The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC. JOURNALS.

Mag.—lt would be nothing new in the history
of the American War if the proportions originally
ascribed to a Federal victory were reduced by later
and more accurate reports, but the disasters sus-
tained by the Confederates at Richmond could admit
only in a single respect of exaggerated colouring.
It is possible that Lee's army suffered less than was
supposed, and that the Southern General retired
with a force still capable of keeping the field against
his enemies. This, too, is a point of great importance,
for it is mainly in conjunction with the destruction or
dispersion of the Confederate garrison that the capture
of Richmond would affect the war.. Of this fact
the Northern people were perfectly aware. At the
commencement of Grant's campaign in May last,
the destruction of the Army of Virginia was spoken
of as its principal object, and no sooner was Rich-
mond occupied than the Federal journals entered
upon calculations of the losses which that army had
sustained. It was computed that if 25,000 prisoners
remained in Grant's hands, andls,ooo men had been
placed hors de combat by the three days' fighting,
the remnant could not represent a force competent
to renew the struggle upon a fresh scene. That this
estimate was excessive is by no means improbable,
but since that time Lee has suffered another defeat,
and the numbers of his army have been again dimi-
nished. It was even rumoured that he had capitulated,
and in this event the feeble force with which John-
ston was confronting the victorious troops of Sher-
man would be the only Confederate army remaining
in the field. The capture of Richmond has been
rendered unexpectedly decisive by the events of last
year's campaign. Twelve months ago it would have
been regarded by the South without much alarm, as
a contingency which had been always in prospect,
and so imminent, indeed, was the danger thought
in May last that preparations were made for trans-
ferring the seat of Government to Columbia, in
South Carolina. But at that time "the interior" of
the Confederacy was an unknown or inaccessible
country. No Federal force had burst through
the frontier armies of the South, or penetrated
into the territories beyond. True, there were
men in the councils of the North who had re-
commended such tactics, and who had described
the Confederacy as an egg, hard only in its
shell or circumference, and utterly unsubstantial
within. But until Sherman proved the truth of
these views they passed only for speculations, and
nobody knew how an invading army might fare.
The great States of Georgia and South Carolina had
never felt the war, Alabama had been scarcely
touched by it, and this immense territory offered
a secure retreat to the Confederates if they should
determine to abandon Virginia and retire upon the
resources of the interior. In those days, if we had
been told, as we are told now, that Augusta would
take the place of Richmond as the capital of
the Confederacy, we should have regarded the
statement not only as indicating the unbroken
resolution of the Southern people, but as portend-
ing the indefinite prolongation of the war. Now,
however, all this is changed. Before Grant took
Richmond Sherman had accounted for all the
country behind it, and had dissipated the illusions
prevailing on the subject. He had marched through
these remote regions from end to end, without en-
countering resistance or falling short of supplies,
and had led his victorious army by a prodigious cir-
cuit from the borders of Tennessee through the heart
of Georgia up to the southern frontier of Virginia
itself. The Confederates, therefore, have now no
" interior" to retire upon. Sherman is there before
them at this minute, and just as he marched from
Savannah to Goldsborough, so Grant might march
at his pleasure from Petersburg to Savannah. There
is no point of Southern territory which may not be
reached by a Northern army, and the North has
armies at its disposal for any enterprise suggesting
itself. President Davis asserted some time since that
the Confederacy had no vital point, and that its
existence was independent of any regular -capital
or fortified position. These words were true when
they were spoken, and they might be thought true
even now but for the evidence given by Sherman's
campaign. It certainly did not signify on what
line the great Confederate armies were fighting, or
from what town the orders of Government were
issued ; but if there are no Confederate armies to
