The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-15 00:00:00

ANGLO-AMERICAN TIMES. A few days since
a number of gentlemen met in the room of a
building which now stands where once stood
the East India House. A few years have
wrought a great change in this locality. A " cir-
cumlocution office" on the grandest scale then
showed a massive portico abutting on Leadenhall-
street. No new-fangled doctrines found favour
with the oligarchy that there ruled supreme. Itself
an innovation alike on commerce and government,
it had been sanctioned by time, and had grown into
the most Tory of communities. A range of hand-
some offices now look down from that site on
Leadenhall-street, and through their centre passes
a broad flagged way penetrating to the end of the
block, lined by edifices containing storeys of offices.
This passage has been named after the old house—.
" The East India Avenue." Any person who now
saunters along these buildings must be struck with
the contrast between the business now and formerly
transacted on this spot. His eye is caught by the
names of numerous companies which figure each
day in the Stock Exchange list of prices. There
are many, we grieve to add, that figure
in another list—the list of failed and insolent con-
cerns. With scarcely an exception these com-
panies represent to their proprietors an enormous
loss—a loss in the aggregate so gigantic that its
consideration almost takes one's breath away. As
the lounger passes down the avenue he will see on
the left hand side an entrance, about mid-way, on
which handsome plates announce a nest of Assam Tea
Companies, and in an apartment where one of these
transacted its business the meeting we have
noticed had assembled. Those who have the mis-
fortune to hold shares in companies are familiar
with the business transacted and the mode Of pro-
cedure. By a long table sat five or six gentlemen,
and before them some eighty victims, looking on
with that stolid countenance which the Englishman
can so well assume even in the midst of ruin. Here
and there were exceptions—the knit brow and flash-
ing eye showing the indignation that boiled within.
In the centre of the group at the table sat the chair-
man, a gentleman of high character betrayed into
a false position, and trying to • make the best
of a very bad business. Nor was he the only mem-
ber of that Board more to be pitied than blamed,
for there were others whom a high sense of honour
alone retained at a post which had been ruinous
to themselves, dangerous to their reputation, and
the end of which was involved in anything but an
agreeable obscurity. There are certain noble traits
in the character of the English which make them
a fine class to deal with when in a position of
difficulty, such as that overwhelming the members
of this Board. An honest sense of right and fair
play, a just appreciation of upright and straight-
forward endeavours, and a patient hearing, are the
general characteristics of such assemblies. But at
the Board sat one to whom this meeting felt any-
thing but amiable, and this was the vendor of the
estates the assembled gentlemen had the misfortune
to call their property. The homely old proverb of
"Buying a pig in a poke" was being illustrated in
anything but a satisfactory manner. The estates
which constituted the property were situated in
Upper Assam, and had formed the ground-work
less than two years ago of a delightful thing
in prospectuses. The Arcadia there depicted
was a mine of wealth. The soil was the
original home of the tea plant. China had
but borrowed from this locality the shrub which had
given to that country one of the greatest and most
profitable exports the world had ever seen. India
was the true region for this product, and Assam
was its indigenous province. A few hundreds of
thousands only were required to produce a result
which would revolutionise the trade in tea. Here
were estates already in profitable cultivation offered
by a philanthropic proprietor to the English public,
by which these brilliant results were to flow into the
pockets of the enterprising individuals who knew
how to avail themselves of opportunities in a con-
tinued stream of gold. Cases were quoted which
showed that the most sanguine expectations had in
other instances been already more than realised ;
and here at this meeting were assembled the unfor-
tunates who had swallowed the bait. It is a
strange fact that to a ruinous result should
tend an enterprise which in reality pos-
sessed more than an average capability
of success. Assam is the finest tea-growing
district in the world. There a fertile and unap-
propriated country is open, and fair means of water
carriage. All that was required was an honest and
truthful statement, a valuation of the estates, an
estimate which accurately told the cost of supplying
labour, the probabilities and the contingencies of
failures in the crop, and losses by the deaths of im-
ported coolies. The vendors had but one object in
view, and that was to extract from the purchasers
the largest possible sum. When men are asked to
,pay down £150,000, they usually take steps to as-.
certain what the money is given for. But a body
of shareholders may be easily hoodwinked when
payment is made in debentures spread over a long
series of years and covered by a guarantee of a cer-
tified dividend. The provisions are all based on the
object to secure, on easy terms, a number
sufficient to absorb the shares. The calcula-
tions are made without any provision for
a rainy day, and when the time of trial
comes, the dismayed subscribers to this " Limited"
Liability, find all the burden thrown on them, and
then in fear and trembling they begin to inquire
narrowly into the nature of their purchase, too late
discovering what they ought to have discovered
at first, that most of their hopes and expectations
were as delusive as the mirage in the desert to a
thirsty traveller. But the singular part of our
story is that no one benefits—not even the vendor.
Extremes meet—the extreme of grasping, as well
as others--which ends in toppling over those who
had stretched too far to bring in a great haul, as
well as the victims from whom the prize is to be
secured. As the vendors fall under their greedy
snatch, so the shareholders sink under their
heavy burden. All collapse, and none gain ;
while a legitimate and fair distribution of the weight
would proably enable all to tide over the difficulty,
and permit a company that ought to be great and
prosperous to proceed on a career which might soon
lead to success. For the benefit of the vendor, we
will tell a story which happened under our notice.
There were two steamers proceeding from the West
Indies to England. Both were fine boats in the early
days of ocean navigation, but the one had struck
a rock, and was proceeding home under the convoy
of the other in a leaky and damaged state. Several
of the passengers preferred to remain in the par-
tially disabled vessel, anticipating no danger, and
not seeing the damage. A hard gale sprang up
when the ships were in mid-ocean. The water
gained the mastery; the fires of the injured steamer
were extivguiBhed, and when morning dawned her