The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-09-30 00:00:00

THE ROYAL BRITISH BANK

We shall make no apology to our readers for again
directing their attention to the affairs of the Royal
British Bank. The first general meeting of the direc-
tors and shareholders since the suspension of payments,
was held at the London Tavern on the 20th instant, when
a system of management was revealed, that is not only of
the most disreputable character, but so dangerous to the
general interests and well-being of society, that we should
be neglecting one of the highest duties of our office, to
allow it to go forth to the world without exposing its dis-
honesty, and the dangerous tendencies with which it is
inseparably connected.

Never do we remember to have witnessed an assemblage
of men collected within the walls of London, whose
countenances exhibited so much virtuous indignation,
and disappointed hope, as was witnessed at that meeting.
Nor is it possible to read the detailed report, without
sympathising with those persons who have been made the
innocent dupes of a body of men, whose conduct not only
deserves the severest condemnation from the shareholders
and depositors of the bank, but that of every honest man
in Christendom. Here we find, amongst other facts of
loss significance, a few men combining amongst themselves
to receive the money of the public, professing to hold the
same in safe keeping, and to return it whenever it might
be wanted. But how stands the case ? Four of these (we
will not abuse our language by calling them gentlemen)
are indebted to the bank in no less a sum than £121,000,
out of the total estimated loss of £270,000, besides an
additional sum of £49,735, " arising in the same form,"
making the total loss in this way £170,735, or more than
£120,000 beyond the amount of capital at that time paid
Ilp! But the flagrancy of such conduct does not end
here. Two of these men are members of the British
Legislature; men who are expected to sit in the Councils
of the State, and to vote in Parliament in all matters con-
nected with its deliberations. Will the country allow
such men to continue to hold that honourable post, while
in their business transactions with the public, these same
individuals are notorious for their abuse in Legislative
enactments ? Its is high time that the British House of
Parliament should be purged of men who, thus disgrace
themselves in the eyes of the public. That the names of
the delinquent o'ficers of this company may not be mis-
taken, they stand as follows :

Mr. Flnmphrey Brown, M.P. for Tewkesbury £70,908
Mr. B. I. Cameron, late Manager

Mr. John Quinn, fo'rmerly a Director

Mr. M'Gregor, M.P. for Glasgow
Mr. Mullens, formerly the Solicitor to the

Company
An Auditor.

13,640

.X 130,812

We think there are but few persons who would not con-
sider thin a pretty fair sum to abstract from a company at
work with only a paid capital of 4150,000. But it must
be noted tint th. se sums are not put down merely as

