The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-30 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 30, Mt.

THE CONTRACT CORPORAHON.

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To the mass of the middle classes in England last
Wednesday, we fear, proved but a dreary Christ-
mas. Many have been wholly ruined, still more
half ruined, and but few, if any, have escaped
through the last two years without loss. With
Christmas gaieties come Christmas bills, and hun-
dreds have to solve the problem how to pay inevit-
able expenses out of the receipts from property which,
instead of giving, may have taken away the little left.
If we put our finger at random down the Miscel-
laneous List, which each day tells its tale of ruin in
the papers, we could scarcely fail in hitting on a
company whose history is a warning. Taking the
last announcement of an official liquidator as an
instance, and the end of the Contract Corporation is
seen, in whose career we learn how such desolation
has been spread over the country. In January,
1864, this company succeeded in establishing itself '
by the issue of 2%000 shares of the nominal value of
£lOO each, on which £3 were in the first instance
paid. The Board was said to be composed of well-
known men of business and gentlemen of position.
Its chairman was JOSEPH ROBINSON, Esq. ; its de-
puty chairman, OCTAVIUS OMMANNEY, Esq ; and
the members were WILLIAM LATHA3I BAILEY, W.
MONTAGU .BAILLIE, ANTHONY KINGTON BAKER,
JOSEPH BOYCE, TAUROS DILBEROGLUE, W. SMITH
DIXON, and THOMAS Goocu, Esqs.; besides the two
members of Parliament G. S. BEECROFT and Capt.
H. S. W. JERVIS, and the Alderman THOS. DAMN',
At the first meeting, held in the London Tavern
July 26, 1864, a dividend was declared of 15 per
cent. per annum, and Mr. ROBINSON submitted
a most satisfactory statement, which Alderman
DAKIN corroborated, assuring the assemblage that
such was the flourishing state of the business
that the directors entertained a confident hope
not only of keeping up the dividend, but even
of increasing it on future occasions. Towards
the close of the year the directors retired with the
exception of Captain JERVIS and Messrs. BEE-
CROFT and ROBINSON, and the Alderman who had
given such an encouraging account of the future pro-
spects of the concern kindly left these gratifying re-
sults to be realised by those who confided in his
statements. Mr. DAMN, Mr. BAILLIE, and Mr.
OMMANNEY retired on the plea of being directors of
the rival contractors, SMITH, KNIGHT, and Co., from
which we hope they were able to effect as timely a
retreat. Early in the following February it was
announced that the Corporation had made arrange-
ments with the firm of WATSON and OVEREND
to purchase their business, the partners of this
business filling up the vacancies in the Board.
At that time men believed in the announce-
ments made by directors, and fully expect-
ing that what Alderman DAKIN predicted would
be realised, the shares of the company rose to
5 premium. But the reflecting portion on 'con-
sidering that but £5 had as yet been paid, and £95
remained to call, concluded that it was a farce
to call the company one of limited liability,
as they might be involved in nineteen times
the loss of the capital paid up. On press-
ing their shares for sale the premium was
quickly lost, and the price receded to 6 to 7 dis-
count on the announcement of a further call of £5
per share. The holders during 1865 showed their
uneasiness by writing letters to the newspapers,
but on June 17 of that year they were
somewhat re-assured by an article in the
Money Market Review, explaining the reasons
of the extreme depreciation in numerous in-
stances of joint-stock undertakings "in which the
merits are considerable." " The property called up
from the shareholders is now absolutely intact, inas-
much as there are, we are assured, £20,000 in pos-
session in hard cash, and £lOO,OOO in good securi-
ties. While therefore the market value of the shares
indicates a positive loss of £120,000 to £140,000,
there is, in fact, according to the information fur-
nished to us, not only no loss at all, but a good
business and a handsome interest for the money
employed." It is probable from these words that
the Review received its information direJt from the
company, and wrote on them without suspecting
that facts had been grossly perverted. The fall
in the market price of the shares is mainly
attributed to a " syndicate," who had speculated
largely in then. " But," goes on the Money
Market Review, "as we have shown, the position of
the company appears to be sound, and there is every
reason therefore why permanent investors should
not be frightened by the special causes we
have named affecting the market value for
the moment. Qn the contrary, there is every
reason to induce a bona fide investor to retain
his interest, and even to add to it at the de-
preciated price of the shares." Towards the close
of the year the embarrassment of many contracting
houses became apparent, and inauguarated the
grand smash which will render memorable in the
history of disaster the years 1866 and 1867. One
of the first of these to go was OVEREND and WATSON,
and the style of business the Contract Corporation
had been doing gradually became known. Indeed,
it would have been impossible to have divulged it
at once without petrifying its shareholders. Nor
could the directors have done so, for they in reality
knew little of their own folly and of the rottenness
and dishonesty around them. The helpless pro-
prietors, soothed by the assurances of the directors
and by the Money Market Review, were caught un-
prepared in the whirlwind ; and although the reve-
lations of the Joint-Stock Discount, with which
they had been connected, led them to look for bad
news, they could have had no conception of the
extent to which the company was involved till the
statement made by the official liquidator when an-
nouncing the necessity for the full uncalled balance
of £55 being paid up. Of course when a company
fails for the whole amount of its nominal capital, at
a time when nee-seventh only of that capital is
paid, there will be many defaulters, and the sum
realised will be but a small proportion of that due.
On each of the 20,000 shares when the sus-
pension occurred, there remained a liability of
£35, of which £3O were first demanded, but on
Friday, the 20th instant, Mr. C. F. KEMP,
the official liquidator, applied to the chief
clerk of the Master of the Rolls to have the
remaining uncalled liability of the contributories,
amounting to £55 per share, paid up. His affi-
davit was read showing the state of the company's
liabilities and.assets to be such as even if this call
were fully met the creditors, it was thought,
would receive only two shillings and sixpence in the
pound ! Mr. KEMP advised forbearance in the in-
terest both of creditors and shareholders in enforc-
ing the call, for if peremptorily levied it would
produce a much smaller sum than if tims were
given to the contributiors to realise their assets to
the best advantage. It may be asked—how was it
possible for this company Co be so mismanaged that
on the whole of its nominal capital, so large as to
have led to the erroneous impression that its
liability was in effect unlimited, being paid
among its creditors, still that but one-eighth of its
debts would be discharged? Remembering that
that capital was two millions sterling, we
confess that we have little idea how this stu-
pendous result was reached. If "mediums"
could be made to give information, there is no
place where they would be more required than at
the meetings of Joint-Stock Companies' share-
holders. Could a spirit have been " rapped up"
to be questioned by an inquisitive proprietor in-
stead of such prophets as Alderman DAKIN, the
science might be turned to a practical account.
Suppose, for instance, after the Directors had said
all their agreeable things, to these victims gathered
at the London Tavern on the 26th July, 1864, a
shareholder had extracted the information from a
spirit that in two years there would be an end of the
company—as far as the hopes of the proprietors
were concerned and that after another year
there would be an end to the hopes of
the creditors the hair of all would have
stiffened with horror. Doubtless Mr. ROBIN-
SON would have explained, that the spirit was malig-
nant and said impossible things—that the nominal
capital of the company being £2,000,000, it was a
manifest absurdity to imagine such a sum could be
lost. The spirit would have replied that not only would
the company fail for that amount, but for four times
the sum ; and so incredible would have appeared
the story,jhat even the word of an angel could
scarcely have carried conviction. Yet it has hap-

