The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-09-21 00:00:00

TO THE

ENGLISH PROPRIETORS OF THE .EDINBURGH
AND GLASGOW RAILWAY,
Residing in Liverpool and the NeighPourhood.

GENTLEMEN,.
HAVING consented, when the Company was first in-
corporated, to set as a Director of the Edinburgh and
Glasgow Railway, and thus to represent at the board, in some
degree, the interests of the numerous body of English Share-
holders residing in this part of Lancashire, it is right now to
make known to you without delay, that I cannot consent to
remain much longer in that situation, fotveasons which 1
will shortly state; and thus give you the earnest opportunity
of either selecting some one in whom you may have confidence
to recommend to the Board, or leaving the selection of a suc-
'cesseA entirely to the Board, as you think best.
you will be so good as to bear in mind, that it was my
steong wish never to have undertaken this responsibility, and
that I rrtired from the Provisional Committee, and sold my
Sares, purposely to avoid hut, having been selected,
whilst absent from home, by the General Meeting, and urged
th act simply as a corresponding member of the Board, and
with a clear understanding of the absence of all responsibility
for personal attendances, I agreed to purchase a qualification,
and make this experiment.
I have ever since, by means of numerous communications
with the Secretary and Engineer, as well as the Chairman
and other members of the Board, and by being regularly fur-
nished with copies of all the minutes, had the opportunity of
making known what appeared to me the results of experience
on the leading English Railways, and my own views founded
upon them as to the execution of this important undertaking ;
and, although I have not had the opportunity of urging these
personally, my letters have always received from the Board
such friendly, candid attention and consideration that this
has been quite unnecessary, and I have found great interest
and pleasure in every part of my connexion with this Com-
pany. The completion of all the works, and the opening of
the Railway, are now near at hand, and 1 think those who
are competent to form an opinion will be satisfied that the
plan of UPPER WORKS,—as to which so much discussion
and difference of opinion has existed amongst Engineers,—is
that exhibiting decidedly the best and most satisfactory re-
sults of any that has yet been tried ; the other machinery,
particularly the LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE,* (a source of such
enormous, unnecessary expense and trouble on several of
our principal lines), of the most perfect description yet pro-
duced; and the execution of everything, and proposed
system of working the Railway, highly creditable to Mr.
Miller, the executive officer in both these departments, and
to the activity and exertions of my Colleagues in the Di-
rection.

