THE TOTAL DIVIDENDS PAID IN THE UNDERMENTIONED YEARS, WERE as follows:

The above dividends are payable in January, all in Boston-excepting the Peterboro' and Shirley Railroad, at Charlestown, and the Worcester and Nashua Railroad, at Worcester, but a large portion of these are owned in Boston or the immediate vicinity. The dividend of the Berkshire Railroad is a quarterly one, at the rate of 7 per cent per annum.

The dividends of July, 1855, are also given, for comparison, but such corporations as have passed two or more dividends, are omitted. Among these are the Boston and Providence, Cape Cod, Eastern, and Fitchburg railroads, and the Chicopee, New England Worsted, Manchester Mills, and Middlesex Manufacturing companies. The payments of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company, Fishing Bounties, and Western Railroad Sinking Fund, are annual. The Cheshire Railroad paid a two per cent dividend in bonds in July last, but omits a dividend for January.

CONDITION OF THE PHILADELPHIA BANKS, JANUARY, 1856.

We give below a statement of the condition of the several banks in the city of Philadelphia on the 4th of January, 1856 :—

Bills

Specie.

Name.

Circulation.

Due depositors.

discounted.

Philadelphia Bank.....

Bank of Pennsylvania.

Bank of Commerce....

Manuf. & Mechanics' Bank..

CONDITION OF THE BANKS OF MASSACHUSETTS IN 1855.

From the Annual Abstract, exhibiting the condition of the banks in Massachusetts on the fourth Saturday of August, 1855, prepared from official returns by Hon. EPHRAIM M. WRIGHT, Secretary of that Commonwealth, we compile the subjoined summary. This "abstract" is a document of 118 pages, and gives a detailed statement of the condition of each bank in the State.

The number of banks in Massachusetts, according to this statement, is 169; of which 37 are located in Boston, and 132 out of Boston. We should not forget in this connection to acknowledge our indebtedness to Mr. LOVETT, the efficient Assistant Secretary of State, for his uniform courtesy and kindness for the last ten or more years, in furnishing us with valuable documents. Mr. Lovett has been connected with the State department of the Commonwealth for fifteen years,

and a more faithful public officer is not, we venture to say, connected with any State government in the Union.

AGGREGATE CONDITION OF THE BANKS IN AND OUT OF BOSTON :

Total amount due from banks.. $65,183,890 10 $51,571,859 53 $116,755,749 63

Average dividend of thirty-six banks in Boston from which the amount is returned in October, 1854, is 3.57 per cent; of thirty-seven banks in April, 1855,

is 3.89 per cent.

Average dividend of one hundred and thirteen banks out of Boston in October, 1854, is 3.85 per cent; of one hundred and twenty-two banks in April, 1855, is 3.90 per cent.

Average dividend of one hundred and forty-nine banks in and out of Boston in October, 1854, is 3.69 per cent; of one hundred and fifty-nine banks in April, 1855, is 3.89 per cent.

Average dividend of one hundred and forty-one banks in the State April, 1854, is 4.06 per cent.

The capital stock of the Brighton, Market, City, Worcester, Fairhaven and Marine banks, was increased, at the session of 1855, $100,000 each, and the Milford Bank, Ocean, Newburyport, Rockport, and Union Bank, Haverell, were increased at the same time $50,000 each. The Cape Ann Bank, Gloucester, capital $150,000; Cape Cod, Harwich, $100,000; and the Mutual Redemption, Boston, $3,000,000, chartered by the Legislature in 1855, are not embraced in the foregoing abstract.

This includes all sums whatsoever due from the banks not bearing interest, their bills in circu lation, profits, and balances due to other banks excepted.

Including notes, bills of exchange, and all stocks and funded debts of every description, excepting the balances due from other banks.

SAVINGS BANKS IN MASSACHUSETTS.

In 1854 there were in Massachusetts seventy-three, and in August, 1855, eighty savings institutions. Savings banks have since been chartered in Foxborough and Holyoke, and Five-Cent Savings Banks have also been chartered in Cape Cod, Fall River, Lynn, New Bedford, Plymouth, Salem, Shelburn Falls, and Stoneham. The rate of dividend in 1854 was 4.04 per cent, and in 1855 it was 4.97 per cent. The average annual per cent of dividends for the five years ending in 1854 was 7.28, and for the five years ending in 1855 it was 6.75 per

cent.

AGGREGATE CONDITION OF SAVINGS BANKS IN MASSACHUSETTS IN 1854 AND 1855:

The savings institutions in Massachusetts have generally been managed with discretion. The large and increasing amount deposited in these institutions— chiefly the savings of servants and the laboring classes-speaks well for the industrial condition of the people of that thriving and frugal State.