outing to the bank by !Mr. Coleman:the accountant, but
as losses ; whether recoverable or not remains to be proved.
Ought a man, who is a director in this case, to dishonour
the House of Commons by his presence; having appro-
priated the funds of the widow and fatherless to his own
purposes, never to be returned ? We trust that Parlia-
ment at its next meeting will find some one honest enough,
and bold enough, to denounce this gigantic fraud, and the
conduct of those who have been the principal parties in
promoting it. While we punish the poor huckster for
dealing out his simple merchandise—the starvieg pauper
for seeking repose at midnight upon the ground—and the
unfortunate mother who seeks death for her offspring
rather than live in starvation—shall there be no punishment
for those who bring hundreds to misery and ruin by the
most artful and cunning duplicity ? And such is the glaring
nature of the case, that we cannot find a single redeeming
feature throughout the whole of the details.
Let us take the case of the late manager, Mr. Cameron,
as ponrt.rayed by Mr. Coleman. He has managed the
affairs of the bank from its commencement until a very
recent date, when he walks out of office, owing nearly
£30,000. How did Mr. Cameron come to be thus
indebted ? Did he help himself ? or did he obtain it
under the connivance of those directors who still stand
as heavy debtors in the company's books ? In addition
to the sum of £21,250 standing in his own name, there
are placed against him £t3,7b2 as lost by traffic in shares.
Is it not an abuse of the term to designate a man of this
kind a " banker ?'' It is also asserted that the securities
he offered (for it appears that the form of being honest was
gone through) to the amount of £21,000, were not likely
to realise more than £3.000 or £4,000, in consequence of
their having been previously encumbered.
We think when such statements are made by parties
who have been put in possession of the whole of the facts
of the case, it would be incorrect to attribute the failure
of the Royal British Bank to any other cause than to the
unscrupulous and reckless conduct of its principal
managers. For not only was the company deprived of its
legitimate sources as a bank almost at the commence-
ment of its career, but it was sustained during the last
few years by the most artful ingenuity, applied to the
obtaining fresh supplies of money from the public ; and
it was stated by Mr. Coleman that while the directors
have been declaring a dividend from 4 to 6 per cent per
annum, there never ought to have been one paid in any
one quarter.
Without going into the details of the conduct of each
individual connected with the management of this bank,
at any special period, we may offer a few remarks, we
think to advantage, on the very careless and indifferent
manner in which the directors have taken their seats at
the board, and how little they seem to have been influ-
enced by the heavy responsibilities of their office. Let us
take the case of Mr. Stapleton, deputy-governor. This
gentleman states, who was so far convinced of the
unfavourable state of the bank affairs, that he requested
no dividend should be paid ; but he obtained "no support"
—now here is evidence that the position of the bank was
questioned ; yet no one would move in the only direction
—that of saving it from paying-up capital; but how
could this be done, when the prosperous condition of the
bank was loudly proclaimed at every public meeting by
the report, and what was more natural for the share-
holders to exclaim, " why ask us for money, when
prosperity so great has been declared to us •P " The thing
could not be done without opening too widely the eyes of
the deluded proprietors. But even Mr. Stapleton's know-
ledge of the affairs was only imaginary or vaguely under-
stood by him. He says, "I had no idea of the extent of
our Losses." There he did not perform the duties of the
office for which he was paid ; nor ought he, nor any other
director to have done so, and plead ignorance as an
excuse for the non-fulfilment of a responsible duty. What
has this ignorance led to, by pleading it in extenuation for
the mischief that has been done? ilt has led to the
squandering away of money entrusted to their care, by n,
manager whose conduct was never the subject of investi-
gation, until it became the last and final result that
could be appoalod to ; a man who, after declaring from
time to time the prosperous condition of the bank, shelters
himself from responsibility and degradation, by resigning
his office. We say that the law which permits a man
thus to abuse public and private confidence, and revel
over the ruination of his fellowmen, is deficient in the first
principles of justice. But while we would punish such
delinquents with great severity, we cannot find the
slightest excuse to those men, who take upon themselves
the responsibilities of bank directors, and in the day of
difficulty plead ignorance as their only defence.—.Rankers'
Circular.

The Agricultural Gazette says a machine for digging
potatoes has been lately in successful operation in several
parts of Scotland and Ireland,

THE REPRESENTATION OP- GLASGOW.-WO understand
that a preliminary meeting of electors will be held in a
few days, with the view of calling a public meeting to
require Mr. John M'Gregor to resign his seat for the
representation of Glasgow in the House of Commons.
Tug Puente LIBRARIES ACT.—A. meeting of the rate-
payers of Cheltenham was held on Wednesday, convened by
the high bailiff on a requisition signed by about thirty
gentlemen, to consider the propriety of adopting the Public
Libraries Act in that borough. A resolution in the negative
sense was, however, carried by a large majority.
A SOLDIER FLOGGED.—Last week a soldier, named
Wilson, of the 14th Light Dragoons, was flogged at
Maidstone. The man had recently come into possession of
some money, and as he was not immediately permitted to
purchase bis discharge, became insubordinate, and went
away to Strood with a comrade: They were brought back
to Maidstone by the provost sergeant. Wilson struck the
sergeant a heavy blow with his handcuffed hand, and
inflicted a severe wound on his head. For this he was
sentenced by a court-martial to receive fifty lashes and to
be imprisoned for NO days in Port Clarence. The other
man was sentenced to 120 days' imprisonment. The sentences
were approved by the Commander-in-Chief, anuon Thursday,
in the presence of all the men in the depot, the punishment
was inflicted,

