The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-21 00:00:00

40,ri2.7"777,'
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211g<M§TBBN BANK Liar !.10,- • ,.
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v.
.31,EssBs. BAIRD>. ~:..4.„. , ~,e,
On Wednesday the Second,Divisidik..._,
of Session pronounced judgment in the Me oft e
liquidators of of the Western Bank of Scot Ind
against Mr. William Baird and Mr. Jame's Baird.
It will be recollected that with. thirteen out of the
former directors of the bank, whom the liquidators
origma..
' 11y prosecuted, a ,compromise was latt.4
entered into whereby the thirteen agrees
to pay a sttO of £200,.000, in full dis-
charge of the liquidator.s' claims againA
them. Messrs. Baird, however„ stood aloof from
.the
compromise, and the? now pleaded that the
liquidators, had, in discharging th :., 13, practically
discharged the whole claim. This
,p.lea the Court
has- now dismissed, and the judges, ,1
\fier reading
lengthened opinions, unanimously agree,rl to certain
findings, to the following effect :—" First,. that it is
1 relevantly averred that the defender, .1-am,s Baird,
and other persons who were in office with h in; from
June, 1853, to June, 185 G, were jointly guilty of
.
gross negligence, by failing to perform the flutie's
of manu,y:emcnt intrusted to them, and lev,ving
these duties to be performed by the manager, Ivilli-
out any superintendei:ce or control by the board of
directors, or any quorum
or authorised commiJtee
thereof, by means of
James Lee and
Co., of New York, to be employed by . them in the
e manager was enable
to make advances out of the Ends of d
the bank, la
violation of the contract (which
limited the busi-
ness of the bank to this country), ti:
prosecution of
of h
the business
y lossesnehsesaovftheba wnkei;:
America;
in consequence
,lustained
by the bank. Second, that it is relevantly' u'verred
that during the period from June, 1847, to 1852
witham him Baird,
asd
anddirectors
0 rotherof
the p e
hi 'a rI'S os,
ire
:wthleowerein
office
were jointly guilty of gross neglect by failing to
defender,
Wceilli
perform the duties of management intrusted to
them, and leaving those duties to be performed by
the manager without any superintendence or control,
by means of which negligence the manager was
enabled to ;, • . -, and did, make, advances out of the
funds otthic.!;i;i4j,,wii -3i of dip.iio*.itg biVII.e. ,..„...
persons known to be unworthy of credit, by vvbial"
great losses were sustained by the bank. Thilrd, the
Court find in the same terms against the def'onder
James Baird, as applicable to the period, June, 11352,
to June, 1856." To the above extent and effect the
Court sustained the relevancy of the action, and.
allowed the pursuers to lodge the draught of issues
prepared in accordance with these findings. To any
further extent the Court found the averments in the
record irrele7ant as grounds of action. The liquida-
tors had by a
previous minute withdrawn the
charges of fraud ori
Jinally contained in the record,
and by the present juulgment various other charges
confined to gross negligee were dismissed by the
Court. In particular, the C.ourt wholly dismissed
the second branch of the actin n, which sought to
find the defenders liable for the whole losses sus-
tained subsequent to the loss of one -fourth of the
capital, to the extent of several millions sterling.
The Court held that, excepting on the g:round of
fraud, which had been departed from, this branch
of the case could not be sustained.

THE SECESSION PLRISON-2TES Xll

CHICAGO.

