XVl REPORT OF THE

terest. A large number of similar claims have been settled during
the fiscal year.

Table No. 17, shows the balances due from Clerks of Courts, Reg-
isters of Wills and certain other officers, as of the end of the fiscal
year, a number of which have since been settled. A number of
these old balances have been in the hands of the State's Attorneys
for collection, for many years, but the securities on the bonds of the
officers being insolvent, as well as the officers themselves, no results
are reported from them to the Treasury. This table also shows
the amount estimated to be due from the Baltimore and Ohio Rail-
road Company, under their contract to pay one fifth of the gross
receipts from passengers on the Washington Branch Road, amount-
ing to $729,154.

NATIONAL BANKS.

Table No. 18, shows the amount due on the shares of capital stock
of various National Banks for the years 1872 and 1873, amounting to
$55,867.63.

The large amount of arrears due from taxes on the shares of capital
stock of various National Banks from 1864 to 1871, inclusive, appears,
in detail, in Table No.19, footing up the aggregate of $132,530.31, with-
out interest. These two tables show the whole amount due from taxes on
shares of National Banks, exclusive of interest, to be $188,397 94. The
banks named in these tables have been regularly assessed, and have paid
their city and county taxes, so far as this department is informed, but the
law of Maryland, directing the payment of the taxes on the shares of
the capital stock of banks, by the banks themselves, instead of by the
individual stockholders, has been found defective to enforce said pay-
ment by the National Banks. An Act was passed at the last Session
of the General Assembly to provide for this deficiency in future, but
that Act, levying the State tax at 19 cents, was rendered inoperative
by the subsequent action of the Legislature in repealing the direct tax,
whereby a different rate of taxation was provided for other property.
This being the case, and the stockholders of the said National Banks
not being assessed with the shares of stock owned by them for the dif-
ferent years, it has been found impossible to collect the arrears due on
the shares of said banks. The law, it is true, provides for the assess-
ment of shares of stock, as well as any other property which has been
found to have been omitted in former assessments, for the various years
during which said omission has occurred, but no special provisions of
law being made to compel such assessment, it has not been done, and
it remains for the General Assembly to provide by law for making the