OUR LONDON LETTER.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1583, 17 March 1879, Page 3

OUR LONDON LETTER.

[FROM OUB OWN gpoTOJtt.l London, January 30. The first month of another year has nearly passed away and has not brought us any improvement. The hard frost which has now prevailed almost without any interruption for nine weeks may be taken as typifying the inelastic state of trade. Politics, which usually begin to look up this month, are nowhere just now, for the little session of Parliament before Christmas did away with all interest in our foreign affairs, and as the ordinary session will not begin for three weeks to come we know nothing as to what may bo the domastic programme of the Ministry. The only matter for which there seems any public demand to-day ia for an improvement in the law of bankruptcy, serious attention to which has been aroused by the long succession of heavy banking and commercial failures at a time when trade is exceedingly deprossed, though for the niany years of prosperity Which preceded it creditors were quite willing to wink at If not to forgive all tho sins of their non-pdying debtors. All sorts of outdoor business has been at an entirely standstill owing to the severity of this winter, which is something remarkable both for its duration and Its intensity. For nearly two months „ the streets have been rough with hardened snow. The first fall was in the u*riiest days of December, and this very afternoon we have had another—the tenth or twelfth, although at daybreak the atmosphere seemed more open and spring like.

I have made memoranda of a few commercial item* which will be of interest to New Zealand, for whosa especial benefit a new company, the New Zealand Agricultural Company has been brought out. From the prospeotuß, whioh has only been published this week, and has already aroused a great deal of criticism, it appears to be started by Mr W* J. Murdie Larnach, late Colonial Treasurer and Minister of Railways in New Zealand, Mr T. Selby Tancred, who is described as a sheep farmer of New Zealand, but now living in the West End of London, Sir Julius Vogel, who is too well known both here and in the colony to need any description, and three Other gentleman who do not appear to have any Interest in New Zealand. The capital is to be a Million sterling, with powflr to borrow money on mortgage deb entures, the first issue of which is to be £IOO,OOO, and with this money the directors propose to purchase, improve, manage, deal with, and act as agents for, agricultural, pastoral, and other properties known as Croydon Waimea Plains, Wantwood, Okaiterua, Longridge, Dome, Eyre Creek, and Ardlussa, an estate which is in the province of Otago and Southland, and consists of 167,769 acres of freehold land in one block, besides 141,675 acres of leasehold lands. This is bought with the stock thereon for £1,070,000, of which £350,000 is to be taken in fully paid-up shares that are not to form part of the first issue, and a considerable attraction is offered in the prospectus about the large number of young men that are desirous of learning agriculture in New Zealand. At Pthe outset this company has had the opposition of the " Times/' which thought that sufficient information was not disclosed about the property that had been purchased, and which it said was valued far above tho highest Government price for land. The secretary, Mr K. Holland, denied this, and ■aid the price was not equal to that which the Government was now obtaining for land without any stock or implements thereon. He also explained one very important point to English investors, viz., that the shares to be issued to the vendors will not be transferable in this country for five years. Today an " Observer " notes that Mr Holland is silent as to the original cost of land, and suggests that an average or approximate amount should be stated. As a colonial traveller and investor, he thinks the price asked by the vendors is too high, and he suggests that they should revise their terms. A satisfactory report was presented at the meeting this month of the shareholders of the New Zealand Trust and Loan Company. The advices which the directors had received from the colony showed a continued demand for money at remunerative rates on freehold properties, and this made the directors anxious to complete the last issue of £250,000 five per cent, preference shares. The retirement of Mr W. D. Carruthers was reported, and Mr E. W. Dalgety, who presided in the absence of Sir Charles Clifford, after eulogising the great skill and care he had displayed on behalf of the company, announced his appointment as a trustee in order that they might have the benefit of his valuable advice. The Union Bank of Australia has also held its half-yearly meeting this month, and declared a very high rate of dividend, but the manager expressed much regret at the excessive competion which had sprung up for deposits in New Zealand, and in a less degree in New South Wales and Victoria. At Home this very question is causing much anxiety to Banks.

