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NEW ORLEANS HAS HAL THREE BANK FAILURES IN AS MANY DAYS. A RUN ON THE BANK OF COMMERCE Caused It to Shut Its Doors Yesterday Morning-President Nichols Explains and Says Depositors Will Be Paid in Full. New Orleans, Sept. 11.-The Bank of Commerce, which everybody thought would be able to weather the wave of distrust and suspicion which the recent wreck of the American National bank caused, was compelled to close its doors this morning. There was a large crowd outside the bank, but everybody was orderly and all the blue coats had to do was to clear a passage way for the pedestrians to pass on the sidewalk. All manner of surmises and opinions were being freely aired, but the sum and substance seemed to be that the Bank of Commerce had adopted the only course left to it. President Nichols gives the following explanation: "The unprecedented run on the bank for the past six weeks and the impossibility of realizing with sufficient rapidity on the assets, and after consulting with the vice president of the clearing house, we deemed it advisable, to protect depositors in order that they might be paid in full in a short time, to take this step of liquidating, a step which none feel more than we do." The bank owes depositors between $300,000 and $400,000, while the assets of the bank are about $800,000. The bank has quite a long list of small depositors. The Bank of Commerce was founded in 1887 with a capital stock of $100,000. In that year several prominent business men got together, and deeming that the bank facilities of New Orleans were insufficient, made up their minds to remedy the defect as much as possible, and the Bank of Commerce was the result. The plan of the institution was to do a general banking business in such a way as to furnish accommodations to all classes of patrons, from men of millions to wage earners, and also to do a collecting business. It found a fruitful field before it and its success up to this morning had been such as to justify the highest hopes of its founders. At1:30this afternoon there was a lively run on the People's bank. Depositors flocked to the institution and formed into line before the paying teller's windown. So many people were in line that it extended clear into the street. There is considerable excitement, but no trouble is anticipated. TWO ARRESTS. New Orleans, Sept. 11.-Frank B. Leefe and Louis Colombe, bookkeepers of the defunct Union National bank, have been arrested. Colombe was not taken I into custody as he was too sick to leave home. He is under arrest, however. at