The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-02 00:00:00

lie should like to know for what the £500,000 was
given to Messrs. 0 verend, for.their business for the
six years prior to its sale had never made
a profit indeed, it had now become known
that instead of a profit there had been
a loss of over £600,000 a year for the period he had
mentioned. Ile should call evidence to prove the
statements he had made, and then he should ask
that the defendants might be sent before another
tribunal for trial.

At the close of Mr. Lewis's statement the further
hearing of the summons was adjourned until to-
morrow, each of the defendants entering into sure-
ties of £3,000 for their attendance.

LuNDON GAZETTE--LAST EVENING.

WAR OFFICE, PALL MALL, JAN. 1.
3d Dragoon Guards—Cornet George Moore to be Lieute-
nant; Edward Paley to be Cornet.
10th Hussars -Veterinary-Surgeon WM. Appleton, from
the Military Train, to b 3 Veterinary-Surgeon.
12th Lancers—Cornet Cecil Stephens to b 3 Lieutenant;
Mountcharles Williams to be Cornet.
16th Lancers—Frrncis Drummond, Gent., to be Cornet.
21st Hussars —Ensign NVilliam Watt to be Cornet.
Grenadier Guards—Captain the lion. William Nest to be
Captain and Lieut.-Colonel ; Ensign and Lieut. Henry
Ulick to be Lieutenant and Captain; Lionel Ames to
be Ensign and Lieutenant.
3d Foot—John Stratford Collins, Gent., to bo ''by
purchase ; Staff-Surgeon John Nobe Shipton to be
S urgeon.
4th Foot—Lieut. Herbert C. Borrett to be Adjutant.
Lieut. Christopher M. Davidson to be Instructor of
Musketry.
13th Foot—Limit. William Oldham to be Lieutenant.
_ .

21st Foot—Lieut. Edward Lingard to be Captain, Ensign
Arthur Pollock to be Lieutenant ; Taylor Dalrymple
Wilson, Gent., to be Ensign.
27th Foot—Lieutenant William Herring to be Captain,
Ensign James Buxton to be Lieutenant, Ensign D m-
ville Taylor to be Lieutenant, and Thomas John A.
'Hoban, Gent., to be Ensign.
44th Foot—Ensign William Wood to be Lieutenant.
46th Foot—Major Charles Catty to be Lieutenant-Colonel,
Captain and Brevet-Major James Clarke to be Major,
Captain and Brevet-Major Albert Nicholas to be Major,
Lieutenant Richard Brookes to be Captain, Lieutenant
Frank Grieve to be Captain, Lieutenant James Lovakiu
to be Lieutenant, Ensign Charles Pearson to be Lieu-
tenant.

52d Foot —Lieutenant Richard Pulteney to be Adjutant.
56th Foot—Ensign Thomas Prickett to be Lieutenant,
Henry Thomas Deane- Drake, Gent., to bo Ensign.
60th Foot—Lieutenant Arthur Poole to be Captain, En-
sign Philip Quirk to be Lieutenant; James Connellan,
Gent., to be Ensign ; Lieutenant Robert Jarvis to be
Adjutant.

77th Pout —The surname of the Ensign promoted from
Colour-Sergeant of the 36th Foot, on the 2d September,
1868, is Fenton, and not Verner, as then stated.
91th Foot—Lieutenant Stanford Nairne to be Adjutant.
9Gth Foot—Ensign Cecil to be Lieutenant; Francis Dor-
ling, Gent., to be Ensign.
97th Foot—Lieutenant John Tweedie to be Captain;
Lieutenant George Upperton to be Lieutenant ; Ensign
Charles Partridge to be Lieutenant ; William Bowden,
Gent., to be Ensign.
101st Foot—Staff Surgeon James Jardine, M.D., to be
Surgeon.

Foreign Mail Packet List.

MAILS DUE.

austral:, and New Zealand, via :..4onthanapton..,..Jan. 2.
Ditto, via .? irt;eine,
Jnn 25
Ditto, via rt., ama
Brazil, Buenos Ayres, and Monte Video J Au. 4.
Ditto, by French packet
Vcidr. by Lirazil packet
o,pe ef Good Ripe. Ascension. and St. Relena Jan. 13.
Uhina, Penang, and Singapore, via Southampton—Jan. 2.
'..iribraitar, via Southampton Jan 2
I adia.via Southampton ..... . ...• ••••.....—••••Jan. 2
i• 'tie, via llarsetl.ee...... ........ Jan. 5.
I.lV.tn, Egypt, Stc. .......• .• .• •....
Litt°, M.trseilics J.tn. 8
Aila. Tidos, C,pe of Good Ripe, and Natal, via
Scuthamltou