(From the New York Times.)
CHICAGO, 1:EB. 24.
The great sensation of the week with us h.ls been
the arrival of several thousand rebel prisonex"s— a
part of the fruits of the victory at Fort Donnela.on-
Camp Douglas—where the prisoners are confined- -
is located on the United States Fair Grounds, at
Cottage Grove, about half a mile south of the city
limits. It occupies several hundred acres, around
which is a high board fence. The buildings are of
wood, mostly one story high, in long ranges. Some
are of two stories. The accommodations, as bar-
racks, are probably as good as any in the country,
and as Uncle Sam provides liberal rations, our
Southern brethren will undoubtedly fare much.
better than they did while in the Confederate
army. One reason for bringing them here was that
they could be subsisted much cheaper than at any
other point.
Those already arrived are principally Tepees-
seeans, Texans, Mississippians, and a few front Vir-
ginia. Their costumes are in every variety of style,
fashion, and material. They represent to the life
the "poor white trash " of the South,
as we have seen it described. The backwoodsmen,
with their jeans and butternut-coloured stuffs, pre-
dominate. All their head gear would come under
the appellation of a "shocking bad hat." Add to
this that they wore worn and dirty, and7you can
form some idea of the tout ensemble of this part:on -
of the rebel army. Overcoats were scarce, and in
their places were blankets of every description,
worn as shawls, and of these, those made of carpet-
ing appeared to predominate. The men appeared
pinched and hungry, as if they had been upon short
commons for months. From the harbhips they
have recently endured, the general appearance of
the men were wretched, and called forth an invo-
luntary feeling in the hearts of all who saw them.
They had all the outlines of poor, ignorant, and de-
luded men, who have been seduced into the rebel-
lion by their demagogue leaders.
In conversing with them in the camp, this idea
is more than confirmed. The Tennesseeans, espe-
cially, are heartily sick of the part they have acted,
and do not hesitate to declare that they were forced
or deluded into taking up arms. The most false
and abominable representations were made to them,
and being mainly unable to read, they were not able
to detect the baseness of the men who led off in the
rebellion. I give below a few specimens of their
talk. The Mississippians are dogged, and their
voice is still for war. The Texans, most of them,
give up all as lost.
I come to a middle-aged man, who was evidently
a small farmer or backwoodsman, and accosted him:
" Well, my good fellow, how do you like your
Northern trip ?"
" Wall, I kinder like the looks of the country
round here. I'm seven hundred miles from my_ kin,
but if they were here I would never go back."
-when you get back to your homes, you mul
speak a good word for us among your neighbours.
" I will that, see'n I've been treated perfectly
gentlemanly."
To another—a Virginian—l remarked, " How
about Floyd ?"
"He is good to take care of himself. I followed.
him 180 miles on a retreat in Western Virginia.
He ain't much thought on down our Ivey. If he
escapes the Lincolns, I shouldn't wonder if he fared
hard from some of our fellows."
I asked another if he was not ashamed to fight
against the Union, and the government whicii has
done so much for them.
He replied, " I never fought agin the Union, and
I never will."
_
" What were you doing at FortDonnelson ? Were
you forced into the army ?"
" Wall, no, not exactly forced; I knew I would.
be, so
.I j'ined. I thought I'd feel better to go my-
self !"
" What do you expect to gain by the rebellion ?"
"We find our leaders have lied to us. Our big
men wanted to get rich and get into office, and so.
they have got us into this mess by their
wlaienst is
.
.st
have nothing spin the old flag. All
v
cr
constitutional rights, according to the instrument
under which our forefathers lived. They toldt s
that the election of Lincoln would ;
-eprive
US .
these, and we believed them. But We now know
that they were lies."
Another said that they had been made to believe
that the Northern army was
and Germans, and they werecomposed of negroes
they came to see the nationalperfectly amazed when
whites and mostly Americans. soldiers and find them
A Mississippian—hearing
giving up the emit a Tennesseean talk of
Give it up, never. contest—said very energetically,
I should •
If I could get out of here to-
morrow,Davis will never go into the fight again. Ji ff.
ham old MibSi`i • give up this contest so long as he
sippi to back him."
1 have no doubt that 8 out of cycril 10 of the
boners would no more triAilile if libertwd.
them give
ar c us
Many lit
indignant at the mariner in which
they have
been deluded and imposed upon, and
would cuter the Union army and do good service,
if permitted. But as there are plenty of good men
and true, who are above suspicion. the experiment
will not probably be tried. There is a general dis-
position on the part of our citizens to make them as
comfortable as possible—looking upon the poor
ignorant souls as so many victims of wiles and in-
trigues of the Confederate leaders, who are really
repentant of the folly and wrong of which they have
been guilty. There are many in the hospital;
Pneumonia is quite prevalent, and many deaths may
be expected. They were exposed, after the capture,
to cold rough weather, without tents or fires. The
steamboats were so crowded that they had to re-
main on the outer decks unprotected during a severe
cold rain storm, which wet them through and
through. In this condition they were put upon
Po the
cars, to make a 350 mile journey to this city, The
result is much sickness of an aggravated
type.