The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-04-23 00:00:00

THE NORTHERN TIMES.---LIVERPOOL, THURSDAY.

fact so completely the reverse. Our own country
adds to its ❑umber over 300,000 every year, or
about a million every three years. And America,
from all sources, including immigration, doubles
itself every twenty-five years. But in France the
people are actually growing fewer. As to the
cause of the startling fact, opinions may be
divided. We hardly think that the wars in which
the nation has been engaged will account for it.
It is true that war appropriates the most vigor-
ous and active part of the population, the young
and able men by whom the ranks of society
might be filled up. The wars which the French
Republic carried on against combined Europe,
and the drains of population made by the first
NAPOLEON, must have caused a great gap in the
nation, and retarded its rate of increase. As the
agricultural system is predominant in France,
it does not permit the population to expand so
rapidly as the opposite manufacturing system
which prevails in England ; and this might lead
us to expect a slower rate of increase in France
than in this country.

But a cause more powerful than any of
these is the alleged extravagance of living
in which the French are said to indulge.
We learn that this has quite become the fashion,
both in the metropolis and the provinces. Dress,
equipage, carriages, ball-rooms, among the
wealthier classes, and a similar wasteful expen-
diture among all classes, are invoked to explain
this state of things. In England married parties
would rear a promising family of children some-
times pressing upon the means of subsistence.
They are said to manage things otherwise over
the water. In France we have understood that
the number of a family does not exceed the
average of four. The means that would be laid
out in the rearing and education of children can
now be applied by the married parties for
their own individual use and gratification.
Declining to encumber themselves with
indefinite small responsibilities, they can afford
to lay out more upon themselves. Hence that love
of display, dissipation, and extravagance, which
has seized on modern French society.

Daring money speculations, scrip, and shares,
have nowan irresistible charm for the French-
man, traditionally known to us as gay and
gallant. The character of the nation ap-
pears to have undergone a considerable change
of late. They now vie with the English
in their pursuit of the main chance. I 1 the
present Napoleon dynty is not a cause of
this, at least the two things are cotem-
poraneous; the symptoms have been aggravated
of late ; and the suspicion seems unavoidable that
the rigorous rule of the Emperor has helped to
create this state of things. We would always
speak with respect of the powerful and honorable
ally of this country. We have nothing to com-
plain of, but everything to praise, in the Em-
peror's conduct to England. But this ought not
to prevent our seeing that his policy to France
may be of a very different complexion.

If politics are interdicted, the liberty of free
speech, of public meetings, and of the press, are all
forbidden to Frenchmen, then the national mind
must make for itself some other outlet. If healthy
and natural outlets are closed up, others will be
sought less healthy and less eligible. The facul-
ties of a people must have scope in some direc-
tion, and if the proper and eligible be forbidden,
the improper arid undesirable will be chosen. It

is a necessity of our nature: Accordingly,
despots who have closed up the avenues of liberty,
have usually sought to occupy their subjects
in other pursuits ; and, through policy, the
walks of literature and science have been thrown
invitingly open to those who were precluded from
entering on the manlier,: bolder path of politics
and civil liberty. The little despots of Germany
as sedulously have fostered literature and the
arts, as they have discouragel the bolder specu-
lations that touch on politics and the science of
slciety. The natural exercise of our faculties is
health and happiness ; their idleness or misuse is
misery, and if enforced on an extended scale
leads to national decay.
The Emperor NAPOLEON probably knows what
he is about as well as any man in Europe.
Nevertheless, we cannot help 'having the gravest
and most ominous expectations for the future of
France. We fear we are not yet at the end of
French revolutions. From our neighbourhood,
as well as from the closer relations of amity that
have lately.drawn the two nations together, we
cannot separate our own interests and condition
from those of France. Though the genius and
institutions of this country are considerably
different, still any disturbance, any wide-spread
calamity in France must affect us. Her manners,
morals, and language travel to us across the
narrow strait.

We wish that we saw no evidence in
English society of that imputed extravagance
which is now, said so deplorably to charac-
terise French society. Is there not a mote in
our own eye as well as a beam in our brother's
eye ? The condition of France should be a
warning to us. Among ourselves, too, is there
not the desire to outshine, to dazzle, by superior
display ? The love of dress, display, dissipation,
are they not rife in English society ? Many are
trying to make a show above their means—many
are living from hand to mouth. Money is
merit without worth. A good man is a man
good upon the Exchange, where merchants do
congregate. The young woman is brought up
by her parents to look out for an establishment
when she marries, and as a perquisite to mar-
riage. We need not travel to France to point a
moral, or find illustration of the vices. But we
may be very sure that immorality, improvidence,
and dissipation will produce the same baneful
blighting fruits on both sides of the British
Channel. National prosperity, and happiness,
and greatness can spring only from obedience to
natural laws. We can not gather grapes from
thorns. Our earnest appeal is to all classes, to
consider these things, and to profit by them,
There is a moral law of the Universe. As the

venerable Book has it, " Righteousness exalteth
a nation, but sin is the reproach of any people."