THE' STREET LAMPS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN TIMES,

Sir,—l believe I may, justly, assume that my three
several applications, during the last four years, to the
Watch and Health Committees of the Liverpool Town
Council, fur the privilege of employing a portion of the
public lamp-posts of the borough, as agents in a new
system of local directions, are generally known to the
resident population; but the exact nature of my design,
is still almost as generally misapprehended. I deem it
due to myself and the public, whose convenience and
interests are involved in the projected process, to seek a
fuller and fairer exposition of it in your columns, par-
ticularly as the unfounded prejudices against it have been
clandestinely employed to frustrate my bona fide purpose.
The infinite variety of modes adopted by retail traders
of every class, and in every situation, to make known
their individual occupations and pretensions, illustrate
the recognised requirement of such information
for the public guidance ;. and my object is to
extend this useful and necessary agency, in an artistic
and perfectly inoffensive form, far beyond its present
limits ; not only in reference to trading interests, but also
local public objects, at present unnerved. It is unjust
to me, and my intended process, to pronounce it a system
of "advertising," which term—in its popular acceptation
—I comprehend to mean the detailed announcement of
individual trading pretensions; whilst I have always
distinctly repudiated the permissibility of any empirical
expression or personal detail, beyond the mere name,
address, and occupation of each person availing himself of
the projected medium. But, on higher grounds than this
chaste limitation of traders' indications, I claim for my
design, if thoroughly understood and impartially judged,
popular approbation. I propose to delicate every one of
my Directory Banners, first to unequivocally useful
public services, as follows, namely :--By recording,
gratuitously, on each side of each " banner," the names of
the street or thoroughfare in which each employed
lamp may be situate, together with the numbers
of the houses intervening it and the lamp next
in succession, as well as the registered number
of the lamp itself. Then on lamp-banners most proximate
to public institutions, public offices, post-offices, churches,
chapels, and other places of Divine worship—indiscrimi-
nately and gratuitously—l undertake to record and
reiterate the names and purposes of all such neighbouring
places, together with ample details of their internal
economy, as by indication of the exact hours of deSpatch
from post-office receiving houses, the times of service at
places of religious worship, &c., &c. These gratuitous
public items will, at least, be admitted to be of much
interest and utility, not only to the innumerable visitors
to this important town, but also to many residents within
its populous pale. When these popular services shall
have been fully provided for, the remaining space of the
banners will be most impartially and equitably appropriated
to the uses of the local trading community, in considera-
tion of a trifling annual subscription, the privileges being
at all times strictly guarded from the least subserviency to
offensive personal rivalry. Each local banner will be per-
manently reserved in the primary appropriation of those
traders most immediately proximate; and if any be pre-
cluded, through want of space, from participation in any
solitary year, they will have positive pre-occupation in
succeeding years ; and thus an equitable routine of local
privilege will be constantly maintained; whilst, at all
times, the whole community will be benefitted by the
contribution of a large sum of money paid annually in
advance to the Borough Exchequer. All lamps, situate
in streets and squares, occupied for private residences,
will be exempted from the application of the process,
and the annexation of banners to those lamps employed
will always be performed in the solitary hours of the
night, to avoid obstructing the publie thorough-
fares. In size and proportion, in the use of carved
items, and by the most elegant and artistic decoration
of the banners, added to their jaunty position on
the summit of each lamp-post, they will effect a posi-
tive ornamentation of the public thoroughfares, and
convert dumb and obstructive objects into constantly
intelligent and useful agents. I confidently re assert that
there is not one feature of my design which, if perfectly
understood, would prove undeserving of public appro-
bation

My second appeal to former committees of the council,
for the general local establishment of the process, and
when it was less perfect and objectionable than now, was
acquiesced in by a palpable majority of the Health
Committee, but unfavourably entertained by a. majority
of the cotemporaneous Watch Committee. My late
application to these similar committees was, not for the
general local establishment of the process without previous
illustrations, but simply for permission, at private cost, to
illustrate the design on some fifty lamp-posts radiating
from the Town-hall ; but even this reasonable request has
be-n refused by the Watch Committee, although not till
after such adjourned and protracted deliberations as
indicate nicely balanced opinions in the minds of those
genllernen who adjudicated, and whose elevated 'social
position, perhaps. somewhat unfits them for the due
appreciation of these ordinary means adapted to serve
the interests of retail traders. I am yet encouraged to
hope for early success in this local object, by the recollec•
tion that many social agents now popular met with
strenuous opposition on their first introduction; and I
rely on soon obtaining such a favourable expression of
general local opinion as shall induce those gentlemen who
so conscientiously guard your municipal interests to grant
me, at least, permission to make the innocent experiment
I desire, in order to test the merit of my purpose, and if ft
then prove really unpopular, I shall be diverted from
further zealous devotion to' it, and be saved from more
disastrous speculation in connection with it.
Trusting that no additional prejudices and ex parte
opinions will—clandestinely, or otherwise—be unfairly
levelled against my scheme till it be well understood and
adequately illustrated, and thanking you, in anticipation,
for the insertion of this missive—l am, sir, your obedient
servant, JOHN LEA.

