The Sun.
London, England, 1860-10-01 00:00:00

THE SUN,'" LONDON,' 'MONDAY EVENINGZOCTOI3ER 1,

various buildings and organising the medical staff
of officers for the new establishment.

The Rev. T. Molesworth, one of the chaplains at
Chatham garrison, has received orders to proceed to
China, and the Rev. C. A. A. Craven to Aldershot.
The Rev. H. ENaskew at Aldershot is appointed
chaplain at Chatham.
In consequence of the numerous complaints aris-
ing from the pestiferous miasma produced by the
slaughtering and deposit of diseased carcases in the
Plumstead marsh adjoining the Royal Arsenal at
Woolwich, a deputation from the local Board of
Health have waited on Sir B. Hawes, Under Sec-
retary of State for War, being introduced by Mr.
W. AngPrstein, one of the members for Greenwich.
The deputation was most courteously received, Sir
B. Hawes informing them that the subject was one
of great consideration, and promising them that the
nuisance should be remedied without delay.
The Royal Radnor Rifles, Major L. H. Peel com-
manding, are under orders to assemble at Prestigne
on Tuesday, the 30th October next, for 27 days'
training.

THE FA ("TS OF 111EsSRS. S 7 R EAT-

FEILD AND CO.'S STOPPAGE.

(From the Money .ILarket Review.)
The statements made upon the occasion of the
examination of Mr. Thomas Laurence, of the firm
of Streatfeild, Laurence, and Mortimore, in the
Court of Bankruptcy, on the 15th inst., have re-
called public attention to the events which occurred
immediately prior to the stoppage of that great
house. It stands recorded in Mr. Laurence's evi-

deuce that a few days previously he solicited assis-
tance from a great Lombard-street house with

which he had for many years carried on extensive
transactions, and that he then obtained an advance

of £20,000 upon special security. This transaction
has formed the occasion of a series of attacks upon
the moneyed firm referred to, who have been
accused of secretly supporting an unsound system
of trading, after they had obtained a full know-
ledge of its unsoundness. They have been charged
—not generally, but in quarters where an expres-
sion of good opinion carries weight—with an un-
scrupulous disregard of the interests of the trading
community in general, and of the other creditors
of Messrs. Streatfeild and Co. in particular. These
charges have obtained a wide publicity, and have
attracted a proportionate share of public discus-
sion. We have been at some pains to make our-
selves acquainted with the facts of the case, and
with commercial opinion thereupon. In the judg
ment of most impartial men of business Messrs.
Overend, Gurney, and Co. are exonerated from
the accusations which have been made in the

