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THE CHICAGO BANKER
July 4, 1908]
A Klondike Novel
This is the season of the year to read Klondike tales. A new novel just out deals intimately with conditions in Alaska, and is an entertaining story besides. “Delilah of the Snows,” by Harold Bindloss. is one of the best this successful writer has given us. Life in the far North, in the mining communities, is treated successfully.
The hero of the story is a man exiled by the indirect consequences of his championship of the people. He drifts to Alaska, where he stakes a claim, taking as his “partner” a socialist leader whose ardor and personality arouse in him the strongest affection. They go through the vicissitudes of hope and despair, discover gold, and have difficulty in holding it,, encounter the strong arm of the law, and escape death by sheer grit and unselfish courage. The love story is particularly interesting. The consequences of the two companions finding themselves in love with the same woman are related with skill and subtlety.
Published by Frederick A. Stokes Co., New
A New Mystery Story
A mystery story has attractions for most persons far beyond romance or historical episode, but writers of such are not plenty. The difficulties are many. Transparency is the one unforgivable thing in such a plot. The great “Leavenworth Case” was a fact more than a creation and constitutes a literary try-stone from which all detective novels are judged. The “Hemlock Avenue Mystery,” by Roman Doubleclay, is the newest and almost the best of its kind. The mystery attached to the death of a prominent lawyer, an indictment against another member of the uar, based on circumstantial evidence, furnish the theme of this engrossing story, pronounced one of the best detective novels since the famous “Leavenworth Case.”
Published by Little, Brown & Co., Boston.
A Book for Young Girls
A delightful, dainty new novel by L. M. Montgomery, suitable for young girls, has come from the press of L. C. Page & Co., of Boston. Every one, young or old, who reads the story of “Anne of Green Gables,” will fall in love with her, and tell their friends of her irresistible charm. In her creation of the young heroine of this delightful tale Miss !Montgomery will receive praise for her fine sympathy with and delicate appreciation of sensitive and imaginative girlhood.
The Story would take rank for the character of Anne alone; but in the delineation of the character! of the old farmer, and his crabbed, dried-up spinster sister who adopt her, the author has shown an insight and descriptive power which add much to the fascination ot the book.
“The Money God’’
This little book consists of chapters upon the business methods and mercenary ideals of American life. Prof. John C. Vandyke is the author and he is something of a scold with ideas not flattering at all to the prosperous classes. His chief divisional subjects are “The Struggle for Money”; “Commercialized Professions”; The Millionaire Trustee”; “Legislative Helps,” and “Business Aids.”
Published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, at $1.00.
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Henry Beck was recently elected vice-president of the Peoples National of Aspen, Colo., to succeed V. R. Kobey, and R. C. Parr, cashier, to succeed E, F. Pumphrey.
Punished in the End
The “Law of Life,” by Anna McClure Scholl, was so good and so true that it prepared a reception almost equal to its merit for her latest book, “The Greater Love.” The doctrine that there is no escape for the violator of moral laws ought to appeal to the banker who believes that he who tipples with deposit funds must eventually pay the penalty. Here is the outline of the engrossing tale:
Eleanor Valgrave was a high-spirited American girl who fretted in her leading strings at home and went to Paris to be an artist. Here she met her fate in an English officer who was tied to an insane wife. Love prevailed over law, and the couple lived together. When Baby Constance came Eleanor refused longer to live with Valgrave. He went abroad and died in Africa, leaving a fortune to Eleanor and his child. His wife had died meantime and his last letters promised marriage. Eleanor devoted her life to her daughter, reared her to be a sweet and innocent girl, concealing the pitiful story of her birth. When she is about grown her mother brings her to her relatives in America. Malice reveals her history. An advantageous marriage offers, but it is impossible if her mother remains with her. So, beaten in her life struggle, Eleanor goes back alone to Paris, and the story ends with wedding bells. The tale is told with skill and one’s sympathy is enevit-ably with the mother, but the author never lets one lose sight of the scales of eternal justice, whose law is that who sins must pay.
Outing Publishing Co., New York. Price.
A Book of Animal Stories
Prof. Roberts’ books are books of nature and appeal strongly to boys. They relate to animal life, the woods, the plains, and now comes “The House in the Water,” dealing with the beaver in principal.
