Boston They send them on in packages by the stage drivers and by private passengers."

9. "Yes," said Marco, "you always bring packages for the storekeepers, when you come from Vermont."

10. "Now, let us suppose," continued Forester, "that all the traders into whose hands this nine hundred and eighty dollars of bank obligations came, owed the very importer who gave the thousand dollars' obligation to the merchant. They would send on these bills to him to pay their debt.

11. "Then these bank obligations would come into his hands; and when the four months come round, and the bank sends him word that his own obligation has become due, and that he must call and pay it, he takes twenty dollars out of his profits, made by selling the merchandise which he bought for the thousand dollars, and adds it to the nine hundred and eighty, which he received from the country traders, and thus makes up the sum which was due.

12. "He carries these bills to the bank, and ex changes them for his own note. Thus he gets back his obligation without paying any money for it. And the bank gets back its obligation too, without paying any money.

13. "The farmers, too, have sold their beef and paid their debts to the traders; and the traders have paid their debts to the importer. The traders have made their profits, and so has the merchant, and the importer, and the bank has made a profit of twenty dollars, and every thing is all settled.

14. "Thus the bank acts as an office for the general exchange and balancing of obligations, and perhaps, so far as this transaction goes, without using any money at all."

15. "Not any at all?" said Marco.

"Perhaps not, or, at least, only a very little.

There might be one farmer who would want to take his five-dollar bill and come to the bank and get his silver for it, for change; but these cases would be few.

16. "Bills come out of the banks in the shape of small obligations, given instead of the great ones of individual merchants.

17. "They go all over the country, and are paid to farmers for produce. They go from the farmers to the traders, and by the traders they are sent back to the merchants in Boston to pay their debts; and these merchants carry them to the banks, to give back in exchange for the great obligations, for which these bills of the banks were originally given.

18." Thus all is balanced and settled without the aid of money; that is, without the necessity of carting bags of gold and silver about the country. And this is one of the great classes of operations, which centre in State Street. So that a bank is an office for the exchanging and balancing the obligations of the community, with but very little transportation of coin to and fro.

19. "There is another kind of business which is done in State Street," said Forester. "Your father

wanted to send some money to me; there may have been a hundred other persons in New York, who wanted to send money to Boston, and there are probably a hundred in Boston, who want to send money to New York.

20. "Now, if all these people were actually to send the gold and silver, the heavy bags of coin would pass each other on the Sound; and as these payments have to be made every day, the heavy coin would only go back and forth continually to no purpose."

21. "How do they manage it, then?" said Marco.

"Why, now, here is your father, who wants to

send me two hundred and fifty dollars. Instead of getting the dollars, and putting them up in a bag, and sending them to me, he carries the money to a broker in Wall Street, New York, and pays it to him, and the broker puts the money with the rest of his money, in New York, and writes his draft, ordering the broker in Boston to pay me the money.

22. "If the Boston broker pays it, then the New York broker will owe him that sum. In the same manner, a great many others call on the New York broker every day, and pay him the money which they want to send to Boston, and take his drafts instead.

23. "Now, if the Boston broker pays all these drafts, the New York broker would be very much in his debt, were it not that he does just the same thing in Boston, which his correspondent does in New York. For the Boston people, who wish to send money to New York, come and pay him their money, and he gives them drafts on the New York

broker.

24. "Thus the two accounts balance each other, -only each broker makes a profit; for he requires every man who comes for a draft, to pay something for it, over and above the amount which the draft represents.

25. "There are a great many brokers and bankers in New York and Boston, and, in fact, in all other great commercial cities, and their drafts are all the time passing and repassing, while the money remains quietly in the vaults of the banks."

26. "Do the brokers keep their money in the banks?" asked Marco.

"Yes," replied Forester, "I suppose they do. Probably, when I carry this draft to the broker, he will not give me the money, but a check on some bank where he keeps his funds."

27. So Marco and Forester went to the broker's

office, and handed the draft to one of the clerks. The clerk read the draft, then turned it over and looked at the back, and then he looked at Forester. He seemed to hesitate a moment, and then he carried the draft to an elderly-looking gentleman, who was sitting at a desk at the back side of the office.

28. The gentleman looked up at Forester a moment, and then made a sign of assent, and the clerk wrote a check and carried it to this gentleman to sign. When it was signed, he handed it to Forester, and put the draft in a drawer.

29. As they went out, Marco wanted to see the check. Forester showed it to him, and he saw that it was drawn upon the Massachusetts Bank. They went down State Street to the bank, and presented the check and got bills for the amount.

30. After this, Marco and Forester went home. On their way, Marco said, "I know a great deal more about banks and bankers than I ever did before."

66

True," rejoined Forester; "but, after all, you know very little."

THE HOURGLASS.

1. MARK the golden grains that pass
Brightly through this crystal glass;
Measuring, by their ceaseless fall,
Heaven's most precious gift to all.

2. Pauseless till the sand be done,
See the silent current run;
Its task performed, its travel past,
Like mortal man, it rests at last.

3. Yet let some hand invert the frame,
And all its powers return again;
For all the golden grains remain,
To work their little hour again.

4. But who shall turn the glass for man, From which the golden current ran? Collect again the precious sand

Which Time has scattered with his hand?.

5. Bring back life's stream with vital power,
And bid it run another hour?

A thousand years of toil were vain,
To gather up one single grain.

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FURNISH YOURSELF WITH IDEAS.

1. THE way to attain an extensive treasure of ideas is, to read the best books, and converse with the wisest men, and suffer no hour to pass in idleness, or in impertinent, useless chattering.

2. There are some persons who never arrive at any valuable knowledge in either science, or in the business of life, because they are perpetually fluttering over the surface of things in a curious wandering search after an infinite variety.

3. They are ever reading, ever hearing, and ever asking after something new, but impatient of any labor, to lay up and preserve any ideas they have gained.

4. Their minds may be compared to a looking glass, that receives the images of all objects, whichever way it is turned, but retains none.

5. A love of reading should be cultivated; and care should be taken to select the very first order of