Pitt), MhtFefileti Jan. I.Q.
Scwfoandlary
et:rtuaal
Jan. 4.
United States, t anada, CAllfornia, &a., by British

packet
Ditto, by Canadian paclet Jan 1
Ditto, by Lited states packet
Ditto ditty (Baltimore)
West Coast of Africa, Madeira, and Teneriffa 4.
Kett Indies and Pacific (except Mexico and Baha-
mas)
I' aikland Islands

Cuba and .11esioo
13sha.nas, via New York Jan.
Bermuda, ylaLlallfax o . .... 2_k_q&A!

laid down that the defendants were to be the first
directors of the new limited company, and such a
proceeding at once prevented the great secret of the
hopeless bankruptcy becoming known. Two of
the defendants, Mr. J. H. Gurney and Mr. Birk-
beck, were to be the managing directors of the
concern, with a salary of £5,000 a year, and every..
thing made to appear that the whole concern was
one of the most prosperous in the city. But the
real fact was quite the reverse. The bank was rotten
to the core. Nearly the whole of the capital had been
lost, and the cash at command, in a bank with mil-
lions, set down as capital, was scarcely £125,000.
He (Mr. Lewis) could hardly imagine a greater
fraud than that wnich had been perpetrated—per-
petrated, he contended, by the defendants with a
full knowledge that they were all ruined beyond
Lop of redemption without other parties could be
found on which their enormous deficiencies might
be cast. That the position of the bank w‘is well
known to the firm there could be no doubt, because
previous to the transfer and registration of the
limited company he had a letter, written by
one of the Gurneys in'ere,ted to a very large
extent both in the London and in the
Norwich houses, dated the 4th day of
July, widch containe 1 words to the effect that if
the catastrophe became known he and his family
would become nearly, if not utterly, destituto, and
this was the person wno was to be the chairman of
the new and supposed wealthy company. Some of
the purchase money of £500,000, it was to be ex-
pected, would at least have been forthcoming when
the crash came, but that, like all the visionary mil-
lion, had melted away, and nothing was
left for the unfortunate shareholders but
misery, and to many ruin. The proper course
for Overend, Gurney, and Co. to have taken
when they became aware of their insolvency was to
have pulled up as honest men should have done, but
this they did not do; but, on the contrary, sought to
escape from ruin themselves by shifting their lia-
bility on others, and this furnished the key to the
whole transaction. They concealed everything that
could give the least idea of their utter worthless-
ness, and succeed by secrecy in concocting a fraud
which, he contended, had no parallel in the annals
of any other commercial country in the world. The
point he wished the counsel for the defendants to
clear up was why there were two deeds executed to
effect the sale of the business, because it appeared
to him (Mr. Lewis) to be a matter of the most ordi-
nary character. By one of the deeds the situation
of the bank was set out, but by the other the share-
holders were to take over the debts of Overend
and Gurney, as cash, and as a specimen of what
those securities consisted, he would just quote a few
for the information of his lordship. There was a
mail steam shipping company, now in liqui-
dation, which stood in for £85,000 ; a
Mr. Howard was set down for £310,000 ;
a Mr. Leopold Lewis for £314,000 ; the
Millwall Iron Company £510,000, and various
others, making in all £4,000,000 of securities, as
they were called, which were utterly and entirely
worthless owing to the failure of the parties, and
which by the second deed were to be taken
over by the limited company as good
debts, and worth 20s. in the pound.
The second deed was never even mentioned
in the prospectus, and, that only one deed was sup-
posed to be in existence, he would state there was
a gentleman in court who had taken shares to the
extent of £lOO,OOO in the concern,who never would
have done so had the second deed been known
to be in existence. He wanted to know who had
kept the secret deed until the crash came, but
come to light it did, and that just when it was
wanted. He would ask his lordship, if he thought
it was likely that men of the most ordinary intelli-
gence would go into a concern where it was openly
set out that such worthless securities as he had
quoted were to be taken over as cash. With re-
spect to two of the defendants, Mr. Rennie with-
drew from the funds of the limited liability com-
pany, within a week after it was formed, a sum of
no less than £57,000, which, had he wanted but a
week before, he would have had to be contented
with about as many sixpences as Overend, Gurney,
and Co. were utterly unable to meet such a de-
mand. lie might have wanted the money, but that
did not alter the fact that at least one of the de-
fendants put £57,000 of the shareholders' money
into his own pocket. Mr. Gordon was a profes-
sional director ; he was to get £5OO per annum for
four attendances during the year, and the others
were to receive solid benefit, and all was to come
out of the money of the unfortunate shareholders.