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The Assistant Treasurer reports to-day as follows:Total receipts $79,111 27 Total pay ments 139,348 23 Total balance 2,873,826 12 The receipts to-day include $61,000 from customs. The duties paid at the Custom House now are principally on goods entered for consumption from warehouse. The direct arrivals are very small, many of our packet ships coming out in ballast. Mr. Orville Oddie, of the firm of Oddie and St. George, has been elected a member of the New York Stock Exchange. The bank returns for last week show the following variations in the aggregates, compared wh the week previous :Increase in loans and discounts $681,005 1,034,428 Increase in specie Decrease in circulation 266,139 1,781,627 Increase in deposits, actual The increase in specie and in discounts is more than offset by the increase in actual deposits, showing an increase in liabilities beyond their assets. The accumulation of specie under these circumstances is an evil. With superficial observers the large increase in the specie reserve of our banks is held to be a complete evidence of returning prosperity. In this they make a very great mistake. The fact is quite the contrary. Looked at in the proper light, this movement shows that in the direct degree in which the banks show a plethora of specie, the collections from the country or interior cities must be the result of a depletion in quarters where it would render better service. If it was not so, and trade was on a better footing, produce and not specie would supply the means or method of remittance. In these bank statements we have the best argument to prove that there exists a general derangement, such as cannot be set right until commerce shall resume its former activity. When we see the current of specie setting from the seaboard to the interior we shall then hope for a healthy and general improvement; but until then every accumulation of bullion in the banks of this city will be but adding more dead weight to a burthen already too great to carry for any length of time. The channels of trade have been drained of bullion to pile up in the vaults of our banks, nearly every dollar of which is so much added to the demand liabilities of those institutions. The New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company have declared a semi-annual dividend of five per cent, payable February 1. The Exchange Fire Insurance Company has declared a semi-annual dividend of five per cent, payable February 1; the Brooklyn Fire Insurance Company a semi-annual dividend of ten per cent, payable February 1; the Farmers' Bank of Virginia a semi-annual dividend of five per cent, payable on de mand. The earnings of the New York Central Railroad Company in December, 1857, amounted to $652,299 17, against $687,576 71 for the same month in 1856, showing a decrease of $35,277 54. The Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton Railroad Company earned $40,319 36 in December, 1857, against $50,015 95 in December, 1856, showing a decrease of $9,696 59. The Comptroller General of South Carolina has demanded of the suspended banks of Charleston payment of the second month's penalty for suspension of specie payments, under the act of 1840. The Planters' and Mechanics' Bank and the Southwestern Railroad Bank have anticipated the demand, and paid the penalty. The other suspended banks of the city have not yet paid. The Charleston Courier maintains that the Comptroller General has no right to exact this payment, the same having been released by the act of the Legislature at its late session, suspending the operation of the act of 1840. The earnings of the Milwaukie and Mississippi Railroad for December, 1857, were $41,500, against $30,000 for December, 1856. The company run about 100 miles more than in 1856. The land sales of the Illinois Central Railroad Company for the year 1867 were 335,722 acres, for $4,598,211. Sold previously, 865,211 acres. Total since commencement, 1,200,933 acres value, $15,311,440 40. The total receipts during the year 1857 were $2,292,413, against $2,434,878 in 1856. Cash applied to interest fund during 1857, $336,848. Total so applied, $1,118,521. The Panama Railroad Company, on paying their usual semi-ansual dividend of six per cent, accompany the same with a model report. This shows what can be done by railroads properly constructed and operated. The greater portion of the road is, we understand, now relaid with lignumvite ties, which are almost indestructible, and but for the difficulty of procuring large timber of this species, the whole would have been finished the past season. Iron bridges are taking the place of the former wooden ones, and no expense is spared in keeping it up to its design. For some time past a line of steamers from London to Aspinwall and from Panama to Melbourne has been contemplated, and also a rival line from Southampton to Aspinwall. But for the English government requiring the steamers India, the arrangements would ere this have been completed, and cannot now be long delayed, as it is the most direct and safest route, and eventually will command the preference for merchandise of value, as well as passengers and specie. By the report of the Western (Mass.) Railroad Company for the year ending Nov. 30, 1857, it appears that the capital stock paid in is $5,150,000; the funded debt is $5,633,735, an increase since last year of $154,705; the floating debt is $443,140 50, an increase since last year of $83,080 73: the total of funded and floating debt is $6,076,875 50. The average rate of interest per annum paid through the year was five and a half per cent. The value of the sinking fund is $1,793,969. During the pear the passenger trains of the road have run 316,807 miles, and have carried 629,054 passengers; the freight cars have run 589,706 miles,and have carried 377,507 tons of merchandise. The income of the road during the year has been $1,910,342 48, of which $808,977 37 was for passengers, $1,007,185 62 for freight, and $94,179 49 from other sources. The total expenditure for working the road was $1 55, leaving a net income of $826,223 93. From this two semiannual dividends of four per cent have been paid.
