718            JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [March 3,

Mr. Smith, of Baltimore city, reported favorably on a bill
entitled, an act providing for the appointment of an inspec-
tor of tobacco in the city of Baltimore;

Which was read the first time.

Mr. Welling from the committee on Currency reported un-
favorably on a bill entitled, an act to prohibit the circulation
in this State of Bank notes of Banks of other States under the
denomination of twenty dollars;

Also made the following

REPORT.

Your committee beg leave to report that after full investi-
gation and mature consideration of this subject, they find
that the banking capital of Maryland is far less in proportion
to her population, than that of any of her northern or eastern
sister States, which can boast of a commercial emporium.
That three-fourths of all the circulation, which supplies the
place of and answers as capital, of all the country banks or
banks outside of the city of the city of Baltimore, is in issues
of the denomination of $5 or $10 notes; and that two-thirds
of the issues of the city banks now in circulation are of like
.denomination. We therefore conclude that it is the wish of
the people (who have the privilege at the counter of any
bank of specifying how he will take any demand he may
have on the bank, so far as the denomination of the notes is
concerned,) for their own convenience, to have five and ten
dollar notes for circulation. We also find that in the manu-
facturing districts, and in all parts of the State where any
one man, firm, or company, employs a large force of hands,
it is the custom to pay them off weekly, and that in a very
large majority of instances there is not so much as $10 per
week paid to a laborer, or so much as $20 per week to a me-
chanic, and that most of the large factories pay out from
$1,000 to $3,000 per week. That to oblige them to lug this
amount from the bank to their offices of payment would be
great labor and an unnecessary act.

That so far as the circulation of foreign State notes is con-
cerned, your committee can only see in it a bargain between
buyer and seller, which it is inexpedient to interfere with;
and we therefore report that any legislation with a view to
restrict the denomination of bank issues at this time would be
an inexpedient trammel upon trade.

We must therefore report unfavorably on the two bills
herewith returned.                                       

William Welling,
Chairman.