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In May, 1837, not less than eight hundred banks in the United States suspended payment, refusing a single dollar to the Government whose deposits of $30,000,000 they held, and to the people in general who held $120,000,000 of their notes. No specie whatever was in circulation. The country was deluged with small notes, colloquially termed shinplasters.
And now that the bank is to change its charter, there'll be a lot of fuss and worry; it'll be a good time to go away." "Change its charter?" "Ay, Jamie; we've got to give up being a state bank, and go in under the new national law to issue shinplasters to pay for beating the rebels!
I immediately commenced putting in circulation the notes which I had just redeemed, and my efforts were crowned with so much success, that before I slept that night my "Shinplasters" were again in circulation, and my bank once more on a sound basis.
"'Anybody know any one of that name? the auctioneer asked, and grand'mère said: "'That's my aunt. This free girl is my maid." "'Oh, bidding for you? he said; and grand'mere said no, the girl was bidding on her own account, with her own money. "'What kind of money? We can't take shinplasters. For 'twas then 'sixty-one year of secession, you know.
But it looked so much like the "shinplasters" we are forced to use, that no wonder they made the mistake. To discover who had played so mean a trick on the poor old woman, the General asked me if I could decipher the name. I threw myself on my knees by the hearth, and by the flickering light read "S. Kimes.
The old-established company went to the local military commander and tried to get him to commandeer my vessels for the use of the government, which pays in depreciated shinplasters that may be worth something some day a hundred years from now." "Whew-w-w!" Cappy whistled. "That was a narrow squeak, Matt. How did you dodge it?"
"Don't say a word, Barney to whom the medicos of mythology and all the wizards of antique story are clowns and mountebanks you shall have the guinea or its equivalent." "Twenty-one shillings gold, bear in mind. Yer father's a banker, ye ought to know that!" "I do. You shall have the twenty-one shillings in the shinplasters of the republic." The colonel had been routed none too soon.
Some weeks after I had commenced business on my "own hook," I was one evening very much crowded with customers; and while they were talking over the events of the day, one of them said to me, "Emperor, you seem to be doing a thriving business. You should do as other business men, issue your Shinplasters."
Of every form and every denomination from the alleged value of five cents to that of five dollars, they were issued by every business individual or corporation for the purpose of paying them off as wages to their employees. The worker was forced to take them for his labor or starve. Moreover, the shinplasters were so badly printed that it was not hard to counterfeit them.
"I've got five gold watches and right smart o' shinplasters, I don't reckon they'll pass in our parts, but I'm going to trade 'em off with some of these wounded chaps. They'll give gold for 'em fast enough." "I got a heap of gold watches, jackknives, and sech. I don't know what in the land to do with 'em. Suppose we can sell 'em in Richmond?" "Yes but how are we going to get to Richmond?
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