When, to this intolerable load of misfortune, we have added the character of the successive bankruptcies that make it so lamentable, and have shown that the sums for which they took place were generally as heavy as the failures themselves were frequent, we shall have concluded our review of the second stage of Banking in Ireland. For this purpose, it will suffice to refer to a few cases.

1 Severe as the distress of all classes was, at this juncture, it gave rise to some ludicrous incidents. While it lasted, a gentleman in Cork wanted a leg of lamb, and offered a five-pound note for it, which was refused. In Limerick, a country gentleman, with 1,500l. a-year, had sent invitations out for a dinner party the week the Banks broke, and considered himself most fortunate on finding amongst his notes one Bank of Ireland note for ten pounds. No one doubted the goodness of the note, but no one could give change for it. Ten pounds, in gold or silver, were not in the county; and as for credit there was none to be had. In this extremity, with money - which was not money - and without credit, having tried butcher, baker and confectioner, in vain, the gentleman gave up the idea of his dinner party in despair, and wrote to his friends to keep the engagement standing until - he could procure cash or credit for a ten-pound note.

Wakefield relates, that the debts of one of the Banks at New Ross, the population of which must then have been under 4,000, Messrs. Colclough's, came to 200.000l. According to the same authority, Cotter and Keller, of Cork, stopped payment for 420,000l. Sir J. Newport, Bart., when examined in 1826, before the Lords' Committee on the Circulation of Promissory Notes in Ireland, asserted that Williams and Finn, of Dublin, failed for 300,000l., without having ever been worth 1,000l. Half a million was computed as the sum that would about cover the issues and liabilities of the Messrs. Alexander, of Dublin. The statement of the affairs of the Messrs. Roche, of Cork, was laid before the Committee just mentioned, and affords, perhaps, the most correct exhibition which it is possible to cite, of the series of transactions to which it belongs.

We have now to pass on to the third and last stage of Banking in Ireland; omitting, as altogether uncalled for and superfluous, a single observation to point out how much worse than even the preceding bad state of things, was that which, under the fatal superintendence of the Bank of Ireland monopoly, produced copper and silver notes, I. O. U's, for all amounts; the panics of 1804, 1810, 1814, and 1820; the stoppage of fifty Banks in forty years, and the loss of millions which it is impossible to calculate.

In sketching the rise and progress of joint-stock Banks in Ireland, the Report of the Commons1 Select Committee on joint-stock Banks, in 1837, is the principal guide and authority to be followed.

The first joint-stock Banking Company established in Ireland, after the passing of the 6 Geo. IV. c. 42, was in Belfast, where the Northern Banking Company, founded upon a private Bank of the same name, commenced business January 1, 1825. Its establishment, in 1836, stood thus: - it had ten branches, varying in distance from six to sixty miles from the central office. Its nominal capital was 500,000l., in 5,000 shares of 100l. each; all of which had been subscribed for, though only 4,889 had been allotted. The paid-up capital was 122,275l, produced by three calls, amounting to 27?. 1s. 8d. Irish, or 25?. British. No shares had been forfeited. There had been five per cent. dividends paid yearly until 1835, when six per cent. was divided; seven per cent. in 1836, and eight per cent. in 1837; besides a bonus of 2l. 19s. 1 1/2d. per share, in September, 1827; and another, of two pounds a share, in September, 1832. The deed of settlement, dated August 1, 1824, had been signed by 264 persons. The accounts had been entrusted to the Directors alone, who had never laid a statement of them before the proprietors; the same persons also prepared the annual reports. The notes are made payable only where issued; but, in point of fact, are paid at the head Bank, and all its branches. No post bills are issued. Interest is allowed on accounts current, at the rate of two and a half per cent.; on deposits remaining three months, and not six, two and a half per cent.; and if remaining six months, or upwards, three per cent.

At the end of 1836, the dividend was seven per cent., and the undivided profits 49,590/. 0s. 3d. In 1837, the dividend was fixed at the increased rate of eight per cent.; and there was a net surplus on the year of 4,176l. 5s. 7d., in addition to the amount of undivided profits just stated. In 1838, the dividend rose to nine per cent., and the surplus on the yea's trade was 1,929l. 9s. 6d. In September, 1839, the total surplus remaining, after the usual deductions, having amounted to 53,326l. 11s. 2d., the dividend was increased to ten per cent., and, at the same time, a bonus of five pounds per share was declared, being twenty per cent. on the paid-up capital. This left the balance of undivided profits, 28,871l. Us. 2d., and the business of the Company still increasing.

The Hibernian joint-stock loan and Banking Company, began business in June, 1825, under a special Act of Parliament. It has no branches; its capital is 1,000,000l., in 10,000 shares, of 100l. each; the whole of which were issued: 250,000l. have been paid up, in calls of 15l. per share, 15th July, 1824; 10l. per share, 30th August, 1824; and, December 27, 1825, eight and one-third on the above, to assimilate the currency.