The trial of the directors of the City of Glasgow Bank began in Edinburgh last Monday week, and has been followed day by day with increasing interest, for such a case has not been known by the present generation. The directors, save one, had remained in prison at Glasgow until the previous Saturday, when they were removed to the cells beneath the High Court of Judiciary in Edinburgh, and as they stepped up the staircase and through a trapdoor, into the presence of the three judges who sat to hear their ca9e, they were joined by Mr J. Stewart, their more fortunate comrade who had been out on bail and now surrendered. The differences between the English and Scotch form of procedure were at once manifest. In Scotland there is no long opening explanatory statement by counsel for the prosecution. In lieu thereof there had previously been delivered to each of the prisoners an immense indictment, which not only states technically all the charges against the accused, but also declares the process by which it will be Bought o prove their guilt. Therefore, as soon as the jury had been sworn (in the Scotch fashion by holding up the right hand instead of kissing the Testament), one of the counsel for the prisoners rose and objected to the contents of the indictment, and, in a speech of four hours' duration, he argued that the charges contained therein were not such as could be alleged against the prisoners. This was an exceedingly able argument, but it was speedily disposed of by the Lord Advocate, who is really a public prosecutor in Scotland. The judges did not require his lordship to address them on one point, for they considered that the charge of theft, in having disposed of a number of bills of exchange which had been entrusted to the bank by its customers, might be met, but on the other points they took time to consider. When they met the next morning the judges unanimously overruled all the objections which had been raised, and accordingly the trial proceeded, all the defenants pleading not guilty. The first witness (of any importance) was Mr McGregor, the accountant, who was sent for when the stoppage took place to prepare a report. He said he found the directors very much ovorcome; thoy were so completely overwhelmed as to be unable to speak, but Lereshe, the secretary, was going about like a man in his ordinary business. The facts which ho discovered in his investigation were so serious that he asked each director to meet him separately, that they might know how things were going, and as the result, he mot tharu in the board-room and told them there wns a deficiency of five millions of money. More than that amount, it was proved by another witness, was owing by four firms connected with the defendants. Mr Morrison, the accountant to the bank, described the making up of the " cooked" balance-sheets, the object of all the illicit alterations being to greatly understate the liabilities, I do not propose to go through all

tho evidence, which occupied moro than a week in hearing ' ulir wi u oJn tent myself with noting the principal fact of interest to the people in Now Zmland, that all the witnesses agreed in the valuable character of the extensive property in the colony on which the bank had made Urge advances. To-day the last of the speeches for the defence has been delivered, and to-morrow will witness the last stage of this remarkable trial. I hardly like to ventu- e on a prophecy in such a case, but so difficult has been the proof of guilt, that the prosecution has had to abandon the more serious charges, and. I should not wonder if, after the summing up to-morrow from the Bench, the jury should regard the remaining charges against the directors as "not proven," a loophole which only the Scotch law allows.

This month has witnessed the almost complete stoppage of work in all the common law divisions of the High Court of Justice, and this result, which has produced a loud outcry, more from the judges and the council than from the suitors' whose interests ore the most affected, has been brought about by the new system of assizes which the Home Secretary has established. Some little time ago there arose a great complaint, which found expression in the House of Oomraans, about the hardship of innocent prisoners, or at all events of those whoso guilt could not be proved on thoir trial, being kept in prison for several months. Well, there sooms to bo two sides to this question, and now some people think a man might be worse off than in prisou during tho winter, even if he is innocent. I cannot say what strange ideas of liberty some people may have, but I think, for my own parti would rather not. spend Christmas in prison, and anyhow I could not have a happy New Year there. But the judges think it a dreadful hardship to have to go on circuit during this hard weather, although it cannot be said that they have not had plenty to do, for I never remembered a time when they had more serious cases to try, and I could fill the whole of this letter with merely a brief recapitulation of the murder cases only. One case, however, stands out from the rest for the horror of its surroundings, for we rarely have a case of serious agrarian crime in the peaceful county of Kent, " the garden of England," as it is justly termed. However, there a young farmer has been most brutally murdered by a laborer in his employ, solely, it appears, out of a feeling of revenge for the introduction of machinery on the farm. The case was at first shrouded in mystery, but the murderer at length made some admissions, and on his trial said he did it in self defence. But he had gone a great deal further than defence, and next week he will be executed.

