The Business Historical Society has recently received from the First National Bank of Boston, through the courtesy of Mr. R. W. Stanley, eleven volumes of the original records of the Shoe and Leather Dealers' Bank, of Boston, which became the Shoe and Leather National Bank.

Commission agents are of minor significance in the distribution of semi-manufactured goods today. Data from the Census of Manufactures reveal that in 1929 only a small portion of manufacturers' sales of buttons, and of non-ferrous metal alloys and their products, was made through commission houses and agents. Approximately two thirds of such sales were made directly to industrial or other large consumers and one quarter to wholesale merchants. This condition differs markedly from that which prevailed a century ago.