CHANGE IN THE CURRENCY OF CHINA.

In the Merchants' Magazine for December, 1855, (vol. xxxiii., page 725,) we noticed the project of an iron currency in China. Since the publication of that. article, a correspondent, residing at Shanghai, writes that a proclamation has been issued by his Excellency Chaow, Superintendent of Customs, which decrees that all dollars, whether of old or new coinage, shall circulate at par on and after the Chinese new year, which is the 17th day of February next. This decree is of great importance to American Commerce, as heretofore all duties had to be paid in Spanish (usually designated" Carolus ") dollars, which, in consequence of the comparatively small number in circulation, always command a high premium.

THE ADOPTION OF THE DECIMAL CURRENCY IN ENGLAND.

It has been finally decided to introduce the decimal currency all over the United Kingdom. The pound will be retained as the unit, and divided into one thousand parts. The half-crown will be abolished the shilling fifty, the sixpence twentyfive, and a new coin will be introduced representing five farthings, while the present farthing will be depreciated one-twenty-fifth in value-that is, there will be a thousand to the pound sterling, instead of nine hundred and sixty.

THE UNITED STATES BRANCH MINT, SAN FRANCISCO.

The Alla California furnishes the subjoined statement of the operations of the Branch Mint at San Francisco from the 1st of January to the 1st of December,

Total......... 16,783,500 $90,000 $305,000 $19,800 $2,201,966 41 $88,782 50

Showing a total gold coinage for the eleven months of 1855 of $20,489,048 91. The silver coinage same period amounted (half-dollars and quarters) to $164,075. Total coinage, $20,653,123 91.

Amount of gold deposited from the 1st of January, 1855, to the 1st of December, 1855, exclusive of from 22d March to 8th of May, 1855, at which time the last annual settlement was made:

Ounces..

1,174,443.48 | Value of same about... $21,374,871 70

COLLATERAL SECURITY FOR A BANK LOAN.

At a recent (1855) session of the Circuit Court in Rhode Island, Judge Curtis decided a case of some interest to Banks loaning money on collateral security. John Lockwood and others were plaintiffs, and the Traders' Bank of Newport defendant. We quote a summary of the case and the decision of the Judge, from a cotemporary :

"The Bank had loaned the plaintiffs $5,000 on the pledge of one hundred shares of stock in the Newport Gas Light Company, to be returned on the payment of the draft discounted. Pending the maturity of the draft, the Bank delivered the stock to Henry Bull, upon his written promise to return it to the Bank seasonably. Bull surrendered the stock to the company, and obtained new certificates in his own name, and transferred them to the Bank in blank.

"The Bank forwarded them to New York, where the plaintiff's draft was payable, but they refused to receive them, and allowed the draft to be protested. The Bank then sold enough of the stock to reimburse the loan and expenses, and notified the plaintiffs that the balance of it was subject to their order. The plaintiffs sued the bank, claiming that they were not bound to receive the new certificates in place of those left by them with the bank. They also contended that an election in the Gas Company was claimed to be illegal in a petition filed in the Supreme Court of the State.

Judge Curtis decided that the stock itself was something that was not tangible and visible, and therefore could not have been left with or demanded from the bank-that the certificates were, in both the delivery to the bank and the tender

by the bank, the evidence of title to the stock; that the certificates tendered by the bank being perfect evidence of such title, the plaintiffs had no right of action, and that as to the contested election, whatever might hereafter be decided as to its validity, it was sufficient as between the parties to this suit, that the directors elected had acted as such. He therefore non-suited the plaintiffs."

CONDITION OF THE BANKS OF BALTIMORE, JANUARY, 1856.

The condition of several banks in Baltimore on the 1st of January, 1856, is given in the subjoined table, and totals of all the banks near the first of January for the last five years :—

BANKING MOVEMENT OF BALTIMORE, JANUARY 1.

The formation of institutions known under the title of "Credit Mobilier," is progressing very fast on the continent, and promises to extend to every state in Europe. The profits realized by the original institution in Paris, France, and the many facilities which it has afforded the shareholders of realizing extraneous profits, by means of a preferential distribution of shares in such public undertakings as it has been the means of forming, have contributed very greatly to the success of precisely similar projects in other countries. By the accounts received from the continent we learn that the subscriptions to the Credit Mobilier at Vienna, have already reached the sum of 644,666,000 florins-about $322,000,000-whilst the progress of the negotiations for the formation of one at Madrid is said to promise equal success.

METHOD OF PREVENTING THE ALTERATION OF BANK BILLS,

We frequently have occasion to notice in the pages of the Merchants' Magazine, some new invention to prevent counterfeiting and altering notes and bank bills, but none of these inventions have as yet proved entirely successful. The rogues