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Updated: May 13, 2025
The judicious legislation of Congress, securing the receivability of these notes for loans and internal duties and making them a legal tender for other debts, has made them an universal currency, and has satisfied, partially at least, and for the time, the long-felt want of an uniform circulating medium, saving thereby to the people immense sums in discounts and exchanges.
And now the most menacing monetary crisis occurred which the country had ever seen. In a little less or more than six months the Bank of the United States had shortened its line of discounts ten millions of dollars; and all the State banks in self-defence were compelled to follow the example of that great institution. Confidence ceased to exist.
Banks, without question, if rightly managed are, or may be, of great advantage, especially to a trading people, as the English are; and, among many others, this is one particular case in which that benefit appears: that they bring down the interest of money, and take from the goldsmiths, scriveners, and others, who have command of running cash, their most delicious trade of making advantage of the necessities of the merchant in extravagant discounts and premiums for advance of money, when either large customs or foreign remittances call for disbursements beyond his common ability; for by the easiness of terms on which the merchant may have money, he is encouraged to venture further in trade than otherwise he would do.
He is usually a sceptic, with a spontaneous interest in practical science. But the theologian "intends" his mind away from practicalities and towards mysticism. He is a professional believer in the supernatural; he discounts the value of merely "natural" phenomena.
They believe in paying their way and in being paid; in moral rectitude and yard wands not the millionth part of an inch too long; in yea and nay; in good trade, good purses, good clothes, and good language; in clear-headed, cool calculations; in cash, discounts, sobriety, and clean shirts; in calmness and close bargain driving; in getting as much as they can, in sticking to it a long while, and yet in behaving well to the poor.
It is a business custom, when a bill is paid before it is due, to allow a discount. This may be the legal rate of interest, or any percentage agreed on in advance. Sometimes wholesale merchants or manufacturers grant esteemed customers, in consideration of prompt payments, a discount from the regular prices. This is known as "trade discount." We often read of two or more discounts.
Buying in great quantities, they are enabled to send buyers regularly to the great manufacturing centers and leading sources of supply. Prices are low in proportion as orders are large, and ready cash secures the best trade discounts. To collect such a wealth of goods and have styles and qualities just right, means a good deal. It means that the whole range of merchandise must be known.
These revulsions must continue to recur at successive intervals so long as the amount of the paper currency and bank loans and discounts of the country shall be left to the discretion of 1,400 irresponsible banking institutions, which from the very law of their nature will consult the interest of their stockholders rather than the public welfare.
Jamie McMurtagh still continued his rather sidelong gait as he walked twice daily up State Street to the Old Colony Bank, bearing in a rusty leathern wallet anything, from nothing to a hundred thousand dollars, the daily notes and discounts of James Bowdoin's Sons. James Bowdoin and his father used to watch him occasionally from the window.
Babbitt and Ryland were fellow-members of the Boosters' Club, and no Booster felt right if he bought anything from another Booster without receiving a discount. But Henry Thompson growled, "Oh, t' hell with 'em! I'm not going to crawl around mooching discounts, not from nobody."
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