The general restrictions against banking in constitutions Lave been without exception held to apply only to banks of issue. Courts have been compelled to apply harsh measures to constitutional absurdities. Thus in California the constitution (art. 4, sec. 4) prohibited the grant of a charter for banking purposes. A later section (35) of the same article stated emphatically that the legislature should pro-hibit any person, association or corporation from exercising the privilege of banking or creating paper to circulate as money; yet these provisions were held to mean banks of issue, not banks of deposit or discount.1 Similar holdings have been made in other states, where bank charters were prohibited or banking laws were required to be submitted to popular vote.2 The state of Illinois in its last constitution has insisted upon this species of referendum as to any law authorizing banking corporations, whether of deposit or discount or issue, or amendments thereto.3 A prohibitory statute led to a very extraordinary ruling. A statute forbade the establishment in the Territory of "Washington of any branch or agency of a corporation whose charter granted it banking privileges. It was seemingly held that a corporation whose charter gave it the power to "draw, accept, indorse, guaranty [sic], buy, sell and negotiate drafts and bills of exchange, inland and foreign; to receive coin, money, silver and gold in any form or other [sic], and any kind of valuables on deposit at its offices, and make orders for the payment and delivery of the same or an equivalent at any place whatsoever; to buy, sell and dispose of gold and silver, coin and bullion, gold dust, money and securities for money, and to do a general exchange and collection business, and to invest its surplus or unemployed funds," etc., was not a corporation with banking privileges.4 This was decided in spite of the fact that the corporation was carrying on a very large banking business in various places. It shows how far the courts will go in trying to avoid a seeming injustice.

1 Martinez v. Hemme Co., 105 Cal. 370; Bankv. Fairbanks, 52 Cal. 190. In the latter case the corporation was organized for banking business, so far as under the laws of California it could legally exist

2 Pape v. Capital Bank, 20 Kan.

440; People v. Lowenthal, 93 I11. 191; Dearborn v. Bank, 42 Ohio St. 617.

3 Art. 11, sec. 5, Const of 1870. See also Reed v. People, 125 I11. 592; Dupee v. Swigert, 127 111. 494.