Article Text
# A RUN ON A BANK. To the Editor of The Tribune. SIR: A correspondent of THE TRIBUNE quotes a story about the run on a bank in a territory when a few business men of the town met together, offered aid, took the money of the depositors, returned it again, and thus saved suspension, and his informer asks: "Now can you match that by anything in the East?" At the general suspension in 1837, throughout the country, the Hon. Henry Shaw, then of Lanesboro, Mass., a large stockholder in the old Agricultural Bank of Pittsfield, and a man of wealth, fearing that in the general "break up" there would by trouble at the bank, drove down to Pittsfield and took a seat in the office of the bank. As soon as its doors were opened, depositors from all quarters rushed in with bills of the bank, and wanted silver. Mr. Shaw asked the depositors one after another in his quiet way, if they wanted to use the silver for any particular purpose, and was answered "No. But we are afraid the bills will not be good." "Well," Mr. Shaw said, "I will take the bills of the Agricultural Bank, and give you my note for all that you have, and for all that you can get." Immediately the offer was heralded through the village, and the towns. No silver was drawn out, and in a few weeks the bank sold its silver in New-York for a large premium. Now, I ask the New-York man who is largely interested in banking business in Dakota: "Can you match that by anything in the West?" Brooklyn, March 24, 1887. J. A. B.
