Connecticut western news., 1873-12-19
Gone Into Bankruptcy.

The Journeymen Printers Co-opera-
 tive Association of New York has filed
 a petition in bankruptcy. The editor
 of the New York Sun, one of the largest
 stockholders in the affair, says:
 The association was organized by twenty-five compositors, soon after the
 last strike of the printers of the city
 their purpose being not only to erect
 a dividend-paying institution, but to
 show their fellow craftsmen how to in-
 crease their income without recourse to
 strikes. The associates began by de-
 posting two dollars 8 week each in a
 bank, and when their joint deposits had
 reached $5,000 they opened small
 office in William street, with their President, Secretary, and one other member as the only employees. It was understood that places were to be made for other stockholders as the business increased :; but as some of them were earning handsome wages in other offices, 1t was supposed that only few would become workmen in their own office. Such proved to be the fact.
 Business men favored the association with orders until the work to be done overtaxed the office, and it seemed necessary not only to enlarge the force of employees, but also to add consider ably to the stock of printing materials. The association's entire capital had been invested in printing materials, and as they had to give thirty days credit to their customers, they were necessarily in debt, and had no ready money with which to buy the needed materials.
 If, as their business increased, more of the associates had gone to work in their own office and drawn only part of their individual earnings from the common treasury, they might have given thirty days credit to many of their customers, and yet not been forced to ask thirty days credit for themselves. But they employed men who had no pecuniary interest in their enterprise, and those men drew their money in full every week. Thus they were drawn into the demoralizing credit system, and their indebtedness was largely in- creased by the purchase of the types and machinery, which they had to buy on time to make their office capable of turning out their increased work.
 It soon became plain that $5, ,000 cap- ital was inadequate to the requirements of the business, and the capital was &C., cordingly raised successively to $10.- 900, $15, ,O0O, and $20,OOO. But despite the associates best management their book accounts more than kept pace with their strides in capital stock, and the debts which they were, as they thought, forced to incur in the purchase of types and machinery at length piled up mountain of liabilities which, as the event has proved, was destined to crush them.
 Meantime the associates looking upon an expansion of their business as the true way out of debt, had leased large building in Beekman street, and bound themselves to pay $4, GOO a year there for. They hoped to sublet those parts of the place which their own material did not fill, and anticipated a conse- quent reduction of their net rent to about g., 900. Their tenants, however, failed, and to this loss was added the failure of some young men whose ven- lures the journeymen had fostered as a of keeping their own business up to profitable mark. So their debt was lifted to $17,OOO, while their debtors owed them but $14, ,OOO; and not more than SIG, ,OOO of that sum was probably good, and their establishment, which had cost them $40, ,OOO, was not salable in time of panic for much more than the difference between what they owed and what might be collected from their debtors.
 This was their situation when the cloud of the panic broke over their heads. They could collect nothing; notes were not negotiable; their credi- tors pressed them; money was not to be borrowed or begged; their machinery could not be kept moving; failure was inevitable, and an appeal to the Court of Bankruptcy was viewed as the most | honorable form of failure. The moral is plain: Learn to walk before you try to run.