Furthermore, if losses may be charged to surplus when at the same time the other earnings are used for dividends to shareholders, a bank may go on declaring dividends, and never accumulate any surplus fund whatever if losses be sustained, as they are in the history of nearly every bank.  A construction of the law which would render inoperative the requirement for the creation of a surplus cannot be sound; and as the only way to insure that a surplus shall be accumulated and maintained is to charge losses against other earnings as far as may be before trenching upon the surplus; it must be that the law intended that the “undivided profits” which are not in the surplus fund shall first be used to meet losses.

To a full understanding of the subject it is proper to say that after using all other earnings on hand at the usual time for declaring a dividend to meet losses the whole or any part of the surplus may be used if the losses exceed the amount of the earnings other than surplus, and then at the end of another six months a dividend may be made if the earnings will admit of it, one-tenth of the earnings being first carried to surplus and the re-accumulation of the fund thus begun.

This is because the law has been complied with by charging the losses against the “undivided profits,” as far as they will go, and it is impossible to do more, or require more to be done, for the re-establishment of the state of things that existed prior to losses having been sustained than to do what the law requires shall be done to originally establish that state of things.

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CONCORD, N.H.

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IMPRESSIONS D’UN FRANCAIS.

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Par le Professeur Emile Pingault.

Quand les Francais, les Francais de France, comme disent leurs cousins canadiens, parlent de l’Amerique ou pensent a cette reine des republiques, ils n’ont en vue que les grandes villes.  New-York, Boston, Philadelphie, Chicago, la Nouvelle Orleans etc. ... forment seuls, pour eux, l’immense continent decouvert par Christophe Colomb.

Je voudrais essayer de reagir contre l’idee generale qu’on a, que la lumiere, l’intelligence, la prosperite ne se trouvent que dans les grands centres.

La Providence a voulu que je vinsse etablir ma tente dans une ville qui, bien qu’etant la capitale du New-Hampshire, parait comme un point microscopique aupres des villes que j’ai citees plus haut.  Eh bien, sans flatterie aucune, si l’on a pu appeler Boston l’Athene de l’Amerique, je ne vois pas pourquoi on n’appellerait pas Concord un petit Rambouillet, toute proportion gardee.

Je ne vous dirai pas que Concord est une petite ville situee sur la Merrimac, de 14,000 a 15,000 habitants, mais ce que je puis vous dire c’est qu’il faudrait aller bien loin pour trouver une ville plus intelligente et plus eclairee, je dirais meme plus patriarcale.  Tout le monde s’y connait et s’estime l’un l’autre.  Il y a dans cette ville une emulation pour le bien et pour l’instruction qui ne peut etre surpassee.