pened, and so deadened are the feelings by the re-
peated blows received by the public, that however
agonising may have been.the announcement to those
involved, scarcely a word of comment has followed.
We hear a great deal of the dishonesty of the na-
tional banks of America. Correspondents—more
especially he of the London Standard—. are fond of
dilating on this subject, and advancing it as a proof
of the commercial immorality in the United States;
but let him match, if he can, this sample of an
English concern. The worst feature is the silence
with which the details were received. Some years
ago an outcry would have rung over the world.
Now, even this case of hideous mismanagement is
taken as a matter of course, and the victims may
die in ditches while these men of grand ideas go on
their way rejoicing, having achieved what the
world demands as respectable—a mighty smash.—
Anglo-American Times.

THE HISTORY AND OBJECTS OF
I'ENTANISM.

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The columns of the Tinies furnish a proof of the
extent to which the Fenian conspiracy has taken
possession of the British mind. Two or three of
its three or four leading articles have lately been
devoted to a discussion of the subject. The most
interesting of these appeared last Tuesday, based on
a pamphlet " published with considerable reserve at
Philadelphia, and not easily procurable even in the
United States." We have not had the advantage
of reading this pamphlet ; but the general know-
ledge we possess on the subject satisfies us from the
evidence given in this summary that the history of
the conspiracy is there faithfully told.

