The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The weakness, the folly, and the credu-
lity of mankind are exemplified in our courts of law
with a boldness which fiction dares tot emulate. A
column of Divorce Court cases reveals vices which
would be held Co outrage all probability if hazarded
in a three-volume novel; the romance of the Ron-
poll case seems equally beyond the possibili y of an
actual occurrence, whether we believe or disbelieve
the story of the convict ; and now this cause celebre
in the Bankruptcy Court, whereof Colonel Waugh is
the hero, comes to tax our capacity of belief in the
impudence of an adventurer, and in the blind
credulity of his dupes. If a man would prey upon
his fellows, audacity seems to be the only requisite
for a temporary success. Colonel Waugh comes
before the Bankruptcy Court, not as a public wrong-
doer, but as an untortunate man worthy of all com-
miseration. He tells us at every turn of the argu-
ment that he is a rough, honest old soldier, who has
spent 23 years of his life in the service of his
country. He is so weak in his eyes that it would be
a cruel persecution to imprison him ; and he is able
to get up a burst of virtuous indignation at any
suggestion that he and his fellow directors in the
London and Eastern Bank were not " the most
honest men in the world." If he keeps up the
representation long enough, and if day after day
his counsel she'll be allowed to dwell upon his
personal ailments and his military services, Colonel
Waugh will soon get a'little public of commiserators.
It is eight years since he dszzled the town with his
pomps and his splendour. It is seven years since
the ears of the nation were filled with the wail
of the victims who were being swallowed up in the
little social earthquake which destroyed so many
humble families. If we could resuscitate the
details of those miseries, if we could follow the
fortunes of the victims, and contrast the present
position of scores of men and women and children
with what it might have been if Colonel Waugh had
lived upon his moderate competency and had never
got access to the funds of the London and Eastern
Band, public opinion would still go hard against.
Colonel Waugh. But time has flown by ; the
victims have all been swept away; death and ruin
and inso vercy have rolled over them, and they are
gone do wn to the bottom of the social scale, out of
sight and out of hearing. The only residuum of
this great evil is the man who was the chief agent
in it; and be comes before us claiming our pity, and
even remonstrating against our censure. He evi-
dently has the same audacity in defence which he
showed in his adventure, and there are fools enough
in the world, although of another class, to make a
party against punishing him, just as there were
fools enough to believe in his story of untold million
lying lying hid in the clay of Branksea Island. We laugh
at the absurdity of the Monto Christ() romance, and
yet we find ourselves gravely investigating the
cidents of this Branksea Island reality. A retired
Colonel, with an income of £4OO a-year, buys a
little island upon the coast of Dersetshire. Fifteen
thousand pounds was the price, and, of course, he
had not the money to pay for it, but so plausible
was the Colonel, or so silly were the people wish
whom he came in contact, that in a short time he
SA invested £30,000 in the island, and had raised
about the same sum in mortgage upon it. This
seems to have been the state of affairs when he in-
troduced himself to the managing director of the
London and Eastern Bank. He went there to raise
more money upon some property belonging to hie
sister, and he took the occasion to launch his story
of the wonderful wealth that lay hid in the clay of
Branksea Island. He was too wise to talk of hidden
treasures. Boxes of diamonas and chests of ingots
are left now to more professional romancers ; your
practical men take a bolder fight and assert that
the whole soil is a treasure. Here was an " old
soldier," whose possession was a deposit a clay
mortgaged to double its worth, persuading a
honker that this clay was a security for
£70,000 and was of the value of untold millions
A piece of paper purporting to be a report or
valuation, showing how all this island might be
made into alum, and calculating its value at
about £8 per ton, was sufficient to induce the
managing director to lend £50,000 upon this pre-
cious clay. We suppose we must believe that
this statement is correct. There is no proof that
this was a conspiracy between Stephen and Waugh
from the first, and tnerefure we have ro right to as
sums it from the mere improbability of the alterna-
tive stone But, if that story be true, how strange
a trutheis! The next step is stranger still, if pos-
