And now what have been the results? Every one knows {349} that these safeguards have proved anything but infallible. Every one knows that these banks with State-constitutions have been especially characterized by instability. Every one knows that credulous citizens, with a faith in legislation which endless disappointments fail to diminish, have trusted implicitly in these law-devised securities; and, not exercising their own judgments, have been led into ruinous undertakings. The evils of substituting artificial guarantees for natural ones, which the clear-sighted long ago discerned, have, by the late catastrophes, been made conspicuous to all. When commencing this article we had intended to dwell on this point. For though the mode of business which brought about these joint-stock-bank failures was, for weeks after their occurrence, time after time clearly described; yet nowhere did we see drawn the obvious corollary. Though in three separate City-articles of _The Times_, it was explained that, “relying upon the ultimate liability of large bodies of infatuated shareholders, the discount houses supply these banks with unlimited means, looking not to the character of the bills sent up, but simply to the security afforded by the Bank endorsement;” yet, in none of them was it pointed out that, but for the law of unlimited liability, this reckless trading would not have gone on. More recently, however, this truth has been duly recognized, alike in Parliament and in the Press; and it is therefore needless further to elucidate it. We will simply add that as, if there had been no law of unlimited liability, the London houses would not have discounted these bad bills; and as, in that case, these provincial joint-stock-banks could not have given these enormous credits to insolvent speculators; and as, if they had not done this, they would not have been ruined; it follows, inevitably, that these joint-stock-bank failures have been _law-produced disasters_.