THE NEW FIELD FOR FEMALE LABOUR.

A few months since, a series of letters appeared in the
Times and other London journals, showing that the most
available means of rescuing the female toilers of this
country from their present abject position, was the intro-
ducing of the art of watchmaking among them, and for
which pursuit it was shown by the well-known watch-
maker of Cheapside, Mr. John Bennett, by whom the idea
was first started, the female hand was most suitable. The
subject is now receiving attention on the part of many
well known provincial manufacturers, and ere long the
public may look forward to the step in the right direction
being taken, and which, if fully carried out, will have the
effect of changing what is nothing less than a national
disgrace—the present wretched and degraded position of
our numerous classes of female labourers. .From a letter,
written by "A. Watchmaker of;Liverpool," the :following
is taken :

"For years and years the condition and the miseries of
the women of our working population have forced them.
selves more and more forcibly upon the attention of all
who have any feeling to spare for unmerited wretched-
ness. It could but be seen that, however hard might be
the condition of our working-men, in certain over-
crowded trades, that their state was endurable, and even
iavourahle, compared with the majority of their sisters in
toil All will remember how the " Song of the Shirt" drew
an echo from every corner of the land. Thank God, we
are a practical people in sympathy as well as in other
things. The general feeling had found expression through
the pen of Thomas Hood, and at once we had societies
of all kinds appealing to the wealth and influence of
the country, to assist them in their attempts to
lessen or prevent the miseries which the poet had depicted.
But what could public or private charity do to remedy
this gigantic evil • It could deal with individual cases,
and it did so, in the true spirit of practical Christianity.
It could afford shelter and food to the sick, and encou.
ragement and trifling assistance to isolated instances of
extreme want, and it could show the wish of the wealthy
to do more if they had the power. But how little was this,
compared with what was required. Thinking men, while
admiring and applauding these efforts, knew them to be all
but useless. Political Economy pointed to its laws of the
relation between the demand for, and the supply of female
labour in England, and at once made clear the only
remedy applicable to the evil so apparent. So long as
nearly every employment was engrossed by men only, so
long must be the wretchedness and slavery of women here
be what it is. Emigration might do something to turn
the balance, to lessen the amount of surplus female
labour ; but this, too, was a remedy unnatural in its appli
cation, and of very limited utility. No; Mr. Bennett
has hit upon the true—the only true expedient, one
which, while it does all that philanthropy can desire, is
based on truth and common sense. Find more work for
those whose need of work is so terrible. Why do women
work half as long again as men for one-fifth of the remu-
neration that men generally gain? Why, because the
few employthents open to them are so overwhelmed with
women begging to be employed, that any payment that will
supply a room however bare, a meal however scanty, is
accepted as better than the Union or starvation. Now,
those who have thought on this matter are aware that in
other countries women aro employed in many ways in
which men do not yet make them useful. Nine.tenths
of the compositors' work in America is done by female
hands. In the great Bible Society's establishment, in
New York, the whole of the bookbinding is done by
women. In the north of Germany, large numbers of
the clerks, j.n even the banks and largest commercial
houses, are women. 411 know, too, how much much
more likely you are on stepping into a shop in Paris to
find youself served by a female, than you world be in an
English town. But I can easily conceive that the state of
things in Switzerland, which so struck Mr. Bennett
in his watchmaking rambles, is still more striking in
its bearing on this question. There you will find a
trade, rooted and fast spreading itself with unex
ampled rapidity, dependant for its success and
rapid extension mainly on the fact that it is based
on female employment. Through this it is enabled
to bid defiance to competition, and to make itself
more and more completely master of the watch-buying
markets of the world. Now, this to England is a lament-
able fact, however creditable and advantageous to Swit-
zerland. Watchmaking is peculiarly an English manu-
facture—its greatest discoveries and improvements
have been the work of English Industry and English
ingenuity, and an English watch has hitherto been the
model of a time keeper; and so it is still; and if money
were of no consideration in its purchase, doubtless the
world, and every watch buyer in it would desire nothing
else ; but for one who can pay seven or eight guineas for a
silver, or twenty or thirty for a gold watch, hundreds can
only afford three or four pounds for the one, and seven to
ten_for the other;, and those who can and will only afford