"The charters of the banks have been renewed. If the laws by which they are constituted the agents of the people to provide a currency, and by which their faithfulness in the discharge of such agency is secured, remain unchanged, there is every reason to believe that the currency of Massachusetts will be for the next twenty years what it has been for the twenty years past--as perfect as any in existence, as perfect as in the nature of things it can be. No reasonable man, no practical man, no man who is not bound hand and foot in the fetters of mere theory, can desire for the people a currency better adapted to meet all the circumstances of a business community than that which has been furnished by the banks of Massachusetts for the last quarter of a century." (James B. Congdon, cashier Merchants' Bank, New Bedford, in memorial to Governor of Massachusetts, 1851.) "We said that the Massachusetts currency was apparently unsecured. In reality their bank paper is well secured. The experience of the last fifteen years has demonstrated that the losses from bank issues in the State of New York are four or five times greater than in Massachusetts. The system of the latter is better than our own." (_New York Courier and Enquirer_, 1854.) "It is by no means wonderful that a system which has stood the test of time and struck its roots so deep as to have become incorporated with and formed a part of our banking system should be abandoned with hesitation for one which is new and untried." (Maine Bank Commissioners' Report, 1865.) "The State parts with these objects of her care and solicitude with many regrets, but with a just pride in their career, inspired by the belief that their capital has been highly instrumental in promoting the prosperity of the state, and that they have furnished as good a paper currency, based on individual credit, as any part of the country has ever enjoyed." (Massachusetts Banking Report, 1865.) MR. LAWYER: _If, as we have gradually come to understand and firmly believe, the true service of a bank is to furnish credit to its customers, as they want it, and in such form as they need it, then these institutions which you have been describing were certainly far better suited to the purposes of their day than any banks we now have in existence._ Two things seem to have been present in all of these various institutions: ample coin reserves, which ranged from 20 to 33 per cent, to meet any demand for credit redemption and perfect freedom in changing bank credits from the form of book credit to the form of note credit, and the form of note credit to the form of book credit, according to the desires and needs of the customers of those banks.