The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-07 00:00:00

THE Cl 2 Y BANK AND ITS ACCESSORIES.

- (From the Manchester Guardiati.)
Whatever may be the issue of the, criminal proceedings

igainst Jonah Andrew, there can be no doLbt that his loan

classes wiltsuffer a collapse. Something respecting the
operation of these classes was disclosed in the columns of

he Guardtan nearly three years ago—quite sufficient, we

.hought, to deter sensible people from investing their money

so precariously. Some remained, however, who unheeded
the warning then distinctly spoken, and who swallowed the
bait which Jonah held out, forgetting, in their haste to be
rich, to inquire whether the principles of Andrew's system
were the principles of commercial morality.
The loan classes were commenced early in 1856, and
were twofold in their character—to receive depositesand to
grant loans. Each class consisted of an unlimited number
of members, and each member paid £1 per month for four
years and two months, or fifty months. When members
desired to borrow from the common stock, the share of £5O
was put up to competition, and he who bid the highest
amount for the advance received it. The sum so paid was
called a bonus. These bonuses, with fines and forfeitures in
consequence of arrears of the monthly payments, formed tho
fund from which the profits of shareholders were supposed
to be taken. The class took security for advances in the
form of bills of exchange, promissory notes, bonds, and the
like, and also exacted from each borrower an insurance
policy in the Professional Life Assurance Society for double
the amount of the advance. The affairs of each class
were governed by a committee of five members, and regu-
lated by a series of rules which never received the sanction
of Mr. Tidd Pratt, and which were published without a.
single name of trustee, committee man, treasurer, secre-
tary, or auditor being attached to them. One of the rules
was that all securities should be lodged at the banker's. At
h
of this year, there were 130 classes in opera-
tion,tebeginning
eandnuthinegnumber has increased since that time. Jonah
Andrew was secretary to each class, at a salary of 430. Thus
the total amount of his income from this source varied ; but,
for the last year or two,it has not been less than £3,000 a year.
Besides these 130 secretaryships, Jonah Andrew hold the
agency of the Professional Life Assurance Society, in which
all the borrowers in his classes were compelled to insure their
own or their sureties' lives ; and he was also the banker
with whom all the securities for loans were deposited,
On the 16th of March, 1857, the firstof these classes had
been in existence for 12 months, and held its first annual
meeting at what was then deceitfully called " the Man-
chester Savings Bank," but latterly " the City Bank," 31,
Market-street. The chair was taken by a member of a firm
in Mosley-street, and the secretary, Jonah Andrew, was
called upon to read the report and balance sheet. These
showed that 46 £5O shares had been taken up, and that £l2
had been paid on each share, making the total capital of the
class at that time £552. Upon this sum—which, it must be
remembered, had not been in hand for a year, but was com-
posed of monthly instalments of £46—Andrew announced
a profit of £lB5 10s. 7d. after paying all expenses 1 He
therefore, recommended that a dividend of £4 per share
should be paid to each member. we have not made the
complicated calculation necessary to ascertain what rate of
interest will yield £4 upon a capital made up by 12 monthly
instalments of .t 1 each. But if the £l2 had been advanced
by each member at the commencement of the year, a divi-
dend of £4 at the expiration of 12 months would have been.
_at the rate of 33 per cent. per an. Did it never occur to the
tradesmen and others, men of some reputation in social and
commercial circles, who formed the classes, that such interest
was far beyond the value of money, and that their gains must
be unjustly obtained, even if they were within the letter
of the law ? Lest he should meet with some whose con-
sciences were unnecessarily tender on this point, Jonah
Andrew adopted as his protecting aegis a remark made
by Mr. Deputy Recorder Monk, Q.C., in the Court of Re-
'Cord, and published this authority in one of the publica-
tions which issued from No. 31, Market-street. Mr. Monk
said :

",Persons who lent money at high rates of interest h•A
never stood favourably with society at large ; and vet he
did not see why they should not come into a court of jus-
tice, with as many rights, and as free from prejudice, as
any one else. If a man sold calico at a high price he was
applauded for having made a good bargain ; and he did
not see why a man could let a house or a farm at a high
price without obloquy, but that when he came to let out hia
money at a high price there was sontEthing wrong about it.
Formerly there was some reason for this: The law said
they should not charge more than 6 per cent. . . Now,
however, that was done away with, and people could ask
and receive any amount of interest for their money."
Fortified by this legal authority in oases which have
already been published, Andrew and his classes demanded
and obtained 200 per cent. for a loan. We stated last week
how, also, they demanded £2B for a loan of £10; £53 for a
loan of £2O; £122 14s. for a loan of £45 ; and £23 for a loan
of £7 15s. This is one secret of the mode in which the
tradesmen who formed the classes, under Andrew's
tuition, enabled themselves to make between 30 and
and 40 per cent, of their own investments. With a
knov;ledge of these facts, what will be thought of
Andrew's efontery in declaring, as he did at the first an-
nual meeting of class 1, that " these classes may be de-
scribed as.banking associations on a small scale, in which
the, lender gets the greatest amount of interest for his
money, and the borrower pays the smallest rate of interest
for his advance?"

