Five other banks were established with the power of establishing branches. These mother banks, six in number, were great institutions, and held the complete confidence of the people. The law did not require that they should keep any reserves and they kept none, except the specie held in their vaults to redeem their notes. The law provided that the total amount of paper circulation of these banks should _never exceed five times the amount of the coin in possession and actually the property of the bank_. If the coin of the bank was reduced below one-fifth of its circulation, it was required to stop all discounts until the ratio was restored. As a matter of fact some of the banks issued as high as 8 to 1. The banks at such times kept their coin reserve up by keeping the discounts down. The banks of Virginia from 1827 to 1860 had a prosperous period, keeping on an average $10,000,000 of notes in circulation without loss. It is reported that occasionally drafts drawn on New York were placed in the safe to make up a balance, and called "coin." Be that as it may, there is no case on record where a bank of circulation and deposit failed, and it is claimed by those acquainted with the banking of that day that no one ever lost a dollar by a Virginia bank note previous to the war of 1861, and they were at a discount of only one-quarter of one per cent in New York. On Jan. 31, 1860, the capital was $16,000,000, specie was $2,943,000, circulation was $9,812,000, deposits $7,729,000. The Bank of the State of Missouri was started in 1837, with authority to issue notes at the ratio of three to one for the specie in its vaults, and with a branch at each of five considerable towns in different sections of the state; Lexington, Fayette, Palmyra, Cape Girardeau and Springfield. Its capital was $3,450,000. In 1856, when the population of Missouri was eight hundred and forty thousand and that of St. Louis one hundred and twenty-five thousand, and the indications of substantial prosperity were to be seen in every department of business, the bank circulation was only $2,200,000, although its stock of $1,400,000 specie warranted notes to the amount of $4,200,000, and a considerable part of its circulation was doing duty in California, Oregon and New Mexico, whither it had been carried by emigrants and traders. It is no wonder that under these circumstances Missouri offered an inviting field for the "Wild Cat" money issued so profusely by banks in other western states and that its people became victims of an inconvertible and unreliably currency, which the bank note reporter quoted at a discount all the way from 5 to 25 per cent. So valuable were the notes of the banks of the State of Missouri in California in the '50's that a gang of counterfeiters took advantage of their popularity, and struck off imitations of them in large quantities.