perhaps qualified them for the judicial office better at the time than three years' service in an attorney's office or lectures at the law-schools. The precedents they established have seldom been departed from by their successors, some of whom have all the advantages that study and education could give to great natural abilities trained by long and intelligent experience.

CHAPTER IV.

A LESSON IN BANKING.

THE Ownership of a few shares of stock and my neutrality in a controversy among the stockholders made me the president of a bank at a very early age. I was fortunate enough to retain the office until I entered the Treasury in the spring of 1861. Our bank redeemed its notes at the Suffolk Bank in Boston, and I became rather intimately acquainted with Mr. J. Amory Davis, the president of that venerable conservative institution.

In the "fifties" the profits of a country bank were made upon the sale of drafts upon the cities for a premium, or from the interest upon securities on which they issued their own bank-notes-in other words upon their circulation. For every outstanding bank-note the bank was supposed to hold some interest-earning security. This was in substance the same as the interest upon the circulation. Our bank with a capital of $150,000 was permitted by law to carry three dollars for one, or a limit of $450,000. But in order to maintain the credit of our bank, it was necessary to redeem our notes in coin in Boston as well as at the counter of the bank. In old times, before the Suffolk system, it was easy to carry a circulation. Now, with the expresses, railroads, and improved means of transportation, our notes went to Boston as if drawn by a magnet. We were fortunate

if our circulation averaged thirty days-that is, every bank-note paid out was redeemed in Boston once in about thirty days. If our whole circulation was, say, $100,000, we must place in the Suffolk Bank as much as $100,000 every thirty days.

Either because he commiserated my young inexperience or because he took a fancy to me, Mr. Davis gave me a large amount of useful advice and instruction in bank management. One day when we were alone in his room he said to me:

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'Would you like to know one way of distinguishing a rascal from an honest man when both are strangers?"

"I certainly would," I replied.

It

"I do not promise to give you any infallible rule," he continued. "The mind often acts upon impulse and without any apparent cause. If what I am about to tell you shall save your bank from even one loss, it will be worth remembering. You should observe any stranger and form an impression about him as soon as he enters your bank or your room. will be well to sit in your chair, facing the entrance. If a man enters with his head erect, looking straight before him, and walks to the desk or window and states his business without hesitation or circumlocution, he will usually turn out to be an honest man. But if he halts upon the threshold and looks to the right and to the left, scanning every person present as if he feared recognition-if he sidles up to the window edgewise, he is a man to be watched. If he is asked to be seated and turns to look at the chair as if he was afraid he might sit on something, it is almost certain that he is a bad man. You will notice other acts which I cannot describe from

which you will draw inferences. One rule I would

strongly recommend. against a stranger, do very strong evidence; it nothing to do with him. much value in what I am telling you, but I think its value will grow upon you."

If your first impression is not change it except upon is better as a rule to have There may not seem to be

I thanked Mr. Davis for his advice and remarked that his experience must be valuable to me. He was certainly right in one respect. It has grown upon me. The moment I see a stranger I cannot refrain from forming an opinion about his character.

Years afterward, one day when I was writing at my table in the directors' room, the card of a gentleman who wished to see me was handed me. As I said "Show him in," I raised my head and saw standing upon the threshold a man of clerical, even venerable aspect, apparently about sixty years old. He was well dressed, with well-blacked boots, dark gloves, a new silk hat and white cravat. His hair was oiled and plastered to his head. The moment I saw him the whole lesson of the Suffolk president flashed across my memory. "I will have nothing to do with you," I thought, though I could scarcely tell why, for except a sweeping glance which embraced every one in the room there was nothing suspicious in his appearance.

He came forward and presented two letters of introduction, one from my friend, the president of the Suffolk Bank, the other from Blake Brothers, our uncurrent money brokers in Boston. They were in similar terms. They knew the gentleman personally and well; he was a member of the old firm of lumbermen in Thomaston, Me., F & Co., with

whom the writers had long done business. F— & Co. had recently sold out their lumber interests in Maine for $260,000. They had purchased a quarry about fifty miles from Chicago, where they employed four hundred men in quarrying and dressing stone. We might find it profitable to do business with them. There was no doubt about their wealth, we could rely implicitly upon their statements, and the writers were very respectfully, etc., etc."

As I finished reading the second letter, the person asked if he could leave a package in our vault for a few hours. I said yes-called the teller, to whom he handed a package, in shape like bank-notes, marked $10,000 in the well-known writing of the cashier of a bank about thirty miles away. This disposed of, my gentleman opened his business.

"He had come to us," he said, "because our notes were well known and in general circulation in the town where their quarry was situated." This was

true, for we discounted $5,000 per month for a customer in business there. They had been paying their laborers in Maine currency, but they lost time in going to Chicago to exchange it; sometimes got drunk and lost the money. Our notes they would keep by them until paid out for living expenses. It would be better for the men-much better for their employers (this was rather far-fetched, but it would pass at a pinch). He wanted to arrange with us ultimately for $10,000 per month if we liked the business and the length of the circulation was satisfactory. This they would make at least sixty days. For this money they would give us drafts on Boston on thirty days' time. To start the business they would give us sight drafts on Boston for the first $10,000.