Year: 1877

ouphlY examined before special elecIlon Is
called.


PROTECTION FOB BANK DEP0s1ToRs.


Our dispatches note the passage Of bill
for the protection of condding and defrauded
State bank depositors By the Illinois House
Of Representatives by the overwhelming
vote Of 90 yeas to only 80 nays. This is
fair reflex Of popular sentiment on this sub
ject, and we should think it would impel the
Senate to q prompt concurrence, notwith-
standing the greater influence which the
bankers are alleged to exert in that body.
We cannot conceive Of honest State bankers
opposing this measure. It cannot possibly
affect them injurious1y. It simply reaches
fraudulent bankers. It simply provides that
man who steals money under the name Of
banker shall be punished by imprisonment
in the Penitentiazy, like any other thief.
There is nothing SO sacred about the calling
Of the banker that he should be exempt from
punishment when he robs. In pointof fact,
he is rather more infamous, if anything
than the burglar or lighwayman, be-
cause he steals under the cloak Of hon.
esty, and betrays the confidence Of his
fellow-men. The objection to the clause
making the acceptance Of deposits within
thirty days primo .Jacie evidence Of an in
tent to defraud as being too severe is not
wel1-founded. In ordinary times it is prinaa
.faeie evidence of an attempt to defraud. This
clause merely forms the foundation Of an in
dictment and trial; if there has been no in-
tention to defraud, aud the deposits were &C
cepted in the belief that the banker was SOL
vent, the books will show whether that is
true. If sudden suspension is made neces-
sary by unforeseen accident, as during the
panic of 1873, the Courts will take cognizance
of it. This bill simply enables the people to
reach the fraudulent bankers who are con-
stantly robbing them, and indirectly it will
be a protection and benefit to the banks and
bankers who do IN honest business.


The operation Of this bill, if it become
law, will be especially beneficial in protect
ing that large class of people who work
hordest for their money and place their sur
plus earnings in private and Swings banks.
In large city like Chicago there are So
called Swings banks scattered in all quarters.
Most of them are started without capital,
and operate entirely on the confidence and
deposits Of their customers. If their invest
ments are good they make money; if not, it
is their depositors who lose it. Most of
these concerns are close corporations, gen.
orally run by one man who bullies ignorant
men and weak women, who pleads the sixty
day statute on the slightest provocation,
whom the bankers generally know nothing
about, who takes in all the money he can get,
no matter what the condition OF his bank
may be, and who sooner or later closes his
doors and swindles everybody who has
trusted him. We speak now of the small,
obscure concerns who solicit business by
scattering circulars about the streets, offer
ing interest on deposits they cannot afford
to pay, and controlled by men who
have no standing in the CONNER
cial OF financial community. Scarcely
month passes in large city when some
such concern does not collapse, showing its
manager or manipulation to have robbed his
depositors. Under our State laws there is
no way of examining accurately into the af-
fairs Of these two-penny schemes for plum
dering the workingmon, the clerks, the
seamstresses, the ignorant, feeble, md poor.
It is high time there should be way to pun
ish them. Their crime is as black, henious,
and sneaking rs any defined in the calendar,
and if u few of them could be consigned to
the Penitentiary, where they belong, their
number could be materially diminished and
their opportunities for fraud considerably
contracted. The actual conviction of some
of the scoundrels who deceive the unwa1y
and plunder the unsuspecting under high
sounding name they give to their institu-
tions would soon purify the banking bust
ness of the frauds that attach themselves to it.