Professor Roberts’ new book of nature and animal life is one long story in which he tells of the life of that wonderfully acute and tireless little worker. “The Boy” and Jabe, the Woodsman, again appear, figuring in the story even more than they did in “Red Foxand the adventures of the boy and the beaver make most absorbing reading for young and old.
The following chapter headings for “The House in the Water” will give an idea of the fascinating reading to come: The Sound in the Night (Beavers at Work) ; The Battle in the Pond (Otter and Beaver) ; In the Under-Water World (Home Life of the Beaver) : Night Watchers (“The Boy” and Jabe and a Lynx See the Beavers at Work) ; Dam Repairing and Dam Building (A “House-raising” Bee) ; The Peril of the Traps (Jabe Shows "The Boy”) ; V inter under Water (Safe from All but Man) ; The Saving of Boy’s Pond (“The Bo}r” Captures Two Outlaws).
Published by L. C. Page, Boston, at $1.50.
A Book for the Huntsman
All who have hunted with rod, trap, or gun, or who expect to hunt, should possess Richard D. Ware’s book for sportsmen entitled “In the Woods and on the Shore,” published by L. C. Page, of Boston. Mr. Ware tells his experiences in a series of delightful chapters supplemented by nearly one hundred full-page engravings. The chapter headings are: With the Newfoundland Stags; The Black Moose; Shore Bird Shooting; The Beach; Wild Fowl Decoying; Two Bears; Opening of the Season; Trout; Brant Shooting; Battery Shooting; and the Hunter. The binding, the letter press, the illustrations, all, are superb. It is useful and ornamental as well. Published by L. C. Page, Boston, at $2.00.
Section 12 provides that circulating notes of national banks shall, when presented to the Treasury, be redeemed in lawful money of the United States. The total amount of emergency currency which may be issued when all conditions are complied with is $500,000,000; and, so far as may be, this shall be distributed in the proportion that the capital and surplus of the national banks in each state bears to the total amount in the United States. No bank shall exceed in its total circulation the amount of its unimpaired capital and surplus.
The notes are to be prepared from new plates stating upon their face that they are secured by United States bonds or other securities, and provision is made for a supply for each bank to be kept on hand, amounting to 50 per cent of the capital stock, such notes to be held in the Treasury or in the subtreasury nearest the place of business of each association.
Provision is made that no less than 1 per cent per annum on the average monthly amount of the United States deposits shall be paid by national banks upon all special and additional deposits; I do not understand that this applies to the regular running accounts of the government with its regular depositories. The reserve required to be kept on other deposits is eliminated on government deposits.
The law further provides for a commission, to be called the national monetary commission, to be composed of nine members of the senate and nine members of the house, appointed in each case by the presiding officer. It shall be the commission’s duty, after thorough investigation, to report to Congress at the earliest date practicable, what changes are necessary and desirable in the monetary system and the laws relating to banking and currency. The law expires by limitation Tune 30, 1914.
It is plainly evident that operation of the law will be confined principally to the cities, as there the organization of currency associations will be least difficult, and it appears that it will not be of much practical benefit to the country banker except indirectly, as he may diiTtte5¥^־־rre''advantage through the ability of his city correspondent to make use of its provisions. The high tax will bar the use of the emergency circulation except in cases of extreme necessity, and it seems that not very much progress has been made toward a truly elastic currency which will easily and readily expand and contract to meet the requirement’s of commerce without waiting for an emergency situation. On general principles, it probably is better than no law at all, and there is no doubt that, in the conflict of individual opinion, it is the best law which it was possible to pass at this time; but the fact that it shall expire by limitation in six years evidences that it is only a make-shift, and it is to be hoped that the commission will evolve a plan to revise our whole currency system and put it on a scientific basis consonant with modern methods which are in evidence in almost every other department of commerce and
Third National, St. Louis
A new booklet has been sent out by the Third National of St. Louis, descriptive of it-, new banking rooms in its new skyscraper building. Deposits are over thirty millions and still going up. The new officers for the bank set a new mark for St. Louis and are in first rank among all banks. As in the old banking room President Charles H. Huttig’s office is at one side of the main entrance and that of G. W. Galbreath on the other. The caller at the Third National does not have to tell his troubles to a policeman. The chief officials are up front and at all times accessible -—a valuable asset to a growing bank.