Mr. JAMES STEPHENS, the father of Fenianism,
studied conspiracy in the school of SMITH O'BRIEN,
and was engaged in the rebellion of 1818. He
escaped to the Continent, where, in a period of
revolutionary excitement, he qualified himself to
found a school of his own. He saw the blunder of
striking at English power on the soil of Ireland,
whila such a grand field was open to him as that
furnished by the Irish in the United States. In
1858, three years before the outbreak of the Ameri-
can war, he began his work, laying the foundation of
the organisation which has since assumed such large
proportions. At first it took a military chara6ter,
remaining almost unknown to Americans until the
second year of the war, when it began to assume
consistency. The members enlisted freely and Buf-
fered so heavily that it was considered in the Fede-
ral army " unlucky to be a Fenian." Up to Novem-
ber,lB63, Fenianism remained a military institution,
but in that month a Congress met at Chicago to
give the body a civil constitution and shape. The
idea appears to have been originated by Mr. JOHN
O'MAHONY of founding a Fenian Republic within the
Republic of the United States, the one being a coun-
terpart of the other. In proposing the Congress, the
Head Centre announced his conviction that the mili
tary organisation was a mistake, and that it should be
reconstituted after the model of the free institutions
of the United. States. Its first step was to publish
a declaration of the nature and objects of Fenianism
for the information of the public. At that time
little or nothing was known of it in America,
and it was not till long after, that the name fur-
nished a discussion in the United Kingdom as to its
origin and meaning. " We are," said the members
in Congress assembled, "for the most part, citizens
of the United States of America, of Irish birth and
descent, though ready to welcome jet° our ranks
other dwellers on the American Continent." It is
noticeable in this declaration that no allusion was
made of any organisation of the order being ex-
tended to Ireland, and it was distinctly announced
that.Fenianism was then confined to the Irish popula-
tion of America, whom it described " as holding a
more powerful position among the peoples of the
earth in point of numbers, political privileges,
social influence, and military strength, than was
ever held before by the exiled portion of any na-
tion." It did not appear to strike these sorrow-
ing exiles that such advantages weri enjoyed by
scarcely any other people in the world ; that they
were freely open to their countrymen, aNd that
it would have been much more becoming to have
met together to have thanked GOD for the asylum
He had prepared for them, than to conspire against
the peace of the very nation to whom they owed
the blessings they described. The object was
then proclaimed to be " the resurrection of Ire-
land to independent nationhood." Fearing, on the
one hand, the hostility of the American Government,
and, on the other, that of the Roman Catholic priest-
hood, they passed a resolution of dutiful obedience
to the laws of the Union, and a declaration that
they were not a " secret, oath-bound, or illegal
society." The former they qualified by a second
resolution, to the effect, that under these laws
they were entitled to do as they chose, and the
affirmation was in each instance untrue. On the
11th January, 1865, the progress of the conspiracy
was shown by the proceedings of the second Na-
tional Congress, which was held at Cincinnati. The
former meeting was during the most disastrous
period of the civil war ; the second was just pre-
vious to its triumphant close, and the Congress ap-
pear to have reckoned confidently on a war between
the United Kingdom and the United States. The
operations were extended so as include not only
Ireland but England and its dependencies, and the
constitution was amended to extend the brotherhood
to the provinces of the British Empire wherever
situated. • It was then that Fenianism began to
attract attention in England, although, as yet, there
was no regular organisation of the order in Ireland.
In addressing the Congress, the President stated—
" This American institution, called the Fenian
Brotherhood, does not exist in Ireland as an orga-
nised body." During the progress of the Southern
rebellion, Irish soldiers in the Federal army Often
boasted of what they would do, when enabled by the
downfall of the Confederacy to turn their attention
to their native country. Shortly after the Cincin-
nati Congress, the civil war ended, and it was then
that Fenianism assumed au active form in Ireland,
but before the organisation was effected the Irish Re-
public was proclaimed as virtually established. The
President was elected, commissions issued, bonds
offered for sale, and Americans looked on—half
amused, half annoyed—at. what they considered the
farce of Playing at Governments. It is doubtless
difficult to organise for good purposes, but it is easy
enough to organise for evil. Subscriptions flowed
into the treasury of the Irish Republic, regiments
were formed; and as it was necessary for the order, tc
secure a base of operations outside the United States,
as they could not otherwise be recognised as a belli-
gerent power, the invasion of Canada was planned.
UNCLE SAM allowed the conspirators to proceed to
the infringement of the law, and then stretched out
his hand to suppress the invading army. At two
different points, and on two different occasions, the
Fenians however, succeeded in penetrating into
Canada; but finding the Government at Washing-
ton determined not to permit the proposed infringe-
ment of national law, and seeing the determined
hostility of the Canadians, the efforts of the orga-
nisation were directed to Ireland itself. In 1865
Mr. STEPHENS, the Head Centre, and his coadjutors,
proceeded to the country they proposed to liberate,
and worked with great zeal, but the Government
were cognisant of their movements, and on the
15th September of that year both he and his
assistants were arrested. The abortive insur-
rection followed ; and the Fenian leaders were
constrained to admit that, unaided, they had
no chance of effecting an) thing in the island.
Driven from Ireland (where the Habeas Corpui had
been suspended) by the vigilance of the Govern-
ment, the leaders turned their attention to Eng-
land, and determined that if they could not braak
up the empire, they would at least establish a ter-
rorism, and, if possible, a disruption of society.
The first plan which came to light was the attempt
on Chester Castle--a scheme so audacious in con-
ception as to convey more of incredulity than fear
to the public mind. The outrages which followed,
and the impunity of their perpetration, gradually
changed this feeling, which became intensified by
the catastrophe of Clerkenwell. It is probable that
the object of the leaders was to create a panic
and a sense of national indignation, which, as may
readily be believed, would lead to a public irritation
dangerous to the amicable relations between Great
Britain and the United States. The one grand
point for which Fenians strive is to embroil these

