BANKS AND TRUST COMPANIES. 341

cancellation of stock certificates, or diminish the personal liability of stock-
holders, until such reduction has been approved by the Bank Commissioner.
Such approval must be based upon a finding by him that the remaining
assets of the hank or trust company, after such proposed reduction of its
capital stock, will be entirely sufficient for the payment of the claims of
existing creditors. The provisions of this Section shall he construed
retrospectively as well as prospectively.

An. Code, sec. 55. 1910, ch. 219, sec. 54 (p. 24).

55. A bank or trust company may purchase, hold and convey real estate
for the following purposes only:

First. Such as shall be necessary for the convenient 'transaction of its
business, including, with its banking offices, other apartments in the same
building, or on adjoining land, to rent as a source of income.

Second. Such as shall be conveyed to it in satisfaction of debts previously
contracted in the course of its business.

Third. Such as it shall purchase at sale on judgments, decrees or mort-
gage foreclosures under securities held by it, but a bank shall not bid at
such a sale a larger amount than is necessary to satisfy its debts and costs.

Fourth. No real estate acquired in the cases contemplated in the second
and third subdivisions preceding shall be held for a longer time than ten
years, except when an extension is granted by the Bank Commissioner. If
such extension be not granted, it must be sold at a private or public sale
within one year thereafter. Nothing in this section shall be construed
as preventing a bank or trust company from loaning moneys upon real
estate security as provided by law. Nothing in this section shall affect
the title to or holding by any trust company of any real or leasehold estate
now owned by said trust company, and nothing herein shall affect the rights
of trust companies to purchase and hold land or real or leasehold estate
as trustee or in other fiduciary capacity.

An. Code, sec. 56. 1910, ch. 219, sec. 55 (p. 25). 1918, ch. 33, sec. 56.

56. Every bank and trust company shall make to the Bank Commis-
sioner not less than five reports during each calendar year, at such times as
the said Bank Commissioner shall require the same, according to the forms
which he shall prescribe and furnish. Such forms shall conform as nearly
as practicable to that required of National Banks, including the schedules.
Such reports shall be signed and verified by the oath or affirmation of either
the president, cashier or treasurer of such bank or trust company before a
Notary Public or Justice of the Peace; if before a Justice of the Peace,
then such Justice shall be certified to by the Clerk of the Circuit Court or
of the Superior Court of Baltimore City, as the case may be. Such report
shall exhibit in detail and under proper heads the resources and liabilities
of the bank or trust company at the close of the business of any past day
by the Bank Commissioner specified, and shall be transmitted to said Bank
Commissioner within ten days after the receipt of the request from him.
Such reports shall be published in a newspaper of the city or village or
county where such bank or trust company is located, in such condensed