home, and that the loans, being offered through brokers, really cost about ½% more than was apparent on their face. It is frequently interesting and instructive to examine the character of collateral behind loans, and find out how large a percentage of this collateral consists of stocks and like securities. Our stock market might appear to be in a sold out condition, when, in reality, a very bad technical condition obtained. The purely marginal speculative account in New York City, or other important centers, is carried on under certain flexible rules or customs as to the amount of money loaned on certificates; but in cases where securities have been widely purchased for cash by small holders, and, in the event of general tightness in money or depression in business, made the basis of loans in country banks, but we have, in fact, a very weak _marginal_ public account. The home banker will loan more liberally to his townsmen and will scrutinize the movements of prices or the stages of the market less closely than the city banker, and the certificates owned by small holders and deposited as collateral may, in the aggregate, represent an enormous line of shares. It would be quibbling to say that this situation represented anything less serious than a weakly margined public line. If the market declined materially, the bankers would be forced, in self-protection, to call for more collateral, and the result would depend, as in all other cases, on the ability of the individual holder to take care of himself. Such a condition existed in U. S. Steel stocks in the depression of 1903, and was pointed out at the time by the writer. The knowledge obtained was based barometrically on information obtained from a number of bankers in different localities.