The Rise, Progress, and Present Condition of Banking in India.
By C. N. Cooke, Esq., Deputy Secretary and Treasurer of the Bank of Bengal. (Cranenburgh, Calcutta.)—The author is deeply impressed with the necessity of greatly extending the operations of the European banks in India, BO as to cheapen capital and rescue the native cultivator from the clutches of " the city shroffs, the zillah bankers, and the village mahajuns." The preliminary,part of the book on banking in general is a little meagre—perhaps unavoidably, so; but we doubt whether it is not better not to deal with a subject at all when it is not possible to do so adequately. A chapter on the origin of.banking, for initance, might surely have been dispensed with, though to English readers an account of the monetary system of India was, of course, indispensable. The major part of the volume consists of a history of all tho banks which exist or have existed in India. Their charters, the lists of directors and officers, the dividends which they have paid from their foundation to the present time, the rate of discount and interest, and a succinct narra- tive of their proceedings are given in every. case. And a complete account of the frauds by which the Union Bank, the Benitres Bank, and the London and Eastern Banking Corporation came to ruin, affords a' useful warning to too confiding shareholders. Why did Mr. Cooke give, the reader no table of contents?
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