nations in a war. With this object, they have lost
no opportunity of misrepresenting English feeling
towards America during the Civil War. Having
aided to excite an animus in the United States, they
have now laboured to treat this animus in Great
Britain. If the two countries are sufficiently foolish
to be made a cat's-paw of, the Fenians will
eventually gain their end. It is about time that
both branches of the Anglo-Saxon race should
clearly recognise the object of the murders, incen-
diarism, and other outrages, which would otherwise
appear aimless. Whatever may be the ultimate end
of Mr. STEPHENS'S conception, we cannot imagine
that it ►would be gratifying to New England
Puritans, to the Southern descendants of the Cava-
liers, to the Pennsylvanian Quakers, to become in-
volved in a horribly destructive war, to punish the
living generation of English, for the very political
crimes their own forefathers were equally instru-
mental in perpetrating.—Anglo-American Times.

THE WHITES AND THE BLACKS IN THE
SOUTHERN SLATES.

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The Rev. T. W. CONWAY, writing from Mont-
gomery, Alabama, after an extensive tour through
the South, says, " that from the moment he got on
board the boat at Washington, till he reached Mont-
gomery, he did not hear kikind word uttered 11
any of the former rebels (rebels still) concerning the
Government of the country." Mr. CONWAY'S letter
shows what the PRESIDENT asserts, and the district
commanders, we have no doubt, confirm, that
Reconstruction is working badly in the South,
and that Congress must so modify its measures
as to carry the white people with it, or fail in its
policy. It must either come to this or to a war of
races. There are tens of thousands of the proudest
and most arrogant people in the world who would
elect to die in preference to be ruled by their for-
mer slaves—a race they despised, but did not dis-
like, but whom now they are growing both to fear
and to hate. Mr. CONIVAY states that, while writ-
ing, the expressions around him were, " The niggers
must die or leave the country"—" The white niggers
who are among them must be put down anyhow, at
any cost." This is the feeling that Congress finds such
difficulty in working against. Mr. JOHNSON'S policy
would replace the planters in power and re-enact
slavery, though in a modified degree. The Con-
gressional scheme makes SAMBO master in the
Southern States. Can no American statesman con-
trive a middle course, giving to the whites the
position their intelligence, property, and training de-
mand, 1% hile securing to the freedman the liberty
won for him by the war ? The objection to Mr.
JOHNSON'S Message lies in this,,that, while demolish-
ing the acts of Congress, he proposes nothing in their
stead, and ignores the essence of the difficulty in the
connection hitherto existing between the races.
And when he argues on the impropriety of giving
the suffrage to the negro while the intelligent
foreigner is forced to reside in the country for
five years, and establish a good character, before
being admitted to the ballot—he fails to deal
with the fact that there is no desire in the citi-
zens to reduce to slavery the foreigners, who are
recognised by them as equals. The relation with
the negro is totally different, and in the difference
is the difficulty. Therefore Mr. JOHNSON'S argu-
ment is like a theatrical piece. It may lead
to a denouement, presenting as it goes on -a series of
graphic pictures, calculated to captivate the imagi-
nation, while the author's perplexities are hid in
the blanks between the acts, no glimpse of which
the spectators get. How are the liberties of the
freedmen to be secured ? Congress says—by ad-
mitting them to the suffrage ; and the effect is that
the whites retire in disgust, and the 'legislative
functions pass into the black hands of SAMBO, who,
fresh from cotton and cane fields, makes a debating
assembly which correspondents take a cruel delight
in reporting verbatim. It is perhaps scarcely pos-
sible for Englishmen to conceive the abhorrence
with -which the Southerners regard the spec-
tacle. It would give but a faint idea to suppose the
Fenians supreme in Parliament and in Do mning-
street, legislating and acting for the British empire.
Nothing but the utter exhaustion of a contest car-
ried to the extremity almost of annihilation could
have so crushed Southern spirit as to prevent a rise
