The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-07-02 00:00:00

BIRKENHEAD, LANCASHIRE, AND CHESHIRE

JUNCTION RAILWAY.

On Saturday an extraordinary meeting
of this company
was held, "to receive the report of the directors on the
Chancery instituted by certain shareholders against
the company; on the bill introduced into Parliament for
the better auditing of railway accounts ; and on the Rail-
way Abandonment bill; and to pass resolutions thereon."
Mr. Bancroft occupied the chair.

Mr. Ginsox, the secretary, read the report, which
stated—" In reference to the Audit Bill, the directors
,think it better they should not express any opinion, unless
at the meeting they should be required to do so simply as
shareholders: On the 9th of February Mr. Dumvile filed
• a bill, ostensibly to restrain the company from making the
line from Chester to Lower Walton only, but attempting
also to. make the directors personally liable for the money
expended on the line since the resumption of the works.
The plaintiff and those with whom he was acting professed
themselves unable to pay their calls, and considering, from
the previous decision of the Master of the Rolls, that it
was possible- he might make an order which might de-
prive. the company of the benefit of Lord Granville's pro-
posed act, and that the plaintiff's solicitors were anxious
to erect a-compromise of the suit, advised the directors to
consent•to pay the plaintiff's taxed costs, and to forfeit
the shares of himself and those acting with him, upon hav-
ing a declaration signed by them that they were unable to
pay the. calls upon them, and that they renounced all fur-
-1 they interest in the shares forfeited. The directors did not
feel themselves authorized to act otherwise than as counsel
advised, and the compromise was effected upon these
terms, and they confidently rely upon the sanction of the
proprietors thereto. On the 4th of May Mr. John Gra-
ham and Mr. David Barclay filed two bills, nearly, if not
exactly, copies of the bill filed by Mr. Dumvile. These
parties, being in concert, only proceed with Mr. Graham's
bill, which was argued before the Master of the Roils on
Monday, the 27th of May. The result was that his lord-
ship granted an injunction to restrain the company from
making the line from Chester to Lower Walton only.
From this decision the directors appealed to the Lord
Chancellor, and on the Thursday following his lordship
dissolved the injunction, stating that, as the proceedings
complained of had been known, or might have been
known, by the body of shareholders, the plaintiffs must be
regarded as having acquiesced in such proceedings, and
that by lying by, as they had done, until the works were
nearly completed, a counter-equity had been established.
The directors think it important to state that they proved
to the court that their proceedings had been duly reported
to the proprietors from time to time, not only as to the
position of the company at the time the works were re-
sumed, but during the progress of the works, and that in
such reports the financial condition of the company had
been exhibited, and that the shareholders had uniformly
approved and adopted such reports ; and that, in fact, no
shareholder had at any tithe objected to the prosecution
of this part of the line. The parties to these proceedings
may be divided into two classes, both £3l shareholders :-
1. Those who have paid £lO per share, and propose to
retire from the concern on receiving back £1 per share ;
and, 2, those who have paid £2O purchase, and propose
that no further calls shall be enforced against them ; or,
in other words, that their shares shall be reduced from
£3l to £2O shares. In reference to these proposals the
directors have to state, first, that the £3l shareholders
who have paid £2O per share distinctly and decidedly ob-
ject to allow any return whatever to the persons who have
paid £lO per share only, and insist that they shall either
pay up or have their shares forfeited. In the next place,
the £27105. and the £22 shareholders as decidedly object
to both proposals ; the former, on the ground that they
have paid up in full, and the latter, that they have paid
all that has been called, and are ready to pay up in full as
soon as called upon to do so. The meeting will see from
this statement of farts, that these proposals, proceeding
from parties who have combined together, are inconsistent
with the separate interests of the parties, whilst they are •
altogether objected to by the holders of £27 10s. and, £22
shares. Over these conflicting interests, arising as they
do out of the circumstances of the respective share-
holders, the board had no control ; and, as, extensive
liabilities had been incurred with the kuowledge and
sanction of the proprietors, and as any interruption or
stoppage of the works would have caused the most ruin-
ous loss to the company, the directors have considered it
incumbent upon them to raise the funds necessary to
meet the engagements cf the company by making calls
upon the £3l and £22 shares available for that purpose,
and enforcing payment of such calls from solvent share-
holders, and forfeiting the shares of parties not able to
pay : and, in pursuing this course, the directors have
acted in accordance with the views of shareholders, as

expressed at the general meeting of the company.
The CHAIRMAN said that Mr. Bailey prayed, not that
the company should be restrained from making the line,
but that it should be made without the necessary funds
being supplied by himself and other shareholders. The
course taken was most extraordinary, especially when it
was remembered that Mr. Bailey and all the parties with
whom he was connected had been invited over and over
again to meet the directors at Birkenhead to go into the
whole of the affairs of the company, to have a thorough
auditing of the accounts, and an estimate made of the
`bilit; t,,at wm," ' to to

...es existing, ana oat would have ae incurrett .
complete the works ; and if they could have satisfied the
company that the requisite funds could be raised by a
reduction of the shares, the directors were not unwilling
to listen to propositions, and to bring the matter before
the shareholders. This Mr. Bailey and the other parties
declined to do. He then entered at length into various
matters connected with law proceedings instituted against

the company, and concluded by trusting they would con-
firm the report of the directors with respect to the legal
proceedings, and the work which had been proceeded with
up to the present time.—(Cheers.)
Mr. J. BUCK briefly moved that the report should be
received, confirmed, and adopted.
Mr. C. BENTHAM seconded the resolution. He should
have thought no honest men would have endeavoured to
shrink f- hey 1-

..rom the response, Aity which t had from time
to time taken upon themselves, with regard to the con-
ducting of these works.—(Applause.)

