The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-06 00:00:00

THE CITY BANE AND ITS, ACCESSORIES.

(From :he Manchester Guardian.)
Whatever may the issue of the criminal proceed;ngs
against Jonah Andrew, there can be no do bt that his i :an
01,:sses will s ffer a collapse. Something respecting the
oper Aiwa these atQses was disclosed in the columns of
he Guardian nearly three years ago—quite sufficient, we
thought, 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 deposits and to
grant loans. Each class consisted of I,n 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 receiv d it. The sum so paid was
called a bonus. These bonuses, with fines and forfeitures in
consequence of arrears of the monthly payments, formed the
fund from wh:ch 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 aaditor being attached to them, One of the rules
was that all securities should be lodged at the banker's. At
the beginning of this year, there were 130 classes in opera-
tion, and the number has increased since that time. Jonah
Andrew was secretary to each class, at a salary of £3O 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,ooo a'year,
Besides these 130 secretaryships, Jonah Andrew held 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 first of 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 I 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 £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 33f per oent. per an. Did it never occur to the
tradesmen and others, men of some reputation in social and
commercial circles, who formed the cl isses, 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 had
never stood favourably with society at large ; and yet 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 his
money at a high price there was something wrong about it.
Formerly there was some reason for this. The law said
they should not charge more than 5 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 cases 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
knowledge of these facts, what will be thought of
Andrew's effrontery 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 ?"

It is instructive, in the light of events, to read the re-
m tnis 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 sone- 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 tits 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-
m gotiable," there is still strong grounds for supposing that
he has taken a note so deposited as serarity—say with
class 10—and has got it discounted by class 20. Each
class has supposed that the note 'was in its own chest ;
but no, the note has been taken to other classes, from
which Andrew has obtaiucd money upon it, and fiaally
he has obtained an advance upon the same note at
another establish cent in the city. Ile has engaged
1 ,rgely in this buQiness, 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
b arrow 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 tae week in which
he was apprehended, and he made desperate efforts to
obtain loans on small amounts upo❑ 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, ttc., 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.

SALE OF A TVIFE A 7 CARLISLE

-•--- , 4 a wife
The Annual Register of 1832 gives an acconn:. .
g year In
sale which took place on the 7th of April in tinarried for
Carlisle. Joseph Thomson, a farmer, had been married
and he
three years without finding his happiness advanced, a
prevalent
and his wife at length agreed to separate. It
England that a
notion amongst the rude and ignorant
man, by setting his wife up to public auctiillon.E,ens:ng
and escapes
with her, legally dissolves the marriage
thisti belief, came
d so parting
from all its obligations. Thomson, under,
an announced
into Carlisle with his wife, and hy the bel
that he was about to sell her. At twelvae
number of
the sale commenced in the presence
uflarge oak chair, with
large number
at noon,
persons. Thomson placed his wife oneack.
lie then spoke as
a rope or halter of straw round her
offern
to your notice my
to.
follows :-- •' Gentlemen, I havewhom I
wife, Mary Anne Thomson,
She has
to part for ever.
mean to sell to the highest an:herwise d fairest bidder. Gentlemen,
it is her wish as well as
serpent.fein
I took her for my comfort,
been to me only a born
hnt she became my tormentor,
and the good of my home;;lit invasion, and a daily devil.
a domestic curse, a night my heart when I say—may
Gentlemen, I speak trutroublesome wives and frolicsome
God deliver us '"Ea
as you would a mad dog, a roaring
cholera morbus, Mount Etna, or any
, _:_toj,
Gowen I Avoid them
nature. Now I have shown you the
lion, a laded
.F.-
in,
and told y(Ju her faults and failings,
pestilential thing
..
pesti ,
my wife,
dark side 1
I will introduce the bright and sunny side of her, and
qualificationsex-
and goodness. She can read novels
plain
111heI.:
ns • she can laugh and weep with the same ease
VilCrid Iny
0 you cc; awl d ' take a glass of ale when thirsty. Indeed,
gentlemBflshe reminds me of what the poet says of women
t
.
in general .
, To Healveaugh gave to women, the peculiar grace,
, to weep, to cheat ,he human race.'
She can make butter and scold the maid ; she can sin
Moore's meladies, and plait her frills and caps; she cannot
make rum, gin, or whisky, but she is a good judge of the
quality from long experience in tasting them. I therefore
offer her with all her perfections and ireice•rfections, for the
sum of 505," It this speech is correctly reported, the man
must have been a humorist in addition to his other quali-
ties. The account concludes with the statement that, after
waiting about an hour, Thomson knocked down the lot to
one Henry Mears, f..r 20s. and a Newfoundland dog ; they
then patted in perfect good temper—Mears and the woman
going one way, Thomson and the dog another.—Chambers's
"Book of Days."
T

he Duchess of Leuchtenburg is among the first
series of invited guests to Compiegne. It has been thought
necessary to instruct the Pays to say, that this coincidence
has nothing to do with the candidature of the Prince de
Lettohtenburg for the threue of Greece.