Year: 1869

that the number of deposi,ors nearly doubled


and the total amount on deposit TO their credit


ran up one hundred and twenty-five per cent


Thus, in defiance Of the Com m lssioper's facts.


heartily as they are indorsed by the gentleman
from Ohio, the returns from savings banks
prove that with our labor protected and cheap
and expanded currency, our small farmers and


wCrkingmen have been able to lay up hundreds
of mill ons OF capital upon which they receive
interest and for their support in age or adver
sity. They are happily corroborated by other
facts, which in striking maUner prove the
superiority of the present condition Of the
classes of people TO which ! allude over that TO
which the Special Commissioners of the Revenue
would lead them back.


Mr. Kelley then reve wed the Life Insur anee
business in similar manner, and continued


1t IS not improper Mr.. Chairman, that in Con-
clading this branch OF my subject should
say that have presented no statement which
Is not warranted by official Endorsement, and
that l hesitate not to assert that could the
business OF the savings banks and life insurance
companies OF the whole country be investi-
gated the results would conform TO those
have produced. They are truly surprising,
and should they, through our widely difused


periodicals., find their way across the watere,
will prove an abundant autidote to the Com


miss oner's notice to these who have thought


OF emigratng to this country but who desire
to live in wedlock, that they may not hope to


DO so under the leglsatio OF that Congress


which has for several years been in such aoso-
lutte government OF the )untry as to render the


veto power of the Executive nugatory. They
are, in my Judgment, important enough to


some eeS sSo upon the Sea OF the
are saving and putting at interest hundreds OF
nj lions of dollars annually, and th at the people
at large are paying from their Guidance more.
largely more, than the interest on our national
debt to lie insurance companies. as o provision
for their widows and orphans when they shall
no longer be able to provide for and protect
them.


| The Commissioners theory that our legisla-
| tion is making the rich richer aud the poor
poorer is that which was hurled at US by every
copperhead orator., from Horatio Seymour
countered 1t in every Rebel paper in the south,


and there we're those who feared that it might
| produce an effect upon the popular mind.
| was not one of them. The American people are
intelligent enough 10 know when they have the
toothache or are involved in a lawsuit, or are
being stripped of property through the medium
of a shGrih's sale, and remembe beriug the disas-
ters of the last free-trade aud hard-mouey era
OF the country. contTasted 1t with their present
condition and relied confidently upon their
Judgment. In order to test the accuracy of my


memory and judgment on this point, appealed
during the canvass TO the statistics of my own


city, and among other telling facts found, as


have already told you, that in 1860 the Sheri q
OF ofPhladelphia had received seventeen hundred
and forty writs for the sale of real estate, and
that in 1857 he had received but seven hundred
and six-a decrease OF more thaa sixty per
cent, although the population of the city had
increased more than forty per cent What


makes this fact more significant is, that under


our system of selling land under ground rents
the purchase of homestead is the savings


bank of the Philadelphia workingman. ! also


ascertained the number OF suits that were in


stituted in the years l857-5S- SO and 1865-66 and


1867, respectively, in our local courts. The
evidence from this source ls not less significant
| than any that has preceded 1t. The Court of
Common Pleas is emphatically the poor mans


court. 1t obtains jurisdiction by appeal from
the judgments of magistrates, aud the amount


at issue before its jury Is for sums less than
$l00. The result of my Investigation showed
that the number of the suits brought in the


latter years, notwith, tauding the Increase of
population which had taken place. was but
little more than one half the number instituted


in the former period The figures are rs fol-
loWs:-