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less than the amount withdrawn in the year before. Under the head of "Legislation Required," the report says: "Attention is called to the fact that, while heretofore a limited amount of securities, taken to secure indebtedness, has been held by the banks, there is no provision of statute which authorizes the holding of any property (except real estate) so taken, nor is there any provision regarding its sale. It seems desirable, therefore, in view of the considerable amount of stocks, bonds, etc., held at present, that some legislation be adopted which shall authorize the holding and regulate the selling of securities SO taken. "It has been claimed in the case of one railroad company that the payment of an annual dividend of one per cent for two years would make the first mortgage bonds of that company a legal investment for our savings banks; and a strict interpretation of the law might warrant such a claim. It 19 the opinion of this board that, generally speaking, when a railroad company is unable to pay more than one per cent per annum in dividends, its bonds, even though they be secured by a mortgage on all its property, can hardly be considered as coming within the class of securities in which the law intended that the deposits of savings banks should be invested. We desire to renew the suggestion made in our last report. that a law be enacted prohibiting any bank hereafter incorporated from occupying rooms in common with another bank or trust company. "In accordance with the provisions of section 45 of chapter 317, acts of 1894, returns have been made giving a list of all deposit accounts on which no deposits or withdrawals have been made within the past twenty years; th ase returns will be embodied in a supplementary report, to be submitted in a few days." Speaking of banks in the hands of receivers, the commission says that dividends amounting to 75 per cent of the deposits have been declared in the case of the Stockbridge Savings Bank, and that a final dividend will soon be made; and that a final dividend will soon be paid in the case of the Millis Savings Bank. Little progress is reported in settling the affairs of the Suffolk Trust Company, which is in the hands of the court. The commissioners say: "We think the an opportune time in which to with added emphasis, in previous the investing banks the necessity several present expressed repeat, urge upon reports, boards of the would extreme and of views the to in making loans; we escall attention to the property at a loaning pecially caution upon danger distance of from the bank, as conditions affecting or the borrower, or afterwards arise, known in the locality ist, readily the property, which, where may coming while the exis situated, are slow in of parties at a a state of affairs was to tance. property the Such knowledge thereabouts), found when disto exist in 1876 (or of the banks located outside of some Boston had made loans on property in that city, some being on unimproved land, having an inflated value, and in others on estates which depreciated value rapidly in consequence of changes in the character of the occupants." This part of the report deals only with 187 savings banks and institutions for savings, with assets of $503,973,934; thirty-four trust companies, with assets of $134,294,237.10; two trust companies in hands of the courts, and four savings banks in hands of the courts. The second part, dealing with co-operative banks and loan companies, will be issued later.