fight anywhere, and no resistance is offered any-
where to the march of a Federal army, the vitality
of the Confederacy will be sorely tried. Still, the
Southern people have it undoubtedly in their power
to make their country a Mexico or a Poland, and
thus to ruin all the hopes of the North in prose-
cuting the war. This was the stage of the contest to
which all political observers looked forward as
charged with elements of greater trouble than the
mere struggle in the field. If it should actually fol-
low, a work infinitely more difficult than even the
capture of Richmond may now be at hand to try
the patience and test the policy of the North. We
can hardly suppose, after the late intelligence, that
the resistance of the South by means of organised
armies can be protracted much longer ; but Southern
resistance may easily take other forms, and the
course of events in this respect will probably soon
be shown. It appears to have been hoped, we might
perhaps say anticipated, by the Northern people
that the South might be willing to bury.in oblivion
the whole of this desperate war, or to think of it
only as a memorable incident of national life.
On its own side the North would be ready with
a complete amnesty and with open arms, asking
nothing from the South but a return to that Union
and those institutions which it had for a time
unhappily repudiated. Bygones should be bygones.
The Civil War need only live in national memory
as a grand struggle in which the heroism and en-
durance of all classes of Americans astonished the
world. Neither belligerent need be ashamed of the
retrospect. Federals and Confederates alike had
maintained larger armies, and fought more desperate
battles than any other people. If the South had
done more with smaller means, the North had borne
up with incredible tenacity against discomfiture and
discouragement, and had outstripped imagination by
the magnitude of its efforts. Let both parties forget
and forgive. If the South will banish from its mind
this vision of an independent Confederacy, and forego
an idea which it has been found impossible to realise,
the North will forget the trial of its resources and its
strength, and both sections of the Union may live
together as before. These seem to be the hopes of
the North, and extraordinary as such expectations
may appear, we believe them to express the only
basis on which peace can be really established.
Unless the South does consent to re-enter the Union,
the end is as far off as ever. But will this phenome- I
non occur? We can only say that it is, perhaps, less
improbable among Americans than among any other
people in the world. It appears as if the North,
which, though actually victorious, has as much to
forget as the South, is not unwilling to perform its
own part in the reconciliation. Its triumph has made
it jubilant, and brought out the good nature of the
people. They are proud even of the achievements of
their Southern brethren. They forget their moun-
tain of debt and all the terrible sufferings of the
four years' war. They are urging their Govern-
rclint to offer the most liberal terms to their late
enemies on the single condition of submission
and agreement, and in this they are guided pro-
bably more by feeling than by any deep political
calculation. What the Government, however, may
ultimately do, or how the South may accept such
overtures as are made, remains to be seen. Slavery
need no longer be any stumbling-block in the way of
union. This fatal institution is already half extinct,
and is verging on its final doom. But there are the
passions of desperate men, inflamed by the recol-
lections of the war, there is the conflict of interests
out of which the war arose, and there are questions
of the deepest significance which the war has created.
For the issue we can only wait, as we waited for
the event of the struggle, with the steady forbear-
ance of neutrals, and with an earnest wish for
speedy and lasting peace.
PosT.---The prosecution of the manager and of the
secretary of the Unity Bank has resulted in their ac-
quittal ; but the refusal of the jury to stop the case on
Monday afternoon, when the presiding judge inti-
mated that the counsel for the Crown had failed to
establish the charges advanced against the accused,
furnishes an indication of the unwillingness with
which they regarded the prospect of a great fraud
going unpunished. A deceit was practised, and was
successful; a trap was laid, and the victim entered
it unhesitatingly; and it is therefore not surprising
that twelve hardheaded men should have found it