. . .
The Rev. W. BIRLEY protested against the reception
of the report, which, he said, did not confine itself to
matters of fact, but attributed motives to parties, the con-
clusions come to not being justified by what had taken
place. He complained that Mr. Dumvile had received
£5OO from the directors towards paying his expenses.
Mr. LEE also objected to the reception of the report,
as it did not represent the true state of the case with re-
gard to the litigation which had taken place. He said
the sum of £45.000 was subscribed. in sitifirpa of

money subscribed on the estimate for 45 miles, at £3l
per share ? He protested against the payment of £5OO
to Mr. Dumvile.

Mr. M'LAREN, of Edinburgh, alluded to the agree-
ment said to have been entered into with the London and

Northwestern Company with respect to the abstraction of
the traffic of the Chester and Shrewsbury line. He was
of opinion that such an agreement was not only morally

mental to the interests of both companies.
After a few words from Mr. BROWN and Mr. CAM-
RALI„ who maintained that the shareholders ought to be
1 1 . 1 1 • .

had, and from Mr. Gum, who expressed surprise that
Mr. Lee, having paid his calls, should have taken the

meeting and carried, there being only four dissentient&
In answer to Mr. Leadin, the CHAIRMAN stated that
the works of the line were progressing very rapidly in-
deed. They were approximating to a state of completion,
and no doubt early in August they would be ready to
open. In answer to Captain► Parkinson, he stated that
the cash account was not in a very flourishing state, but
he was happy to state that a number of shareholders had
paid up in advance. Parties who paid up before tne 15th
would have interest allowed them from the day they paid
up till that date.

In the Exchequer Chamber on Saturday the Court gave
judgment in the Appeal of Mr. Watts, lessee of the Olvm-

nal Court for-stealing the property of the Globe
Insur-
ance Company. The Court unanimously held the con-
viction to be good, and disrnised the Appeal.

. .
A droll anecdote is told of the Nepaulese ambassador,
now in London. At. Mr. Lumley's grand
_fete, he asked
to be introduced to Carlotta Grisi, with whose dancing he
had been enchanted at the Opera-house. The lady was

- -
presented, and the prince made some remark, which, on
being translated, was found to he, that " lie did not
know her with her clothes on !"—Literary Gazette.
CONVICT ADVENTURES.—A circumstance has lately
transpired which has exhibited events of no common oc-

on board the Rookery, and to this accident may be attri-
buted the following extraordinary disclosures. In July,
1833, eight prisoners of the crown made their escape from
the colony in a small craft belonging to the government.
The little vessel was of about twenty-five tons, and was
called the Badger; she was loaded with stores and Christ-
mas supplies, which were to be conveyed to Macquarie
Harbour. The Badger was manned by seven prisoners,
and was placed under the command of a man named Wm.
Philips, also a convict, who had been transported for in
cendiarism in destroying a ship. Philips :lad a wife and
several children in England, and he had repeatedly ex-
pressed a desire to abscond and settle in America. Under
these circumstances, the opportunity of July, 1833, was
too favourable to escape, and the vessel was accordingly
carried off. The absconders were traced to Japan, at
d o
disguisew' s habilimentshishe
succeeded
w fe
and o
i n °u* iand
v'
hisw f
m
which place they put in for water, but after that nothing
was heard of them, and they were given up for lost.
What became of them for the first three or four years
after their escape is not known ; but about that time the
Badger suddenly visited Padstow, a small seaport in Corr .
wall,in a widow's
conveyingfamily on board, after which he immediately put to sea,
and, it is supposed, steered for America; and with his
makingnn Philipseton dressed
arrangementsshore.
I for n trhi s
departure from the coast of Cornwall the t s ory of Philips
ceases. But the narrative does not end here. One of
Philip's comrades, named Lachlan M'lntosh, also longing
to return to his native place, proceeded to Scotland, and
being there recognised as an escape, was speedily sent
back under sentence of transportation for life. Arrived
in this colony a second time, he passed through the various
preliminary stages previous to obtaining an indulgence,
and, upon the receipt of a ticket-of-leave, he was occa-
sionally employed at the wharf in helping to load and
discharge vessels. He was thus engaged on board the
barque Rookery, when the accidental falling of a block
abruptly terminated a life which bad often been exposed
to dangers a thousand times more formidable and threat-
ening, but which, notwithstanding, had been preserved to
be at last laid down in that country which he bathed:
Such was the end of M'lntosh : what has befallen his
seven • companions
peril it is impossible to imagine;
doubtless but few, if any, now survive to record that
catalogue of anxiety and suffering incident to the revolu-
tion of 17 years.—Launceston (Van Diemen's Land)
Examiner.