The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-09 00:00:00

BANK FAILURES.

As the practice of banking becomes mare common
the disclosures of the system by which banks are con-
ducted are every day tending to bring the practice into
discredit. Better for the mall tradesman to tie up his
earnings in a stocking and hide it in his bed—better for
the small lodoinghouse-keeper to consign her gains to
the broken teapot on the top shelf of her cupboard,
which is the receptacle of her hidden treasures, than for
either to become a depositor in !genres conducted on such
lax principles, on such a negation of principle, as some
that have lately come under our notice. The worst
of it is that the mismanagement and failure of
one bank throws a suspicion upon them aii. Some new
banks have lately been established, and . have been
doing business so successfully that they have afforded
a dividend to the shareholders of from 10 to 20 per
cent. We look at the names of the directors and
begin to take courage, when we unfortunately remem-
ber that names are, after all, a fallacy—that a reli-
gious baronet may be a solemn humbug, and a roil-
lionnaire Lord of the Treasury a bankrupt victim of
suicide. The bankruptcy of Strahan, Paul, and Bates
was a fearful lesson as well to depositors ac to beakers.
To the latter it exposed the dangerous quicksands
which lurk beneath too venturesome speculation ; to the
former it exposed the flimsiness of the trust to which
they delivered their all in this world, and probably to
many suggested that a joint-stock bank might he
safer than a private one. Scarcely bad the public reeice:
vered from the astonishment created by the discovery °I
so gigantic a swindle when there came another thunder'
clap ; John Sadleir was found dead on Hampstead-
heath, and the Tipperary Bank—a joint-stock, not a
private company—was obliged to close its doors and con-
fess to the robbery of its customers. And now, when
we were hoping that by these terrible examples commer-
cial morality was about to be purified, and commercial
prudence about to be established, we discover the folly
of expecting directors to be prudent where there is a
chance of great gain, or to be moral where there is den'
ger of immense failure.
The Royal British Bank was estaNished some years
ago, with sufficiently modest pretensions. It was to be
modelled on the Scotch banks, which bay e been conducted
for the most part so prudently that the instances in which
payment has been stopped by any of them have been
exceedingly rare. Whether a mode of banking which.
has been eminently successful in provincial towns ot.
Scotland, and even in such cities as Glasgow and
Edinburgh, is equally applicable to the English metro-
polis' where it is impossible that the managers of the
bank can have any accurate knowledge of all the
transactions of its customers, we shall not stay t°
inquire • but certainly there was ;the prestige of a
Scottie" success in favour of the new institution. The
hank was professedly started to accommodate the in'
dustrious, deserving tradesman whose capital lay rathe.t.,.
in his sober sense and plodding routine than in his credstl,
or his purse, to assist the publican doing a steady bust--
ness in the corner shop, and the linendraper with his unpre•
tending window, the grocer who stakes his credit in large
letters on his unrivalled 3s. 6d. mixture and the enterprising
hairdresser who, in honour of his bears' grease, announces
that he has "killed another bear to-day." Propmrly mark
aged, such a bank may assist the deserving tradesman
with an infinitesimal capital, and it may yield a fait
profit to the shareholders who embark in it. But who
are these shareholders likely to be f The scheme ans
evidently great attractions for a certain class—nam elle
for those who have a horror of great speculations'.
and who have faith in the aggregate of
profits amassed by small tradesmen. There is an
number of old maids and widows and half
Fay lieutenants, and farmers and country Burgeons►
who would open their eyes with terror at the idea
of becoming shareholders in an ordinary bank----in
a bank that would advance money to a wholesale mer-
chant—that would discount the bills of a large ship
owner—that would accept the debentures of a railway
company—that, in short, would transact its business by
tens and hundreds of thousands at a single stroke,
to these minds there is something safe in the retail 120".
chant ; he is not a speculator, he is an industrioaSs
honest, jogtrot man, content with moderate profits and
a clear conscience, in spite of his adulterations. A bank'
therefore, it is concluded, which seeks its customers
among this class must be a peculiarly safe investment'
even if the gains should be only moderate ; and, accord'
ingly, we find among the list of the shareholders of
the Royal British Bank just that class of persona
who were likely to be attracted by such a scheme'
Perhaps we are speaking in lamentable ignorance
and, if so, we ask to be pardon but we find no
great commercial names among the shareholders-
Whether they be there or not, however, we certainly
find without number the names of spinsters, widows,
clerks in the Custom-house, messengers, stationers,
butlers, artists, policemen, cheesemongers, and we kn°
not whom else. These were the innocents who sub•
scribed to the concern ; but, for all their innocence a°l
all their caution, the customers of the bank have had
no more security than if they had confided in an en's'
tocratic saint or a speculating sinner. The Bank hag
broken in the most disgraceful manner.
Whoever is to blame in the matter, and that it
not very difficult to decide, it is perfectly clear that
this bank has given way from a combination of the
causes which led to the bankruptcy of Strahan ana
Paul, and to the failure of the Tipperary Bank. The
latter was at the mercy of certain of the directors, vi",,
drew on it till the bubble burst—drew on it withouo
limit—drew on it as none but a person in the position-
of a director could draw. We are not accurately
formed as to the credit which some of the directors of
the Royal British Bank obtained in the books of the
company whose affairs they controlled, and we there-
fore speak with all due restraint. But it seems to
be admitted that in some instances this credit
was more than was justifiable ; and we only give the
system by which a director thus takes advantage of his
position its proper name when we say that it amounts
to embezzlement. A director is appointed to his chair,
just as a clerk or any other functionary is, for his know"
ledge and habits of business, and it is not less improper
for him to get an excessive advance of money from the
manager than for two clerks to conspire to lend each
other cash out of their respective departments. And
as here we have an illustration of that ruinous licence
which caused the downfall of the Tipperary Bank, so in
the character of other advances we have
j
the counterpart of the insanity in which Paul
and Strahan dashed their heads against the
wall. They lent money to impossible railways J.°
the south of Europe and to unproductive coal mines
home, and, in order to recover the loans, lent more
...„.ant`
more, instead of being content with the first loss. "2
shall know more of the transactions of the Royal British
Bank hereafter, but the same game seems to have
been played in its parlour also—money sunk to
unprofitable speeulation and sought to be redeemed
by sinking more, till at last the bank was fairly
engulfed in the Slough of Despond. It wag
engulfed, and the misery is great just in propor-
tion to the modesty of the gains to which the share-
holders looked forward. If capitalists had been con'
nested with it the ruin might not be so fearful. The
depositors, it is not improbable, will ultimately escape'
but hideous ruin has fallen on the shareholders, many
whom bad intrusted all their snvinge, the small pittances
of old age, to this bank. Here is yet another warning
that neither high-sounding pretensions on the one hand'
nor the most humble schemes on the other, are a protec-
tion to the public; and that, be our confidence ever s°