very much against their grain to pronounce by their
verdict that the only persons apparently responsible
for, and cognisant of, the deceptiod should go un-
scathed. But as it appeared in the course of the
case that two auditors were appointed by the share-
holders—both men of the highest respectability, and
one of them a professional accountant—the issue vir-
tually became whether it was the intention of the de-
fendants to deceive the auditors as well as the share-
holders. That the balance-sheet issued in the month
of June, 1862, did not faithfully represent the condi=
tion of the bank at that time there can be no doubt,
since it showed a surplus at the disposal of the share-
holders ; whereas, in fact, the back was at the time
hopelessly insolvent. The deception was manifest ;
the only point on which doubt could exist was re-

specting the persons who were chargeable with the
deceit. The secretary and manager were prosecuted,
but they replied to the charge by showing that they
were only instruments in the hands of others, an 3
that the directors and auditors, if they understood
their business, must have seen that the results set
forth on the balance-sheet were entirely fallacious.
If they entered as assets securities which were en-

tirely worthless, it was absurd to charge them with
an attempt to deceive when the bank books were
submitted to the inspection of persons whose busi-
ness it was to test the accuracy of their report, and

who might easily have detected either the errors
into which they had fallen or the misrepresenta-
tions they had made ; and so the prosecution
fell to the ground. The saddle was put upon
the wrong horse. Whether the right horse could be
found, or still can be found, is a different matter.
The jury acquitted the defendants, but at the same
time expressed the opinion that the accounts of the
bank had been kept on a very vicious principle, and
that the directors had neglected their duty in not
more carefully investigating the statements sub-
mitted to them by their servants. In this opinion
every one will readily concur. The history of the
rise, decline, and fall of the Unity Bank is not un-
interesting and is certainly not uninstructive. It
was established at the beginning of the year 1856,
but on the very threshold of its career met with
obstacles, which it needed not only time, but a
large outlay of capital, to overcome. Some
difficulties arose in respect to the confirmation
of the charter of the bank, and it was not until
nearly the middle of 1856 that the establish-
ment commenced operations. The manager of
the bank when first opened was a gentleman
named Chambers, but after a short time he was re-
placed by Mr. Terry, one of the defendants, whilst
the office of secretary was filled by Mr. Burch, the
other defendant. Some twelve months after the
opening of the bank its business would seem to have
been in a condition far from satisfactory, its losses
having amounted to some £38,000 ; and a state-
ment made about this time by one of the directors
was relied on by the prosecution, as showing that
the state of the bank was not so sound as its
balance-sheet would seem to imply. Everything,
however, went tolerably smooth until June, 1862,
when the balance-sheet which furnished the subject
matter of the recent prosecution was published.
From this report it appeared that the current ac-
counts open amounted to the sum of £159,392,
whereas, in truth, they were £170,000 ; that the
cash in hand was £38,715, instead of being only
£29,000 ; and that the bills under discount were
£207,600, instead of being about £160,000. The
net result shown being a sum of about £l,OOO in
favour of the shareholders, whereas, in truth, the
bank was deeply in debt. Bills which, as stated in
evidence by Mr. Howell, the accountant of the
liquidators of the bank, were utterly worthless, and
in some instances which had been proved to be for-
geries, were brought forward in the balance-sheet
as assets, the entries referring to these securities
being shown to be in the handwriting of one or other
of the defendants. Two balance-sheets were pro-
duced in evidence which were in the handwriting of
the secretary, one of them being a precise copy of
the balance-sheet of June, 1862. Several bills which
had been dishonoured previous to this date, and dis-
honoured loans to the amount of £50,000, had been
included in the good assets as set forth in the
balance-sheet. When the liquidation of the Unity
Bank was ultimately effected, no less than £170,000
had been called up out of a nominal capital of
£300,000, and of this sum as much as nine-tenths
were totally lost. Each shareholder paid up £6O
per share, of which sum he finally recovered only £6.
It is, however, so far as it illustrates the func-
tions of the directors of joint-stock banks, and the
mode in which the business of those banks is occa-
sionally conducted, that the evidence adduced on
the recent trial will speedily rivet attention. Mr.
Alderman Mechi, who at one time held the office of
chairman of the board of directors, gave some very
curious testimony on both of these points. In com-
pany with his brother directors he heard the weekly
statements made by the manager and secretary, but
he does not seem to have considered it any part of
his duty to test their accuracy. Directors, as he
told the jury, are not clerks ; and in banking, as in
every other commercial pursuit, implicit reliance
must be placed on confidential servants. It also
appeared that Mr. Mechi and his partner, Mr. Bazin,
kept accounts at the West-end branch of the Unity
Bank, as well as in the City branch, and that when
their accounts in the latter were overdrawn, money
was withdrawn from the former and placed to their
credit, so as to make their accounts, as Alderman
Mechi stated, " look a little better ;" or as Sergeant
Ballantine, in less euphuistic language, expressed it,
" for the purpose of falsely representing a balance
which did not exist." In fact, from the day when
the Unity Bank opened its doors to that on which
they were finally closed, all the ingenuity of the
directors and the manager appears to have been
exercised to make things " look a little better." A
new bank has, as Mr. Mechi tells us, great difficul-
ties to contend with—a vast quantity of doubtful
paper is offered to it, and the manager, however
efficient, must purchase his experience at a cost
which is paid out of the pockets of the shareholders.
The manager of the Unity Bank, unfortunately,
seems to have allowed his desire to increase the
business of the bank to overstep his discretion in
testing the character and means of his customers,
and the result was what might have been antici-
pated. But the question which interests the public
is not whether the Unity Bank was well or badly
conducted with a view to the interests of the
shareholders, but whether the latter were made
aware from time to time of the position in
which they stood. The balance-sheet of June,
1862, it is now abundantly clear, created a delusive
opinion in the minds of the shareholders and of the
public on this important point, and it follows almost
as a matter of course that some persons must have
been to blame for the erroneous impression which
was thus created. The manager and secretary have
been acquitted of the criminal offence with which
they were charged ; but it will reflect little credit
on the present condition of the law if none of the
persons connected with the management of the
Unity. Bank can be made responsible for the pub-
lication of such a balance-sheet as that which
furnished the basis of the recent prosecution.