in arms against what is held to be so bitter an injustice.
Yet what is Congress to do ? and what are even
the negroes to do? It is not pleasant to be told
that you must either die or leave the country, and
that your friends, the white niggers, must be put
down anyhow, at any cost. Legislatures of white
men in the Southern States would perchance enact
laws to reduce the negroes to servitude. Legisla-
tures of black men are passing measures which, if
enforced, will surely lead to a war of races ; and the
blacks and whites will not act together, wherein
might be the only remedy. The Norman baron in
the days of RICHARD CCEUR DE LION, seated as an
equal by the side of his serf legislating for England,
presents but a faint comparison, for whatever were
the prejudices of these conquerors there were no
distinctive features of race. A discussion has been
carried on in New York by the World and the
Tribune on the question of intermarriage between
the whites and the blacks. The Nation, in com-
menting on it, alludes to a fact noticed by DE
TOCQUEVILLE, that "in all countries in which
class pride forbids intermarriage between porsons
of different classes, the women of the lower
are a constant easy prey to the passions of men of
the upper." The Nation believes that it could be
readily shown that the mixture of blood goes on
more rapidly under a system of prohibition than
one of marriage. The question has been raised by
Democratic philosophers to devise a plan of keep-
ing the races separate by legal prohibition of
marriage, and it is thought the effect would be
directly the reverse of that intended. The Nation
argues that political equality may, in raising negroes
to a higher estimate of their own value, make their
women moral in proportion. as they seek to be re-
spectable, and thus do all that can be done towards
preventing an intermixture, and it asserts that the
worst enemy 'of purity of races is he "who seeks to
keep the negro women as low in the social scale as
possible. The causes which' will continue to keep the
races distinct are beyond the control of Congress, or
even of the sovereign people, and " will probably-
outlive most, if not all, the political organisations
now in existence in any part of the world." In
Hungary and in European Turkey three or four
races have for generations lived side by side without
intermarriage, and the Jew has maintained his
purity of blood through centuries of difficulties in
every quarter of the globe, though it may be living
among people presenting little or no difference
in physique or manners. Why, therefore, should
not the African and the European races live side by
side in the United States peacefully and prosper-
ously under the same Government ? Doubtless they
can, if the social and political relations be once firmly
established. A. letter from Mr. MASON, ex-Envoy
of the Confederacy in Europe, has lately been pub-
lished in the Virginia papers. In reply to Colonel
GRAHAM, formerly of Texas, who invites him to
settle in Jamaica, Mr. MASON declines for himself
or to advise others, in the " hope and belief that a
time must come when the reckless and unscrupulous
party in power at Washington would be over-
thrown, and the Southern States again remitted to
full and exclusive control over their respective popu-
letions without foreign intervention." He goes on
to express his confidence that " the intelligence,
wisdom, and, more than all, the experience of our
people in regard to negroes would in tke them de-
vise some system of legislation by which, without
again reducing them to slavery, they would be made
to discharge the incumbent duties of the labouring
class." It is a pity that Mr. MASON did not sketch
a plan. We hold that the negroes can only rise
to a higher place in the social scale through hard
labour, voluntarily undertaken, and education. But
in whose hands is to be entrusted the legislative
rower during the process of regeneration ? This is
the question which it is incumbent on some states-
men to solve.--Anglo-American Times.

The Boston and Albany Railroad suffered a loss
of $12,500 in notes and bonds by a robbery in
Springfield. On the night of the 30th November
burglars entered the vault by blowing open the
lock, and left no trace when the theft was disco-
vered on Monday morning. The road loses $6,6u0;
the general ticket agent, T. M. Griggs, $3,500, and
Albert Holt and other employcis the balance.