The Proprietors are however already aware that certain
members of the Board contend that the majority of the Board
and of the Court of Proprietors have not, under the Act of
the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, that supreme un-
limited authority over the minority, which it has always
hitherto been considered essential to good management, con-
sistency, and uniformity of proceeding on Railways, should
exist ; and that these individuals have resorted to legal pro-
ceedings to prevent the Board of Directors, from carrying
into effect the resolutions of the General Meeting of Pro-
prietors. Unfortunately the Court of Session appears
to take the same view of the Act (which is copied
from the original:London and Birmingham, in the whole
course of the proceedings of which Company no at-
tempt of the kind was ever thought of) as these in-
dividuals, but whilst prohibiting the Board from appointing
Committees, or performing acts, which may in any way in-
fringe upon thefunctions and duties exclusively belonging to
the Committees named in the Act, the Judges of that Court
are unable to point out in any way the nature and limits of
these functions and duties, and it having been found equally
impossible to have them settled by any mutual understand-
ing amongst the Directors, the Board obviously can-
not discharge its ordinary and urgent duties, without
constant risk of infringing the INTERDICT OF THE COURT
OF SESSION, by interference with some of these unde-
fined functions of the Committees thus named in the Act. The
decision of the last General Meeting to apply immediately for
an amended Act of Parliament is therefore one the propriety
and urgent necessity of which it would scarcely seem possible
to question, whatever view may be taken of the proper con-
stitution of the Company ' • and it is earnestly to be desired that
no time should be lost in having the Company placed, by the
authority of Parliament, in the position in which all others
have hitherto considered themselves, and for the sake alike
of the Proprietors and the Public, that a concentrated,
instead of a divided and conflicting, management should be
Tendered practicable.
With the prospect, however, of opposition to this applica-
tion, and a Parliamentary contest, in which the votes of the
Scotch Members of the Houses of Parliament being divided,
it may be essential to have those of the English secured by
active, and possibly prolonged attention to the Bill in Lon-
don, I cannot but feel that the time has arrived when I may
fairly request the Proprietors to appoint some one in my
place, who may be willing to undertake duties (both in this
respect, and in that of personal attendances at a Board,
where something more than suggestions and written com-
munications will, I fear, now be desirable) for which I can
no longer hold myself responsible.
I have for some years past done all in my power to pro-
mote the interests of the Proprietors, without a selfish mo-
tive of any description, even that of being myself a large
holder of Stock, neither seeking nor having received one
farthing compensation, either pecuniary, or in patronage or
privilege of any description, for a good deal of time and trou-
ble employed in their service ; and I am sure they will at
once feel that I am fully warranted in taking, and that it is
due to them to take, the above step, instead of allowing my-
self to remain responsible for duties involving the alternative
of absence from home and unreasonable interruptions of
other pursuits, or imperfect discharge of such duties at a
time when the interests confided to me might suffer in con-
sequence very serious detriment.
I had transmitted my resignation to the Chairman previous
to the laSt General Meeting, to which I wished it communi-
cated; but, at his request, and that of the Board, I have
consented to remain a Member until the opening of the
Line, when I will endeavour to pay a final visit to it and to
Colleagues from whom I shall separate with warm feelings
of regard and respect, and when my influence shall be used
to induce the Board to comply with any suggestion you may
have transmitted as to my successor.
Your Proxies, you will bear in mind, will then remain en-
tirely in the hands of the Chairman, to whom your under-
taking owes much, and where, in my opinion, you will best
consult your interests by continuing to deposit them.
I am. Gentlemen,
Your most obedient Servant,
THEODORE W. RATH BONE.
Allerton Priory, 18th Sept., 1811.
* One-half of these are on the plan of which I think quite
the most favourably ; the other on one which claims very
high authority in its favour, or, at least, has done so until
very recently.

CARDIFF ELECTION.-Dr. Nicholl, who has been ap-
pointed Judge Advocate, was re-elected member for the bo-
rough of Cardiff on Friday without opposition.
We are distressed to learn the sudden departure of a gentle-
man of fortune from this city, who has left large accounts
unsettled among the traders of Bath.—Bath Herald.
CHURCH RATES.-Sir F. Pollock ;has lately given an
opinion that the occupiers of compound houses, though not
assessed to the poor rate, have a right to attend the parish
vestry and vote on church-rate questions.

INGENIOUS PUFF.—We find the following puff in the
Temps. It is a little overdone for the English reader who
knows anything of the royal gardens in England, or even of
Covent-garden market, where peaches, apricots, and grapes
are to be had in such perfection and abundance as to make it
unnecessary to send for them to France ; but it will do very well
for the Parisians :—" The Queen of England is to give a.
grand dinner this week to her new ministry. On Satusday
evening, before the door of Chevet, in the Palais Royal, ten
enormous cases were being sent off. They were marked
' Peaches, Apricots, Grapes,' and weighed at least 5000 kilo-
grammes. They were addressed, ' Service de Bouche de S.
M. Britannique, en son Palais de Buckingham, a Londres.'
The Service de Bouche of her Britannic Majesty must be an
extensive one, indeed, to require five tons of peaches, apricots,
and grapes for a single dessert
A LATE TRIAL OF PEDESTRIANISM.—A day or two ago,
d Brinkinalt, (Lord Dungannon's seat in North Wales,)
,a'here a large party, including Lord Cantalupe, Lord Polling-
to u, Lord G. Paget, Hon. C. Forester, lion J. M'Donalil,
Horn. H. St. John, Mr. T. 0. Gascoyne, Mr. G. Jenkinson,
Count Hugo Nostitz, M. Kuodriaslii, &c., were assembled
at th,e close of the week's festivities at Wynnstay, and sitting
over their wine after dinner, Mr. Gascoyne suddenly pro-
posed a walk to Chester, (23 miles,) over a hilly Welch road.
Lord Cantalupe offered to bet £25 that no person present
would walk it in five hours. This bet was immediately taken
by Lord G. Paget, Mr. Jenkinson, and Count Nostitz, who
started at- five minutes past one (a dark night). Mr. Jenkin-
son soon took the lead, and arrived in Chester in 4 hours 38
minutes, the Count arriving in three minutes afterwards ;
but Lord Paget had lost his road, and with it the bet.—Ber-
row's Worcester Journal.