present instance. We have less hesitation
in placing this opinion upon record, because
upon previous occasions we have not been
slow to comment upon the want of caution which
is proved by the revelations in the leather trade to
have characterised the operations both of banks
and of discount houses in the City of London.
There has been far too keen a corn-petition for
commercial bills, and too lax a scrutiny of them;
and it is through the undue facilities of accom-
modation thereby presented that the insolvent
houses in the leather trade have contrived to
prolong a system which, in the interest of the
public, ought to have been stopped long ago.
Where there is any blame, however, it should at
least be apportioned fairly. It is absurd to lay
the evil of the system at the door of any one
house in particular. The amount of Messrs.
Streatfeild's paper held by the great firm in Lom-
bard-street, whose name has been so freely called
in question, was almost exactly the same as that
held by the London Joint-Stock bank ; and next
on the list of creditors come several other joint-
stock banks whose management has acquired a
character for caution. Let us be just. These
facts attest the difficulty
.of discriminating be-
tween sound and unsound commercial paper.
The means of diminishing that difficulty may form
a proper subject of discussion hereafter. For the
moment, we Would offer a narrative of the circum-
stances which immediately preceded Messrs. Streat-
feild and Co.'s stoppage.
The announcement that the house could not
meet its engagements was made definitively on
Monday, the 2d July. On the evening of the pre-
vious Wednesday (the 27th June) Mr. Thomas
Laurence, as he correctly stated in his evidence,
made his appearance after business hours at the
private residence of one of the partners in the firm
of Overend, Gurney, and Co., called him away
from the dining table, and addressed to him an
earnest appeal for assistance. We may be quite
sure that Mr. Laurence did not go on this errand
with a view to declaring that he was insolvent,
or even inextricably embarrassed. Had this been
the case, he had better have saved himself the
trouble, and issued a circular to his creditors inti-
mating a suspension of payment. He declared that
his difficulties were merely temporary, and that all
he wanted, therefore, was temporary assistance, or
otherwise he must stop. Perhaps, if charitably in-
clined, we may hope that he uttered merely what
he thought to be truth : this is not an extravagant
idea, considering that Mr. Laurence declares
Solemnly in the Bankruptcy Court that he believed
his firm to have been really in possession of a sur-
plus of about £300,000, instead of showing a defi-
&ency of 15s. in the pound. If a banker, ap-
pealed to under such circumstances by an old cus-
tomer, were to exclaim, as Mr. D. W. Chapman
did, as a result of a hurried ten minutes' conversa-
tion, " Oh, you must not stop. Come to me to-
morrow, and we will see what can be done," the
remark would be just what we might expect.
Accordingly, on the following morning Mr.
Laurence attended in Lombard-street, gave an ex-
planation of what he considered to be his position,
and pressed again for immediate assistance, as ur-
gent liabilities had to be met without delay. It
was under these circumstances that Messrs. Overend
and Co. granted a loan of £20,000 upon the special
security of certain title-deeds. We do not see that
the transaction entails upon them any culpability
whatever. Similar arrangements are not unfre-
queptly made between bankers and temporarily
embarrassed customers, without the world know-
ing anything about them. To whom else is the
customer to have recourse in time of strait ? To
suppose that Messrs. Overend and Co. could make
themselves masters, upon the instant, of a far-
reaching chain of facts, which it has taken some of
the most skilful accountants in the City many
weeks to unravel, would be simply ridiculous.
Without wishing to be the apologist of any firm,
we say that any banker under similar circum-
stances might have acted without reproach, pre-
cisely as Messrs. Overend and Co. did upon the
occasion.
The £20,000 was handed over. The stoppage of
one or two houses, which depended on Messrs.
Streatfeild, was thereby obviated. There was time
to breathe, and to inquire more deliberately into
their position. Mr. Laurence persisted in declaring
that accommodation to the extent of £OO,OOO for a
few months was all that he required to enable
him to recover himself. Upon the discovery, how-
ever, of the extent of Messrs. Streatfeild's open
discount accounts in other quarters, Messrs. Over-
end and Co. felt that, if any further help was
to be granted, it must be granted in conjunction
with, and upon the recommendation of, the other
large creditors. The next step was to convene a
private meeting of the representatives of the
joint-stock banks and discount establishments in-
terested, in order that the position of the firm might
be laid before them, and that it might be ascertained
whether it was such that its suspension could legiti-
mately be averted. The meetings in question took
place on the Friday and Saturday (the 29th and
30th of June), and comprised representatives of the
firm of Overend and Co., the London Joint-Stock
Bank, the City Bank, the National Bank, &c. It
is important to remark that even up to the Satur-
day night, pending the investigation which was
going forward, and in which Mr. Turquand, the
accountant, was called in to render assistance, all
the principal bill-holders fully concurred in the
advisability of Messrs. Streatfeld continuing their
payments. There appears, therefore, to be no
ground whatever for the insinuation that they were
enabled by one house to makeunfair preferences.
Meanwhile rumours of the embarrassment sof Messrs.
Streatfeild had oozed out, but so strangely high had
their credit stood, even up to the last moment, that
the general impression was that their difficulties
were merely temporary, and would be surmounted.
By the comparatively few persons who were par-
tially aware of the ramifications (though not of the
rottenness) of the system of which Messrs. Streat-
feild were the head, the result of the meeting was
awaited with the mest painful suspense. The
meeting of the principal bill-holders heard not a
tithe of the revelations which have since been
brought to light ; but, upon Mr. Turquand's report,
they were obliged to come to the conclusion that,
however lamentable might be the effect of Messrs.
Streatfeild's stoppage upon the leather trade and
upon commerce generally, it could not be averted.
The affair was immediately delivered over to the
professional accountants, Messrs. Coleman, Tur-
quand, Youngs, and Co., and the circulars announc-
ing Messrs. Streatfeild's stoppage were sent out on
the Monday afternoon.
This is a plain statement of facts, and we are not
aware that they can be controverted in any parti-
cular. We allude to them thus in detail, because
-we retain a hope that the crash in tl e leather trade
will lead to changes in the practice of our great
banks and moneyed establishments in a sense favour-
able to the interests of the community at large, and