THE history of Joint Stock Companies—par-
ticularly Banking and Life Assurance concerns
—has been, during the last year or two, one
fraught with painful instruction and emphatic
warning to the public at large, as well as direful
consequences to many who have had anything
to do with many of the speculations in question.
It has been our province as well as our duty to
call attention to the stability and general manage-
ment of Assurance Companies. On these occa-
sions we have pointed out the imperative
necessity of a much stricter supervision on the
part of shareholders than is now often exercised.
We grounded our opinion on the fact that too
much confidence is placed in Boards of Direc-
tors, Managers, and Actuaries, and that the
statements or accounts submitted at annual
meetings are taken for granted as being correct,
without any guarantee of the accuracy of every
item set forth. It cannot be denied that the
shareholders of an Assurance Company should
pause ere they sanction the adoption of
" Reports" and " Balance Sheets." Every item
should be keenly scrutinised by a professional
and independent accountant, before the periodi-
cal reports are issued. The ordinary system
of auditing the accounts of Assurance Companies
has been a complete failure. It has not prevented
fraud, a reckless expenditure, or an illegal
trafficing in the Company's funds. The reform
which we desire to see introduced into this
department of the business would be an effectual
check on the delinquencies alluded to. It would
prevent many of those disagreeable discoveries
which are made, and the contributors to such
institutions would not so often learn that instead
of being connected with a flourishing, a substan-
tial, and a profitable association, as they fondly
imagined, they have been receiving dividends out
of capital, and that the latter has been disap-
pearing in proportion as their profits have
apparently increased.

Among the many plans put forward for
promoting provident habits, is that of Life
Assurance ; and as it addresses its claims for
general adoption to all classes of the community,
there is no commercial scheme extant, the affairs
of which demand a more rigid investigation, and
particularly as the law which regulates their con-
stitution is so imperfect. A case has just been
brought to light in the Vice-Chancellor's Court
which proves our position. It is the most recent,
but it is only one out of several which we could
enumerate. The Company to which we allude
is the Athenaeum Life Assurance Company. This
society, like several others with similar attractive
pretensions, has been for some time undergoing
the process of " winding up ;" and as the investi-
gation proceeded, facts have come to light which
have induced the unfortunate shareholders who
have been the dupes of the Directors, to demand
a full and a searching enquiry into certain
matters which, it is alleged, implicate some of
the Directors. In winding up the affairs of the
Company, one, and by no means the least diffi-
cult and perplexing duties to be performed are
the settling and arranging the list of shareholders
from whom contributions can be received to
liquidate the demands upon the penniless Asso-
ciation. It appears that Mr. JOHN POPE Cox,
formerly Manager of the Electric Telegraph
Company in Liverpool, became connected with
the "Athenaeum," and was appointed Superin-
tendant of Agencies. The Directors saddle him
with a payment on about thirty-five shares. He
demurs to the claim, and makes a charge that
the deed of settlement has been tampered with,
and that there has been the abstraction of a par-
ticular clause, limiting the liability of share-
holders to the amount of their shares. Mr. Cox
has brought forward what appears to be
substantial evidence in proof of his state-
He swears in the most positive
manner that the missing clause was
in the Deed of Settlement in 1851; nay,
more, he avers that it was on the faith of the
existence of that clause that he had worked the
provincial agencies with considerable success.
Mark what follows : —Mr Cox insists upon the
existence of the limited liability clause. The
Directors at first tell him he is mistaken, and
ultimately he makes his bow and leaves the Com-
pany. The Directors, however, do not lose sight
of the provincial manager. His name was on
their books as having signed for a number of
shares; so, when pecuniary difficulties beset them,
he is invited to pay the call which the Directors
had sanctioned.

ment.

When Mr. Cox demanded explanation relative

to the missing clause, he got none. The chairman
treated him to an anecdote as to how he acted
when officiating in the pulpit—for be it observed
that the head of the "Athenmum" was once a
working divine—viz.: When he used to preach,
and saw the people tired, or when he was tired
himself, he had his sermons so arranged that he
could turn over one or two pages and cut it

short, without the congregation knowing anything
about it. This may be very dexterous on the
part of the Rev. Mr. BARTLETT, but it says but
little for his truthfulness as a minister. It has ,
however, nothing to do with the missing clause,
in the Company's Deed of Settlement. Certain
it is that such a clause was in the deed, and it is
now an incontrovertible fact that it is non est in-

vehtus. It is, therefore, clear, that the object of
its insertion was to lead the shareholders into the
belief that they would be liable for the mere

amount of their share, instead of risking every
farthing that they possessed—a matter of no
small importance, now that the Company, after
an excited career of counterfeit prosperity, if not
well-devised schemes of chicanery and solid
knavery, is found to be embarrassed to the

amount of nearly 40,0001.
As we said before, the " Athenaeum" does no
stand Talone in such nefarious transactions. A

similar instance took place in the case of the

'Amazon," when more than one Liverpool gentle-

man was sadly worsted. Besides it, we have