If the panic destroyed those dealers it would grow by what it fed upon (as is its nature), and might probably destroy also the bankers, the holders of the reserve.

The public terror at such times is indiscriminate.

When one house of good credit has perished, other houses of equal credit though of different nature are m danger of perishing.

The many holders of the banking reserve would under the natural system of banking be obliged to advance out of that reserve to uphold bill-brokers and similar dealers.

It would be essential to their own preservation not to let such dealers fail, and the protection of such dealers would therefore be reckoned among the necessary purposes for which they retained that reserve.
Nor probably would the demands on the bill-brokers in such a system of banking be exceedingly formidable.