The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1875-08-05
he Failure of Duncan, Sherman g. Co.

But emptlcst OF all your mOthcT's heart,
! l. -
, he Failure of Duncan, Sherman g. CT
From the New York Post
The suspension, without premonitiol
|, OF the banking house of Duncan, She
man & Co., which for many years ha
stood high in the estimation of th
public, both because of the character {
its members and its supposed grea
wealth, naturally created astonishment
The public at large were surprised thu
1t should have suspended ut all an
the few persons who were not who'll
nnprepared for the event could not uu
derstand why it should have occurred a
this particular time.
According to the published card o
the firm, and according to what thost
agents who are authorized to speak fol
it, say its real weakness was but recently
discovered, aud Us soon as it was known
to the partners, and it was further as.
certained by them that new capital,
sufficient to pay every debt if demanded,
conld not be procared, it was decided
that the proper course to pursue was to
stop payment and go into liquidation,
The only other way open to them was to
abuse the credit of the firm, which was
good enough, if properly pressed, to
have commanded millions of dollars
and to continue III business with the
chance of making profits sufficient to
put the house again into q solvent con-
dition. That the honorable course,
under these circumstances, was instant ,
taken, affords no surprise to anybody
who knew the members Of the firm to
be men jealous of their personal honor
and good name. Wherein they will be
blamed will be in that they managed
their business go loosely that they did
not know the true condition of their
affairs until after they had drifted to the
point where they could not be rescued
without external help.
There is no intimation from those per.
sons who are best qualified to speak on
the subject that the losses of the firm
were of very recent date. On the con-
trary, the inference is warranted that
the house has been subjected to a series
of misGortunes during series of years,
beginning with unfortunate railroad
complications, and ending with mis-
judged transactions in cotton.
If it could be shown that the firm was
driven into suspension by the stress of
the times-that is to say, that its EN-.
barrassments were caused by the condi-
tion of trade rather than by its own in
diydual errors of judgment, both in re-
spect to its railroad connections and its
in cotton-then there would |
be reason for suspectiEg general un.
soundness in the business community,
and for expecting more failures from the
same general causes. To speak more
plainly, it is not the fault of the times
5hat stocks of the Atlantic and Great
Western, the Erie, and the New York,
Boston and Montreal railroad compa-
MES, and others of the sort, are not
good securities. Nor can the times be
held responsible for the decline in the
price of cotton. Advances on cotton, or
in il, which, to adopt term
from Wall street, have proved "bad
business" should be credited to errors
Of Judgment on the part of those who
made them, and not the fault of the
country at large. If there are similar
special reasons for other failures, they,
of course, will ensue but it is not fair
inference that the suspension of Dun
can, Sherman e Company shows any
general underlying reason for the down
TALL of other banking houses. What
ever failures may occur by reason of
osses on account of this suspension are
of calculation, The house
lad large number OF wealthy deposit
,rs who never put all their eggs into
me basket, and who can not be serious
v distressed by the failure of one of
heir bankers. 1t also had others on a
mailer scale, who will be embarrassed
{ they are to lose considerable part
I what, they have on deposit. Travel
rs holding the letters of credit of
he house will be Inconvenience
nd troubled, but their troubles +
re not of the kind which cause {
suspensions. The house, we {
re told, had outstanding comparative
= small amount of unaccepted bills,
stimated at from 100000 to CTS, 600.
.ssuming the larger amount to be cor
ect, it will probably be distributed
mong from dozen to twenty buyers
( bills, and certainly no one of these
ught to be forced to suspend on &C
cunt of his loss. With the south che
of the house were extern
i've, and it is estimated, perhaps incor-
ectly, that the larger part of the losses I
a this country will fall there. There '
lay be no consequent failures in the 1
outh, but it is possible that there will E
g. The banks here, we are assured, t
ill lose nothing which can make any 6
ppreciable difference with them. 1t is r
ossible that the losses to Europe, a
here it is understood that the larger r
art of the debt of the firm is held, may
luse trouble, but we have seen within G
month losses incurred and sustained i
iere which by tho side of the total {
hero make the failure OF
'uncan, Sherman & Go. look small. 1t
understood that tho Union bank of
ondon and Barring Bros. were both
rotected. The house had scarcely any
with stock exchange inter
us, and was as free of the specnlations
hich center there as if its regular and
ain business had been in shipping or
,tton manufactures.
Properly understood, therefore, this
Iilure ought not to be alarming, and it
IN be made SO only by misrepresenta-
ons. II Is due to the house to say that
lere has been no suspension for years
'hich has brought out more sincere
xpressions of sympathy and regret.
There are forty.one American firms
-ho are getting rich by making better
imported liquors and wine than can
a ,nada in EuYona