SCANDALOUS FRAUDS.—In consequence of the suspen-
sion of payment at Messrs. Hobhouse and Co.'s Bank at
Bath, some persons yesterday took advantage of the Railway
conveyance to come to Bristol and pass the notes of that firm
at shops in the purchase of small articles, receiving the differ-
ence in coin.—We have the names of three respectable trades-
men who were thus victimized, each in a £5 note, by two
ladies ; but one of them, by due tact and activity, overtook
the ladies at the Railway station and recovered his money,
and the two others coming up soon after had equal success.
One unf the persons defrauded went in the same train as the
ladies to Bath, and there traced them to the house of a
tradesman, considered to be of great respectability, who on
being questioned, acknowledged that they were his daughters !
In one part of the city, however (Redcliff-street) we believe,
several tradesmen were more effectually cheated. A person
went to a highly respectable snuff manufacturer and changed
a £5. note ; after which he went to two shops in the neigh-
bourhood, and actually had the effrontery to say that the
gentleman whom he had just cheated had sent him to them
-to ask if they could change him a £5. note ! The trick we
are sorry to say succeeded. A linen-draper in Wine-street
was let " into the secret" by a fine-dressed lady to the tune
•of ten pounds. Two young ladies, probably those first men-
tioned, have also defrauded a respectable grocer at Clifton
-with a £5 note.—Bristol paper.

The radical press have vied with each other in calumniat-
ing Mr. Grogan, M. P. for Dublin. They have designated
him an exterminator of Roman Catholics ; but as one fact is
-worth a thousand assertions, the following fact proves the
:.fallacy and injustice of the scurrilous attack upon his charac-
-ter :—A confectioner in this city, a Roman Catholic, with
whom he was in the habit of dealing, voted for Messrs.
O'Connell and Hutton at the late election: Mr. Grogan,
•conceiving that he should have voted for him, discontinued
his custom at the house. The confectioner became embar-
:rassed. Mr. Grogan went to him, and said—" You voted
-against me ; I was displeased at it, because I considered that
you should have supported me. I discontinued my custom ;
but you are now in difficulties ; and 1 will do all I can to
;assist you ; here is a hundred pound note." Mr. Grogan
banded the money to the man, and left the shop.—Morning
.Herald.
Perhaps a more unexampled case of cross-bill accommo-
rnodation was never disclosed than at the examination which
lately took place before the Manchester Bankruptcy Com-
missioners, in the investigation of the affairs of Messrs.
Bancks and Co., booksellers, of Manchester and London,
who had so managed their business that to the question,
" What is the amount of the whole of the bills you put in
circulation in London during the time that you had been
financing ?" the answer was—" The total amount was, on an
average £lO,OOO per month ;" while in a prior part of the
examination it was stated that, " as near as could be told,"
from £35,000 to £30,000 of the total amount of liabilities,
which was £51,000, no value had passed. The system pur-
sued in respect to these transactions was of the loosest
character, and appears to have been carried on with the as-
sistance of a firm in London (since bankrupts), merely with
a view to meet the demands of the moment, at a reckless
hazard of future consequences, since it could not ever have
been sincerely anticipated that such a course would have
conduced to sound prosperity. Their accounts were kept in
the most complete state of disorder, and letters, and other
collateral sources of information, were sedulously destroyed,
and all means of giving information were so absolutely pre-
eluded, that it was deemed useless to examine one of the
bankrupts because "he knew so little." Notwithstanding
the commissioners were inclined to pass, and ultimately did
pass, the bankrupts, such was the strong feeling of the cre-
ditors that they have been the victims of gross fraud, that
the same course adopted in the case of the Wakefields of the
Stock-Exchange at the London Court of Bankruptcy was
resorted to—namely, that of retaining the articles found
upon their persons when they make a declaration of the
surrender of all their property, which is the greatest indig-
. mity that a body of creditors can offer to a bankrupt.—
) 'vondou rinses.