Nothing indicates the progress which the coloured people have made along material lines so well as the number of banks that have been started by coloured people in all parts of the South. I have made a special effort recently to learn something of the influence of these institutions upon the mass of the coloured people. At the present time there are no less than fifty-six Negro banks in the United States. All but one or two of them are in the Southern States. Of these fifty-six banks, eleven are in the state of Mississippi. Not infrequently I have found that Negro banks owe their existence to the secret and fraternal organizations. There are forty-two of these organizations, for example, in the state of Mississippi, and they collected $708,670 in 1907, and paid losses to the amount of $522,757. Frequently the banks have been established to serve as depositories for the funds of these institutions. They have then added a savings department, and have done banking business for an increasing number of stores and shops of various kinds that have been established within the last ten years by Negro business men. A special study of the city of Jackson, Miss., made shortly before I visited the city, showed that there were ninety-three businesses conducted by Negroes in that city. Of this number, forty-four concerns did a total annual business of about three hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars a year. But, of this amount of business, one contractor alone did one hundred thousand dollars’ worth. As near as could be estimated, about 73 per cent. of the coloured people owned or were buying their own homes. It is said that the Negroes, who make up one half of the population, own one third of the area of the city of Jackson. The value of this property, however, is only about one eleventh of the taxable value of the city. As nearly as could be estimated at that time, Negroes had on deposit in the various banks of the city almost two hundred thousand dollars. Of this amount, more than seventy thousand was in the two Negro banks of the city. I learned that most of these businesses had been started in the previous ten years, but, as a matter of fact, one of the oldest business men in Jackson is a coloured man, with whom I stopped during my visit to that city. H. T. Risher is the leading business man in his particular line in Jackson. He has had a bakery and restaurant in that city, as I understand, for more than twenty years. He has one of the handsomest of the many beautiful residences of coloured people in Jackson, which I had an opportunity to visit on my journey through the state. Among the other business enterprises that especially attracted my attention during my journey was the drug store and offices of Dr. A. W. Dumas, of Natchez. His store is located in a handsome two-story brick block, and although there are a large number of Negro druggists in the United States, I know of no store which is better kept and makes a more handsome appearance.