48 THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK 
Englishman, who in 1870 and 1871 closely in- 
vestigated economic conditions in the South, was 
favorably impressed with the good influence of 
the bank. He says: “Go in any forenoon and the 
office is found full of Negroes depositing little 
sums of money, drawing small sums, or remitting 
to distant parts of the country where they have 
relatives to support or debts to discharge. ... 
[The literature of the bank] contains an amount 
of general matter very suitable to the Negroes 
and very desirable for them to read . . . the 
Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Companies do 
for the Negroes what our National Savings 
Banks do for the working classes of England, 
Scotland, and Ireland. . . . The Negro begins 
to deposit usually with some special object in 
view. He wishes to buy a mule or a cow, or a 
house, or a piece of land, or a shop, or simply 
to provide a fund against death, sickness, or 
accident, and pursues his object frequently until 
it has been accomplished.” !! 
THE DEPOSITS AND THE DEPOSITORS 
Only those in the vicinity of the larger towns 
were directly affected by the bank, but the num- 
ber of depositors within a few years reached a 
total of 75.000, who were scattered all over the 
South. About 30,000 of these had deposited 
sums of $50.00 and under; about 3,000 of them 
had rather large deposits. The average single 
deposit in the bank at one time was about $50.00. 
The average total deposit during the life of the 
Ho. Misc. Doc. No. 16, 43 Cong., 2 Sess.; Report of Meigs, National 
Bank Inspector, Feb. 1874. 
11 Somers, Southern States, pp. 54, 55,