Shocking Death through being Refused

Medical Attendance,

Yesterday afternooon an inquest was resumed by Dr.
Lankester, at the Royal Oak, St. John's-road, near High-
gate Archway, relative to the death of Mary Green, aged
31 years, who died as alleged from being refused the at-
tendance of a medical man while she was on the verge of
confinement.
John Green, the husband of deceased, said he was a car-
penter, and that they had five children. His wife was con-
fined of the sixth child at eleven o'cleck in the morning of
last Friday week, and died about half-past one on the same
day. Witness thought she died through the neglect of
Mr. Butler, the medical man.
Mr. Thomas John Baker, M.R.C.S., deposed to being

called to deceased at eleven o'clock on the day in question.
He found her in a state of collapse. She was in gresepain,
and on examination he found an irregular birth. He suc-
cessfully delivered her, but the child was dead. She never
rallied, and died at half-past one. He had mado a post
mortem examination, and found that the posteriOr wall of
the uterus was softened and ruptured. The contents had
escaped into the cavity of the abdomen. The cause of
death was rupture of the uterus.

John Green, recalled, said his wife spoke to Dr.
Gardiner six weeks before. Mr. Butler was his partner.
The labour came on on the Thursday evening, and wit-
ness went for the doctor at half-past twelve at night.
Mr. Butler arrived about 1 o'clock. He went away almost
as soon as he came. He sent for him again about 7 o'clock,
but he refused to attend. He said they must go to the
parish. Witness went to Islington workhouse, and got
there about a quarter past 9. He saw a man at the gate.
He said that he (witness) could have no doctor, as he had
not brought his marriage certificate. He returned at half-
past 10, and then went for a midewife and also Mr. Baker,
who was passing at the time.
Mr. Baker, on being recalled, said he thought deceased
lost her life through not having earlier attendance. He
thought that if she had been delivered four hours earlier
her life would have been saved.

