MAY BE SAID TO INAUGURATE A SERIES OF
IMPORTANT CHANGES IN THE LIVES OF
SEVERAL NOTABLE PERSONS IN THIS HISTORY.
The financial storm had been but little felt, you see, at Barton Hall,
or Mr. and Mrs. Somerton would no doubt have said something about it in
the conversation which is set down in the previous chapter.
Phœbe Tallant and her friend, Miss Somerton, had read of it in the
daily papers, which arrived in a special parcel from Smith & Sons
every day at the nearest railway station, where a groom was in waiting
for them. But Phœbe and Amy knew little or nothing about panics. It
was to them very much like what it was to the boy,--“something in the
City.” Miss Tallant’s clever governess, however, knew a great deal
about a Panic, which she seemed to stroke and pat on the back in her
intellectual superiority.
They little knew how seriously such a storm might affect the master
of Barton Hall. It had already demolished more than one or two
establishments of nearly equal importance; but Mr. Tallant was
particularly strong in the back, as they say in the City, and it was
well for him that such was the case, as was speedily exemplified soon
after the first shock of the panic had vibrated throughout the country.
On the very day after the clever governess’s description of a panic,
the half-yearly meeting of the Eastern Banking Company (of which Mr.
Tallant was chairman, and his son a director) was held at the London
Tavern.
At about two o’clock quite a little crowd of anxious-looking people
ascended the stone staircase, and entered that long room with the misty
looking pictures in it and the great chandelier.
Some of the men were talking in loud whispers about the losses of the
company and its evident mismanagement. There appeared to be a general
feeling prevailing that it would be an awkward day for the directors.
But this was no novelty at that time for directors of many other
concerns. Gentlemen who had been working for years up to directorships,
and some of whom had thought it necessary to obtain seats in the House
of Commons, with a leading idea in this direction, now began to find
that there were two sides to the directoral picture.
The time had been when a gentleman could materially augment his income
by having a seat at various boards of management; the time had been
when he not only got thereby a first-rate investment for the nominal
sum which gave him the qualification for certain directorates, but
when his social and commercial position were largely exalted by these
appointments. But directors at this period, with a commercial panic in
the City and throughout the kingdom, began to find their seats full
of thorns, and pins, and needles, and everything but curled hair and
feathers.
Shareholders in almost every shaky concern were down upon the
directors, and in many instances very properly so; for gentlemen
of repute, honourable men hitherto, had been weak enough to append
their names to prospectuses and statements which they knew little
or nothing about; and in some cases this was knavishly and cruelly
done,--knavishly and cruelly, because honest and industrious people
were induced to invest hard-earned savings in rotten schemes made to
look safe by the names of the gentlemen who figured as directors.
Sir This, and the Hon. the Other, Lord That, and Mr. This, M.P. for
so-and-so, did not scruple to lend their names to designing villains
who plundered the public behind these swellmarks, and in more than one
case Sir This and Mr. That did not scruple to go shares in the booty.
So you see the times were rather out of joint for directorships, and
many eminent City and country gentlemen would have been rejoiced could
they all at once have quietly retired from their several boards of
management without inquiry or explanation. Mr. Richard Tallant could
have told you of several safes where shares and scrip had been lately
locked away by strong-backed men with a firm resolution not to look
into those safes for many months to come. Some of these shares had been
bought at heavy premiums, and now all that remained were the frightful
responsibilities which attached to them. But there always had been
panics, people said, and there always would be; and there always have
been financial wreckers and sharpers to take advantage of monetary
storms, and will be until the end.
The half-yearly report stated that a loss of 100,000_l._ had fallen
upon the Bombay branch; but this was by no means the worst feature in
the affair, according to the views of the shareholders. Their shares,
100_l._ paid up, were quoted on the Stock Exchange at 5_l._ 10_s._
The chairman explained that there was no _bonâ fide_ reason for this,
the bank being not only solvent, but having 150,000_l._ to the good,
and better advices were expected from India.
Mr. Tallant’s was a long, clear, and honest statement, but it did not
allay the storm of abuse which had been prepared for the directory.
