The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-07-02 00:00:00

management

We do so, and we find in the

cost of coal for the year 1855, as compared
with 1854, an increase of 5,3251.; carbonising
1,6501., purifying 2131., general expenses 3,6301,
making a total of 11,8181. In this way the Com-
pany are made to appear to be losers to the extent

of 3,8001. by their increased consurnptior.

we deduct the

But if

increase in the cost of

neral management" from the total received for

39,000,000 feet of gas, and residuary products, we
shallfind the Company have made a profit of 2181. on
the 5,0001. spent in supplying the increased demand,
after allowing all the heavy charges for

carbonising, purifying, &c., to pass without being
vouched in the ordinary course of auditing. It is
also satisfactory to find that for the second quarter
of the reduction in price, the income shows an
increase of 5761., and on the year an augmentation
of no less than 3,8581. This proves what may be
done by lowering the cost of light to consumers.
Still we must not be too sanguine.

Mr BELOE tells us that the result of the " reduc-
" tion for the half-year ending June, 1855, as
" shown in a previous part of this report, and not-
withstanding an increased consumption during that
" period of 39,000,000 of feet, the result in cash was
" an increase of less than 6001., whereas the increased
" cost of production will, it is feared, more than
" counterbalance the increased receipts. What !
has the difference of 39,000,000 feet of gas, at
4s, been reduced to 600/. by leakage or other
defects in the manufacture and distribution ? If
it has, there is indeed an end to all our hopes of
cheap gas. If the Company can only realise
6001. cash for the sale of every 39,000,000
feet they make, the shareholders will soon
have cause to lament their fate. There is
evidently some glaring discrepancy in this portion
of the statement of the Borough Auditor, and
until it has been explained, we shall cling to our
conviction that the cheaper gas is made the greater
he consumption and dividends of the manufac-
be. The other rich and rare passages in
the report before us we must leave for a future day.
Meanwhile, we congratulate the Gas Directors
and their numerous customers on the manifest
success which has marked the first six months of
the cheap light movement Gas is not cheap yet,
hut we are convinced that we shall yet see
Liverpool lighted at as moderate a price as any
town in the three kingdoms. The present accounts
are very curious, but remarkably encouraging,
when carefully sifted, and have a positive tendency
to inspire the Gas Reformer with fresh zeal and
confidence.

) turers will

UPWARDS of three weeks ago the Master of the
Rolls called on the Government, as directly as he
could in his official capacity, to prosecute JonN
SADLEIR'S partners for conspiracy and fraud. Yet
nothing whatever has been done, and the Irish
newspapers say that " JAMES SADLEIR is still at
" large, and is afforded every facility for evading

" the penalty due to his offence ; and it is probable
" he is at this moment on his way to some secure
" retreat for swindlers." "It may be," adds the
Leinster Express, "that during some of Mr. SAD-

" LEER'S private examinations respecting the affairs
" of the bank he may have been permitted to pave
" the way to immunity through some of the numer-
" ons channels in which the pursuit of justice is so
often defeated." This is bringing the legal
morality of the age to rather a low level. Justice
must, indeed, have forsaken the land, if one set of
bankers are to be imprisoned and punished with

the utmost rigour, and another nest of unscrupul-
ous rogues allowed to get off without the least inflic-
tion. PAUL, STRAHAN, and BATES were universally
cried down, and justly so, by the Press, and the
public prosecutors were ready to do their duty. But
there is no man to be found to grapple with the
delinquencies of the associates of a deceased
junior Lord of the Treasury.

Should any banker attain that high office at any
future period, it will not add much to his credit in
the mercantile world. His elevation to the
treasury benches will be looked upon as a prelude
to a smash, and a protection against the punish-
ment awarded to wholesale plunder, and we
scarcely know which would be the most degraded—
the office, or the fugitive forger. But, trifling with
the impartial administration of the criminal law,
such as we have witnessed in this case, cannot he
passed over in silence. If Mr. JAMES SADLEIR has
anything to let the public know, the accused
should have the benefit of it, but, let us have no
more " private examinations." and no more time
allowed for guilty partners to escape. There may
be several other names besides SADLEIres,
implicated in this monster swindle ; but, it
matters not, who or what they are, they ought
to he brought to trial on the evidence now in
the hands of the Irish Court of Chancery. The
letter read by the Master of the Rolls on the day
he gave his decision in favour of the English
shareholders, is quite sufficient to justify the
Government's taking upon itself the responsibility
of a criminal prosecution.

The Master of the Rolls might, we think, have
ordered the parties suspected of fraud and con-
spiracy in any case before his court, into custody.
The creditors must have been sufferers by the
fraudulent acts of those whose conduct the
Master impugned, and they ought to have been
given into custody the moment those frauds were
satisfactorily proven. As this was not done, where
will Mr. JAMES SADLEIR, and the surviving con-
t'ederates he may have had, be found ? It would be
unreasonable to suppose that a man against whom
such serious charges have been publicly brought
has not made ample use of the impunity allowed
him, and it will, no doubt, be seen, that if Mr. JAMES
SADLEIR should be called for at a future day, when
the heat of public indignation has passed away,
that our Irish cotemporary's surmise as to his
having taken flight will prove to be correct.
Men generally make the most of their time
under such awkward circumstances, and we
hope we shall not have to apply the proverb in
this case, anct say, " the judge is culpable when the
" guilty escape." When JOHN SADLEIR'S letters to
" Dear JAMES," and the telegraphic messages of
the deceased to his brother were first discovered,
there was no room left for doubting the existence
of a wide-spread conspiracy, and every part-
ner of JOIiN SADLEIR'S ;;ought to have
.been