Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-11-10
How The New River Company Be-
came so Very Rich.
LONDON MADE A BAD BARGAIN
Shares Have Advanced to Most
Amazing Point.
PAY IMMENSE DIVIDENDS
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.


LONDON, November 1, 1900.
London would give several dollars now If
it could get hold of the business of supply
ing itself with water 1t let that business
slip through its fingers a long tine ago
and in consequence the oldest of the eight
companies on whom the metropolis has to
depend for water is a company of the sort
worth reading about.
On the 21st of this month one share in
this company is gong to be put up at auc-
ton AT the mart of Tokenhouse Yard. down
in the city. At the time when that share
was first issued you couldn't have got cor
porals guard to bid for it, but now the
fact that it IS to be sold has been bazoned
forth in every London daily and financial
paper, famous firm of auctioneers has the
sale in charge, and on the eventful day
an eager crowd of silk-hatted and frock-
coated old gentlemen, each one of them
probably somelh Thing akin to millionaire
Will fall over each other to get hold or the
precious properly. 1t will probably be soiu
for about sG25,ooo although several OF these
shares have sold for $4,000 and so0ooo more
than that; but certainly no offer OF less
than 100000 will be cons dered.
Fifty Thousand Per Cent.
Fifty thousand per cent is the startling
figure that 1t takes to represent the gain
in value Of the shares of this company:
record that probably wins for it the dis
tincton of being the best paying one in
the world. When that company started IN
business you could buy share in it for
$3.50, and to begin with, those shares paid
dividend of exactly So; that declared iast
year was close upon $4,000 instead. Like
wise the original capital of this unique en-
terprise amounted only to $4,000. whereas
it is today $20.000O00; and, whereas, TOO, 1t
many long day before tn corpora
ton had any revenue at all, that which II
boasts in the year 1900 is in the nelghoor-
hood of $1,000, 600
A king of England held thirty-six OF TINS
company's shares once, but sold them out
for an annuity of s. 500. He was rather
believed he was not only making a tidy
bargain for himself, but for posterlty as
well But he was not. The English crown
is still receiving its $500 every year FOR
those shares, but If it had kept hold of
them it would be receiving instead s5,OOO.ODo
per annunl. a sum that Sir Michael Hicks
Beach might not find out of place in paying
for the governments Boer war
Oldest in the World.
The New River Company, as It is called.
IS now recognized with proper awe as the
oldest commercial company in the world:
probably the most enormously paying en-
terprise in the world and the story of its
remarkable rise to almost unlimited power
and of the increase in it's capital, revenue,
dividends and value Of its shares reads like
a page out of the arabian Nights 1t is
now the biggest and richest of all the giant
London water companies, supplying the
most thickly populated parts of the great
city and it Is likewise opulent in real es-
tate in the heart of business London. acres
and acres there, acquired 800 years ago ny
the astuteness and foresight of old hugh
Middleton, the center of this rich property
be. ing known as "Myddleton Square The
company's fabulously priced shares now
qualify the owners for the parliamentary
franchise in two of the largest Enghsn
counties, as ell as for the magistracy.
London's Early Water Supply.
There is now nothing but the names OF
few streets to mark the old places where
ancient London Jacobs may have met an
cient London Rachaels drawing water, for
most of those old rivers and wells have dis
appeared. The old Fleet river and the wal
brook dried up centuries ago, but they were
once big enough to float full-rigged ships.
HolyweIl and Clerkenwell streets get their
names from the springs that USED 10 puo-
BILE up in those now choked districts but
here it was that the early London mousse
holder got his water supply. In those days
people who lived by the Thames USED 10 40
a little lucrative business by charging the!r
neighbors a small fee for the privilege or
drawing water on their premises, and they
gradually became so grasping in the size of
fhe fee that Edward III had to take rather
severe measures to wipe out the pracuce.
In digging up Cheapside the other day for
I,ondon's new telephones the workers
brought to light complete system of an
Gent water pipes made of the trunks OF
trees They must have been the remains OF
old Peter Morrce's enterprise-the nrSt pipe
system that London ever saw Morrice was
an old Dutchman, and he contrived to get
entirely around the city fathers OF those
DAYS by building water wheel under one
of the arches of London bridge, ana drove
sharp bargain by leasing 1t from the city
for 100 years at $3.50 year, and so started
merrily in to supply the city with water
He must have been rather successful, too
for he branched out pretty soon ana wanted
to annex another bridge, but then the cor
noration got after him and forced him to
sell out. which he did for the pretty figure
of $4,000.
When a. Mighty Mistake Was Made.
II was lust about this time that Inc city
had from Queen Elizabeth authority to
b,,ild a municipal water system, with Its
sourcs in the r.lver Lea and the chalk hills
of Hartfordshire, but the corporation made
the greatest mistake Of it's life and turned
the privilege over to canny old Hugh Myd.
dIeton who was a goldsmith and a bit Of
a capitalists beside. His company, called
the Adventures Company, was incor-
porated by letters patent in 1919 He quilt
his system in the shape OF one long stream
~
we'll, and there he established his reservoir.
He had already bought property in Hert-
fordshtre and Middlesex county. and now
he bought up fifty acres in Clerkenwell,
which was then merely a hamlet village
outside the city of London. But after that
he came to grief His money was all gone.
He asked the king, James l. for some, and
the king gave him $500. and took half the
shares in his company in return. There
were seventy-two shares in all, and there
after the two classes Of shares have been
known as the Kings Moiety and the Ad-
venturers' Moiety. the latter being the most
valuable, as it was expressly agreed that
the king should have no governing power
in the company.
The building operations went bravely for
ward, and on the day that the water flowed,
Michaelmas day, 1913. MIDDLETON was made
Sir Hugh. Shortly after that the shares
were placed on the market, and found no
takers, for by this time the city fathers
had partially walked up and did what they
could to perfect the water system they had
bought from old Morrice. But they had
the king as a rival now, and he put every
possible obstacle in their way. but finally
parliament took hand and made an at
tempt to pass bill ''for the suppression of
monopolies" Then Sir Hugh died in COM
parative poverty. just as did his old COM
patriot, William Paterson, who founded the