Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1880-01-21
CITY OF GLASGOW BANK.

have submitted to the shareholders a
report of their doings since their ap-
pointment, and il is an interesting but
melancholy piece Of reading.
The total liabilities of the bank
when the liquidators entered upon
their duties, Oct %, 1878, were about
S64 900, 600, and the assets about $685.
600, 600, leaving a deficiency Of about
S26, 900, 000 For the enormous def
cheney each shareholder was jointly lia-
bic to the full extent of his property, no
matter how small his holding or how
little his personal interest in the shares
Though he had but a single share, and
though his title was that of mere
trustee without benefit to himself, it
made no difference He could be COM
pelled not merely to pay his proper
ton of the banks debts, but also to
contribute to make up the quota of
fellow shareholders who were una
bic to respond This fact and the
proceedings taken in consequence have
rendered the banks failure one of
tragic Importance to hundreds of fami-
lies.
From the assets so far the liquida-
tors have realized about S24, 900, 600.
On Nov. Is, 1878, they assessed the
shareholders pro rata, $500 for every
800 of stock, or S21, 100000 on the
outstanding capital of S4,200,000.
This first assessment alone exhausted
| the means of many of the sharehold-
| ~ he NJ
made up it had only yielded $40, 500,-
O00 In March, 1879, a second assess
ment was, therefore, laid on the share
holders still solvent Of 50, ,250per 800,
amounting altogether to S39, 100000.
This assessment has produced SILL
| 500, 900, making altogether about S22,-
100000 to be added to the S24, 1000, 900
collected from the banks assets, or
SAC, 900, 900 of debts Preferred credi-
tors took $S,000,000 of the money, and
the expenses of liquidation 100000
more. The general creditors have been
paid $37, ,000,0 900, or two-thirds the
amount of their claims, leaving about
S18, 100000 still to be provided for,
without counting interest. The un-
collected assets of the bank WILL. it is
thought, produce Sl4,000,000, leaving
S4,500,000 and the interest to be con-
tributed by 269 shareholders out of
the original 1873, the other 1850
having been completely ruined by the
two calls already made. The liquida-
tors hold out hopes of another divi-
dend of 8 per cent. to the creditors
very soon, but after that their pro-
ceedings will be slow and tedious.
One passage in the report is almost
sublime in the immensity of the dis
tress which it describes. Among the
shareholders who were unable to meet
the first call made on them, 500 in
number, as the liquidators say, applied
for discharge of their obligations on
making a complete surrender of their
estates. Most of them also offered,
with the assistance of friends, to pay
the value of their estates, on being
allowed to retain the same. Before
accepting these offers statement was
required verified by Justice of the
Peace, according to printed form, in
which, in reply to series of queries,
information of the most minute char
acter was demanded from the persons
liable, as to their means and estate,
and their expenditures since the stop
page of the bank. The information
thus supplied was subjected to careful
examination, and after the basis of an
arrangement had been adjusted with
each contributory, it was submitted to
committee Of contributories and
after it had been approved by that
committee it was submitted for final
sanction by the Court. Nearly six
hundred persons thus gave up all they
had in the world, content, like job, to
escape with their lives
The ruin, too, spread wider than the
limits of the banks own shareholders.
Another Scotch bank, the Caledonian,
held $4,000 Wort of City of Glasgow
bank stock, and thus the shareholders
in that bank became liable for the
debts of the City of Glasgow Bank.
Consequently they began selling or
transferring their shares to irresponsi-
bic parties in the hope of escaping
assessments. Learning this, the liqui-
dators of the City Of Glasgow Bank
requested the directors Of the Gale
donian to take steps for closing their
register of shareholders. Negotiations
ensued which resulted in an agreement
that a petition for winding up the
bank should be presented, as the only
means available for having the register
| closed, and the process of substitution
of probably impecunious for substan-
tial shareholders arrested. Considera-
BILE delay took place under this petition,
in the course of which the constitution
of the Caledonian Bank was altered to
the effect of preventing any transfer of
stock without the approval of the
Board of Directors, and the petition
for winding up was withdrawn. But
the cloud still hangs over the Gale
donian shareholders, though it is not
probable that they will suffer to any
thing like the extent of those of the
City of Glasgow Bank.
1t is some consolation to US to reflect
that the authors of this misfortune
the Directors of the bank-have been
punished as felons, and they, too, have
been involved in the financial ruin of
their constituents But to the l $50
persons they have reduced to poverty,
and to the 269 still awaiting in dread
the outcome of liquidation, this will
be small comfort. Their property is
gone, the families of many are in want,
and to some of them life presents no
hope of recovering from the blow.
GEN. ROGER A. PRYOR, now a New
York lawyer, has received from Vir-
ginia friend a curious relic of the war