share

The property or interest of a stockholder in an incorporated bank, commonly called a share, the shares in their aggregate totality being called sometimes the capital stock of the bank, is a different thing from the moneyed capital of the bank held and owned by the corporation. This capital may consist of cash, or of bills and notes discounted, or of real estate combined with these. The whole of it may be invested in bonds of the government, or in bonds of the States, or in bonds and mortgages. In whatever it may be invested it is owned by the bank as a corporate entity, and not by the stockholders.