is instructive, in the light of events, to read the re-

ui•+rr;s made by class shareholders at the annual meetings,
when they mentioned their indebtedness to their secretary
" for his excellent and judicious management." Since 1860

the burden of the son e. has been "the judgment and abi ity
of the management," i.e., Jonah Andrew,which had carried.
them through a very trying period, that of the Guardian con-

_ .... ,
troversy. Well would it have been for many of the share-
holders if they had listened to the warning given in that contro-
versy. For, if the rumour is true, Andrew has been play-
ing a subtle game with the classes. Being the depositary
of the bills of exchange and promissory notes given. as
security by the borrowers from the classes, and which
securities were, according to the rules, " inviolate and un-
negotiable," there is still strong grounds for supposing that
he has taken a note so deposited as security--say with
class 10—and has got it discounted by class 20. Each
class has supposed that the note was in itH own cheat ,
but no, the note has been taken to other classes, from
which Andrew has obtained money upon it, and finally
he has obtained an advance upon the same note at
another establishment in the city. He has engaged
largely in this business, has discounted bills for a gentle-
man in a neighbouring borough to an amount exceeding
£lO,OOO, and for a firm in Manchester to the amount of
£5,000. - When some of these bills become due he had to
borrow to meet them, and he offered 7 per cent, for accom-
modation of this description. It was doubtless to meet
these demands that he raised cash more than once upon the
same note in the classes. Many of his bills have not yet be-
come due, so that the extent of the mischief which Andrew
has occasioned cannot yet be ascertained. His difficulties
accumulated during the early part of the week in which
ho was apprehended, and he made desperate efforts to
obtain loans on small amounts upon his endorsements.
The City Bank stopped payment on Wednesday, October
22, about noon; and it is said that on the following day
several notices in bankruptcy were served upon Andrew
or left at the office. Yesterday, a petition in bankruptcy
was filed against him. A sale by auction of the furniture
and fittings, &c., took place on Saturday, under a distraint
by the landlord for £23, the amount of the last quarter's
rent.

If, after all these facts become known, any one should
lose money by such operations as Jonah Andrew's, it will
not be from ignorance of the character of the business.

SCENE Al A BULL FIGHT.

The circus at Saragossa has just been the scene of a san-
guinary drama. On Sunday the place was full, and two
toreadors of secondary rank, but very popular as natives of
the city, named Joaquin Gil and Perez, made the custom-
ary salute and offered to kill the bulls in honour of the pre-
sident and the assembly. The first animal was cleverly
killed by Perez ; the second was a Portuguese animal,
very vicious, cunning, and strong. He received the fatal
blow from Gil, but at the same moment he tossed the
unhappy man into the air, received him upon his horns,
which entered deep into the body, and threw him to the
ground senseless, and then fell dead by the side of his vie
tire. The third bull was also a Portuguese. The torea-
dors were under a state of terror difficulteorsarwohoual,dh sec aareceeml ye toucha
tod e him,fy th e
to describe. The
Fh
ai
ardc
ee
ni.
rt
ohae, mw
hi dod hl the opficathd
great risk fixed two or three firebrands to his neck, in order
to excite him. From pain and noise the bull became furi-
ous. The task of killing him fell to Perez, who advanced
with hesitation and seemed only able to strike feebly
with his sword. The President called to him, and pressed
to have the bull's legs cut with the demi-lune (an immenra
scythe fixed on a pole), but Perez refused this proposition,
which is considered to involve disgrace to a toredor. lie
returned to the fight. The bull threw itself upon him ;in
vain he cast at it the muletta in red cloth ; the bull paid no
attention to it and followed him. But he seized the barriers,
and in leaping over threw his sword at the bull's front. It.
struck the beast in the face, and by a strange fatality re-
bounded and penetrated the thigh of the poor toreador,
cutting it to the bone. The blood run in torrents from, an
open artery. The man was carried away, and the cletiai-
lune was then employed. Two hind legs of the beast were
cut ; but even then upon its stumps it appeared so terrible
that no one dated approach it. The demi-lune was again
brought, and one of the front legs cut off. The beast fell
to the ground and a stroke from the dagger finished him.
Will it be believed that even after this the public were not
satisfied, and demanded the rest of the sport, and that the
authorities were obliged to give them tickets for the next
exhibition? The toreador Gil was buried on Tuesday; the t
other man is in a dangerous state, and amputation is to e
tried when he seems strong enough to bear it.

AFRICAN HUNTING.—A new work on this
exciting subject is announced for publication by Mr. Bentley
in a few days. The author is William Charles Baldwin,
Esq., F.G.S., and the events described extend over a period
illustrated with a map, litho-
graphs, eight years, during which time Mr. Baldwin was travel..
ling from Natal to the Zambesi, Lake Ngami, and Kalahari.
Woodcuts, and therefore we naturally expect
th
illeibYe one of no ordinarywill profusely
nature,