great, our vigilance ought to be still greater.—Times•

BARNET AUTUMNAL CATTLE AND HORSE FAIR."'
THURSDAY, SEPT. 4.—The above fair opened this moor
ing, at nine o'clock. The stock was immense, in everl,
variety. Such a fair, for Barnet, has not been witnessed
for a long series of years. The Herefords ruled at bigh
prices, and went off readily, 131. to 141. being the stailt".
ing, figure. Shorthorns, 121. to 141. ; Devons, 141. If
151., in a highly approves' condition. The mixed breeds
moved off at ordinary rates ; 71. to 101. may be rated Pi
their nominal value. The Scotch side of the fair wag
most liberally supplied. We have not, for the last 1°
years, witnessed so splendid an offering of this class of
cattle. The Galloway breeds bore high figures, 15/. for
glowing beasts. Aberdeen longhorns, 121. to 13`,
Shorthorns were steady, at from 141. to 151., young
animals. A better horse fair has not been experienced
in Barnet for many years past. There was great excite'
ment in this order of business. Large team horses made
as much as 751. ; ditto colts. 401. to 451. per head ; riding
nags, 30/. to 471. each ; and small draught horses foal
251. to 361. ; Welsh ponies were not plentiful, but were
in good request. Prices ranged from 71. to 141.
INCREASE 01' THE AUSTRALIAN TRADE.—Examining
more closely the character of the import trade of the
colony of Victoria, some very curious results
are witnessed. The necessaries of life have IN
creased with most surprising rapidiy. The value
of the butter and cheese imported in 1350 was but
660/., last year the value was 466,0001.; candles amounted
to but 1,0111. in 1850, in six years the demand had lc'
creased to 244,0001. Wheat, flour, and bread were not
imported in the first year of the existence of the colony'
or if at all, to a very limited extent, and they are not en-
tered in the official returns, but last year the consumption
of the colony was equal to 1,550,0001. of these articles.
The importation of oats increased in value from 2,579/.
in 1850 to 316,0001. last year, and potatoes from 2,170/.
to 316,0001. in the same period. In articles of luxury the
increase in the value of the imports affords a good test of
the growing wealth of the country—thus in 1850 car-
riages to the value of 1,7131. sufficed for the wants of the
Victorians, but in 1855 the demand for these articles was
supplied by carriages of the value of 69,5361. ; jewellery
was imported to the value of but 6501. in the earlier Pe-
ri, d, but in the latter the supply was equal to 47,695/,
while clocks and watches increased from 6881. to 21,2141
—Australian and New Zealand Gazette.
STOKE is remarkable for the number of good stone CO
tages of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which!
exhibits, aid very considerable remains of monastic
buildings. The church is a Norman structure, with vs'
rious insertions, and a south chapel of the Early Deco-
rated period, with a range of four lights on each side. •A-_,
low side window (sometimes called a lychnoscope,
sometimes a vulne window) on each side of the chancel ;
a squint, or hagioscope, on each side of the chancel arch
and what may to the remains of a stone altar at the en
of the chancel, are amongst the noticeable point,. 90
the south side of the latter there is a large piscine, with
shelf above, placed anglewise. The most interestiug few
tore in the edifice, however, is the north door of the
church, against which, in more recent times, a porch
has been built that obscures the upper part of the orna-
mented semicircular arch. On the semicircular tyilif'°.
uum, above the straight head of the door are various
rude sculptures, consisting of a tree in the centre,
three largo birds amongst the foliage ; on the left, or east
side of this, is a representation of the archer of theZo-
clinic, marked at the side, in Byzantine fashion, Sagitta.
rius ; and on the other side an animal inscribed Leo, and
a representation of the Aguus Del. —T4c Buildcr.with