sible. Upon the strength of this very indebtedness
Colonel Waugh becomes a director of the bank from
which he had borrowed. As a director he seems to
have done pretty much as he liked, and he went on
" borrowing" till the amount reached £114.000. It
was only £114,000. Colonel Waugh complains
bitterly that he has been injuriously put down as a
debtor to the bank to the extent of £240,000, and
he evidently thinks that he has been by this cheated
out of £126,000. As we read his own statement,
however, it would appear that he raised £114,000
and £30,000 upon a mud bank for which he gave
£15,000. What became of all this money ? There
is a shell of an unfinished castle and some pottery
works cn Branksea Island, and there is a fading
tradition of ostentatious banquets in London. There
is, .moreover, an estimate for the formation of a
working establishment, which was to cost £5,000,
and a paper of most audacious calculations concern-
in 30,000,000 tons of " marketable clay," worth
£40,000,010 sterling. This is all we have to show
for £144.000 in hard cash. The flight of the co-
directors when the extent of the old soldier's bor-
rowings became known, the shifts, contrivances,
and broken promises, the confident assurances, and
the ultimate smash, are all too necessary a sequence
to the antecedent facts to be dwelt upon. The great
fact notable in the history of human credulity is
that a man of no great means, but living in en ex-
travagant flashy style, was able to raise £144,000
upon a story that he was able to convert clay into
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cajoled by this impossible nonsense, and none
others, we might be inclined to say that no laws
can protect such folly as this, and we might be
satisfied to see such delusions work their natural
result. But the hundreds whom the London and
Eastern Bank ruined had no choice or voice in this
matter. They did not know that their managing di-
rector was lending their money upon this promising
adventure; they aid not know that their director
was helping himself to their money upon this won-
derful security ; they believed that their business
was being conducted as banking business generally
is conducted. When they awoke to ruin, and were
told that they were liable to their uttermost shil-
ling. because Branksea Island clay was not worth
£8 a ton, they bad, probably, never heard of Brank-
sea Island, and had no notion that their fortunes
had ever depended upon any so singular an impro-
bability. This is not a fair risk. Take it in the
most favourable light; let us strive to believe that
this man was his own dupe as well as the deceiver
of others ; still the manner in which he obtained
this money was as bad. as bad can be. The moral
wrong produced was as great as that effected by
Resfoereucidmunptdionarttaohlsohlmoaarvwe Roupell; and if the law looks more
tightly upon it, and has no name for it among the
catalogue of criminal offences, more shame to our
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in the majority of cases where the publin cry out
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the Bankruptcy Courtmlai
Colonel Waugh, Something, however, ought to be
vindictive proceedings, even against
a
scot-free, while others who
man as
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done to prevent such
have not occasioned half so mach,memreilsyeruynafroertuexnpatie
trader, and escaping .
Laing their offences under heavy sentences.
POST.—Notwithstandingotuhfede
e recent reverses sus-
raucleYvianittamgeasy have
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material r
itske
stores, and has seen pass into the hands
accrued to the Federal Government.
Theo Sou
th
e.
has lost many men and large Quantities of
w
tenemyious
within
one o f
its
se
territoriesm os t i m por important
alt strategichou although
p blows which have been inflicted must appearhetker un-
doubtedlyb heavy, it is questionable w
the Federal Government they can be turned toy
any practical account. The campaign in the north
east will once more be carried on within the limits
of Virginia, as Maryland and Pennsylvania are no
longer obliged to support a hostile alloy. General
Meade had not, according to the latest accounts,
crossed the Potomac; but when he does it will be
either to resume the old position at Falmouth, or
some other from which operations may he con-
ducted against 4ichrnoud with some hopes of suc-
cess. That those operations will prove successful
there is, however, no reason to believe. Although
Lee experienced heavy losses at Gettysburg, his
,opponent suffered no less severely, and, acting on
the defensive, the Confederates will doubtless be
as well able as hitherto to oppose the advance of
the grand army of the North. The marked disin-