One speaker called for the resignation of the chairman, and was
applauded; another condemned the directory as a body, called upon them
all to resign; another fell foul of the auditors; another said the
managers of the branches were evidently a set of incompetent men, put
in by favouritism.
By-and-by the first speaker, a City man of repute, and famous amongst
companies as a financial orator, alluded to the fall in their
shares, and attributed the depreciation to the conduct of one of the
shareholders.
“Yes, gentlemen,” he said, “one of our own firm,--one of our partners
in this great concern,--has not only been the chief means of running
the shares down, but he has profited by it; he has sold shares which
do not exist, and bought those which timid people have thrown upon the
market; he has borrowed shares for the purpose of depreciation, and----”
The speaker was interrupted for a moment by cries of “Name! name!” but
he was an orator, and he had more to say before he had worked up his
theme to the grand climax of naming the victim, whom he was pinning
down with his long rhetorical lance.
“Gentlemen, this speculator--to call him by a mild name--is one of a
very small but dangerous set of men, who have been engaged in rigging
the market and damaging great and flourishing concerns--like wreckers,
putting out false lights, and then plundering the unhappy mariners.”
Cries of “Shame!” and “Name!” and “Swindler!” interrupted the speaker,
who waved his hand for silence.
“I had hoped to have seen this gentleman here to-day; he ought to have
been amongst us; I gave him notice that _I_ should be here.”
This elicited a cry of “Bravo!” and then the chairman rose to deprecate
personalities. He feared the honorable proprietor was losing his
discretion by excitement.
“Not so, Mr. Chairman,” replied the honorable proprietor. “I am not
speaking on the spur of the moment: my words are not born of mere
excitement, sir. I have thought much and deeply about the remarks I am
now making; nay more, I have taken advice upon them--they have gone
through the legal crucible. (Cheers, “Bravo!” and confusion.) It is
exceedingly hurtful to my own feelings to bring so painful a subject
before this meeting, but I am prepared to sacrifice self, upon an
occasion of this kind, to public duty.”
“Hear, hear!” said several shareholders, whilst others murmured “Quite
right.”
“I have ample proof of the charge which I am making; and shall I not
for the credit and honour and safety of the trading community of this
great city, in a time of such financial danger, unmask the dastard
before the eyes of the world?”
“Yes, yes!” and “Name! name!” cried a hundred voices; whilst a pair of
stentorian lungs shouted, from the gallery at the extreme end of the
room, “Why the deuce don’t you do it?”
In the midst of the hubbub a grave, pale-faced gentleman rose and said
this kind of discussion had gone far enough. He wanted to know the
exact position of the bank.
“Hear, hear!” shouted several shareholders close by; whilst others
could not help laughing at this bit of clerical impracticability,
seeing that the report stated the position of the bank, and the
chairman’s address had been furthermore elucidatory.
The chairman rose to order, and was greeted with cries of “Sit down!”
“Don’t interfere!” “Let us have the name!”
Meanwhile the financial orator stood, paper in hand, calmly
contemplating the scene, and half-a-dozen other persons rose to speak,
including the poor parson, who had been induced to invest all his
money in this bank, chiefly on account of its classical connection with
the East.
“I insist upon knowing the position of the bank,” said the reverend
gentleman, but his earnestness only raised a loud laugh.
“I fail to see the humorous side of my question,” said the poor man,
thinking of his wife and four little ones at the small rectory in
Yorkshire. “Is this bank solvent, or is it not? Is it going to break?
What is its position?”
Laughter, cheers, and cries of “Bosh!” and “Go on with the meeting!”
soon induced the poor rector to sit down, and then the financial
orator said he would resume the case at the point where he had been
interrupted.
“Name! name!” the shareholders cried, and several directors at length
grew sufficiently excited to join in the chorus; but the financial
orator begged to be permitted to explain the whole case before
complying with the general request; and whilst he is gradually “piling
up the agony,” and drifting into his telling peroration, we propose to
conduct you to an adjacent police court, where another extraordinary
scene is being enacted.
We can return and pick up the “name” which the honorable proprietor has
been asked for so frequently.