it east and leave in place Of it a de
preciated paper that our own brokers re
fuse to take except at shave OF two OIL
three cents on the dollar,
The only remedy for the evil appears tc
be, to fellow the example Of New York
and other States, and compel our banks tc
: redeem their paper at the most prominent
business point i'll the State and that in ii
! linois means Chicago, at say to J discount
The matter was talked of in the legsla
ture last winter. but the banks had inhu
. ence enough in that body to defeat it. ]
will need outside pressure to overcom
the inside Influence Of the banks. Thi
= outside pressure can come only through
n thepeople taking the matter earnestly il
: hand and at the meeting of tho next leg
4 islature deluging that body with petition
t and in every other effective way demand
:. ing AZ their hands the needed reform {
e our vicious, plundering banking system