IMr. Alfred Butler, M.R.C.S. and M.D., said he was not
I engaged to attend deceased, nor had he heard of any en-
' gagement with his predecessor, Mr. Gardiner. He kept a
book for the purpose of entering such engagements. He
was sent for on Thursday night at half-past 12. He saw
her and found labour had commenced. She was quite in an
early stage, for the os uteri was not dilated. He asked the
woman if she was in a position to pay,when she said "No ;
she thought she could pay by instalments." He then de-
clined to attend, and recommended them to send to some
one else. They sent again about 9 o'clock on the Friday
morning. Ho was not then at home, but when he returned
at a quarter to 10 he understood from Mrs. Butler that Mr.
Baker had been sent for.
Mary Edwards said that she was with Mrs Green
when the doctor came. She was with her from the
first. The doctor after examination asked deceased if she
had engaged, and she replied. " Yes, with Mr. Gardiner
six weeks ago." He told her he could not attend her as she
could not pay, and that she ought to get assistance from
the parish. He said he would rather decline having any-
thing to do with her. She continued very ill all night,
and at seven o'clock became very bad. Witness went to
Mr. Baker between seven and eight, and he recommended
her to go to Mr. Butler. She did so, and saw Mrs. Butler,
who said Mr. Butler would not come. She came back and
sent Green (the husband) to the parish. During the time
he was gone the poor woman was raving mad. She never
saw any one suffer so dreadfully.
Mr. Alfred Butler recalled, said he had seen Mr. Gar-
diner and asked him if he had been engaged to attend the
deceased. He said he had no recollection of it.

By a Juror—Mr. Gardiner had a book of engagements,
but witness had not got it. The engagements which his
predecessor had made were handed over to him, but he did
not feel bound by them. Witness had a copybook in which
he entered such engagements, but he could not find Mrs.
Green's name entered. He considered his responsibility to
attend Mrs. Green when he left her on Friday morning at
1 o'clock. He should probably not have attended her at all
if Mr. Gardiner had made the engagement.

---
The copybook was passed round to the jury, when one

of them said it appeared that those entries were all made
at one time.

The Coroner remarked that, when Mr. Butler gage up
the case, some hours elapsed before medical attendance was
again sought, so that Mr. Butler might not altogether be
blamed.

Mary Edwards said Mr. Butler gave them to understand
there was plenty of time.
The Coroner said no medical attendant was obliged to
attend without payment.
Mary Edwards then informed the court that Mr. Butler
was told that half a sovereign would be paid down, but as
the husband had been out of work the remaining ss. would
be paid at the end of the week. The engagement with
Dr. Gardiner was 15s.

A juror asked Mr. Butler if they (the jurors) were to
understand that he would let the woman die because he
did not get his fee.

The Coroner suppressed such a question. He said there
was no apprehension of death when Mr. Butler left. Had
such been the case, it would be inhumanity and amount to
manslaughter ; but such was not the case.

The jury felt disappointment at Dr. Gardiner not ar
pearing.
The Coroner said that he thought they might 110
revert to the case respecting the workhouse, when
William Trass, house porter of the Islington workhouse,
was examined—He recollected a man coming for an order
for a midwife. Having no marriage certificate he told Win
he must go and fetch it.

William G. Leftley, relieving-officer at the Islington
workhouse, said that Trass was a doorkeeper recently 9,13-
pointed, and his duty was, in a case of emergency, to bring
the applicant to him instead of sending him away, There
was no book of rules.

Mary Edwards was recalled, and, in answer to the julit
said that Mr. Butler did not positively decline to attend the
case, but he said he would rather not. Witness told him
she had been bad five or six hours. He said it was a case
for the parish, and there would be plenty of time to aPPIY
at nine o'clock.
The Coroner then summed up, and the jury, after a short
deliberation with closed doors, returned the following yer-
dict—" That the deceased Mary Green was found dying,
and did die,froni the mortal effect of a rupture of the womb
during childbirth. And the said jurors further say that
the said death was accelerated by the refusal of assistance
by the surgeon to the said Mary Green after having emu"
menced his professional services."
Mr. Butler wished to make some remarks, which the
coroner disallowed. He concurred in the verdict, and the
proceedings terminated.