From 1840 to 1860 the note issue of the 510 banks in New England ranged from $30,000,000 to $57,000,000, and averaged $43,000,000, while the deposits ranged from $15,000,000 to $47,000,000, and averaged only $31,000,000, or the note issue was nearly 50 per cent greater than the deposits. The note issue then was the main feature of the banking business, precisely as it is at the Bank of France, and they started a Clearing House to clear the bank notes and it was called "The Suffolk Bank," where all the New England bank notes were cleared, precisely as New England checks and drafts are cleared today. New England was a free bank note zone before the war precisely as it is a free check zone today. All notes were par at Boston, as all checks are par today, and the Suffolk Bank, where the bank notes were cleared, was just as much a Clearing House as the one they have in Boston today, for clearing the checks and drafts. There is not the slightest difference between the two, and the fact that no one of you men recognized it as a Clearing House, convinces me that you do not yet fully comprehend and appreciate the fact that there is not the slightest difference between deposits subject to check, and a true credit currency, or a bank note issue. This is the great fundamental, economic truth, and unless you understand and recognize it, you might as well quit now. MR. BANKER: I thoroughly appreciate what you say, Uncle Sam, and I think we all do, but you have driven this matter home, so that I don't think we will ever forget it, or fail to apply it under such circumstances again, will we, boys? MR. LABORINGMAN: No, never. That discovery of Uncle Sam's was a centre shot, a real bull's eye. UNCLE SAM: The result of this evening's talk is then, as I recall it: _First_: There is no statutory authority for any Clearing House, either in England or the United States. _Second_: The first Clearing House started in London in 1775. The second Clearing House started in Boston in 1818 under the Suffolk Bank. The third started in New York in 1853. _Third_: Clearing country checks was established in London in 1857. New England became a free zone for country checks in 1899. _Fourth_: Clearing Houses without any authority of law have adopted the following functions: (_a_) They have fixed charges for services; (_b_) they have provided reserves for their convenience; (_c_) they have forced all those banks, which are members, and all those clearing through them to submit to examinations; (_d_) they have not only issued Clearing House certificates for use in settling balances, but for circulation as currency in denominations of $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, to meet the demands of trade. If you'll give them fifty years more, and will not interfere with them, they will in actual defiance of law reëstablish the currency system of New England before the war and now in operation in Canada.