"Every Year since the bank went in operation, it had been losing £50,000, and yet the directors came forward every year to congratulate the shareholders upon their prosperity. Dividends of six per cent. were paid quarterly, though by the declaration of the official accountant, Mr. C , the shareholders ought never to have had a dividend at all. Only last Summer, fallacious accounts to the extent of over zzzz were presented to the......"
"One of the most extraordinary and characteristic transactions of the ?......? Bank was its connection with some michigan metal working company
At a time when the paid-up capital of the Company amounted to but m the advances made to these Iron Works alone reached the sum of 2m
When the Company first got possession of this iron establishment it was an unworkable concern.
Having become workable after an investment of something like m
we find the property in the hands of a Mr. C
who, after having worked it “for some time,” threw it back upon the bank, while “expressing his conviction that he was throwing up a large fortune,” leaving the bank, however, to bear an additional debt of 1/2m upon the “property.”
Thus, this concern kept going out of the hands of the bank whenever profits seemed likely to come in, and kept coming back to the bank when fresh advances were required to go out.
This practical joke the Directors were endeavoring to continue even at the last moment of their confession, still holding up the profitable capacities of the works, which they say
might yield 2n per annum, forgetting that they have cost the shareholders 2/3 n
every year of the Company’s existence.
The affairs of the Company are now to be wound up in the Court of Chancery.’
Long before that can be done, however, the whole adventures of the ?....? Bank will have been drowned amid the deluge of the general crisis."