Another most remarkable circumstance of the past mouth Was the strike of the guards employed in the goods traffic of the Midland Railway Company, which probably does the largest mineral traffic ia this country. Taking advantage of the depression in trade, and the fact that large ntiftiber* of nv n are oui of employment the company suddenly announced a reduction in the wages of all their -working staff. In the face of a good dividend being maintained the men felt this to be unjust, and the public were invited to say whether the chairman, with a salary of two or three thousand pounds per annum, or a porter at seventeen shillings a week ought to be the first to be made to feel the pressure of the times. The goods guards went out on strike, but the superior officers of the company soon managed to destroy their growing organisation. They succeeded after a few days in getting back the nien to one of their large stations, and then day after day the others followed, until at length only those employed at the London terminus remained out of work. It has proved a very unfortunate thing for the men who, when thoy struck, expected to be joined by the signalmen, in which case the entire traffic of a big railway would have been suspended, but the directors saw with the signalmen rested the whole issue of the strike, and they made a timely concession, which enabled them to win a victory over the guards. But during the time the strike lasted the company mußfc have lost severely, for passengers travelled by other lines whenever they could owing to the alarm that was felt about the blocked state of the line. Besides the loss of fares there is no knowing how much the company has not had to pay for the detention of goods. I narrated very recently the facts of a daring robbory from one of the branches of the Bank of England by one of its clerks. This week a more audacious robbery has been discovered at one of the branches of our noxt most important bank, tho London and Westminster, also by one of the clerks. The culprit in this case, John Miller, is a man nearly fifty years of age, and he was employed as a paying cashier. It was his duty to obtain from one of the receiving cashiers all the money he wanted to pay the customers' cheques, but it seems that he has obtained a great deal more. According to his books ho should have had, on the day when the fraud was discovered, a sum of more than four thousand pounds in nand. The bulk of this money was contained in three bags, each of which was supposed to contain one thousand pounds in gold. When these tied up bags were passed in review before the manager, the latter requested that one of them might be opened and counted, whereupon Miller, quite equal to the emergency, at once confessed that the bag contained silver instead of gold, and that the coins had been changed by fraud or by magic. He had, however, so cleverly effected this change that if tho bags had been put in the scale they would have shown the exact weight in gold. An examination followed, and it was speedily ascertained that Miller was nearly three thousand pounds deficient. At present no explanation has been made as to what he has done with this large sum of money, nor has the Bank stated how long this serious defalcation has been in progress—a fact which it will be important to ascertain, for the public are just now keenly jealous as to .the management of these joint stock banks. One of the most desporate criminals we have ever had in this country is a man named Charles Peace, who is now under sentence of penal servitude for life for burglary and the attempted murder of a policeman in London, and has been taken down to Sheffield for examination on a charge of murder there. The circumstances of this man's career are of the most extraordinary character. Some yearß ago he was unsuccessful in his attempt to take away a married woman named Dyson, near whom he lived, and by way of revenge he shot ( her husband. Mrs Dyson herself was the only witness to this crime, for ho made an ineffectual attempt to shoot her at the same time. She at once told the police who the murderer was, but he escaped, though in Wb flight across some adjacent fields he dropped a packet of letters, which was the only corroborative evidence of his identity. He totally disappeared; Mrs Dyson went to America, and the affair was well nigh forgotten when a man who was at first believed to be a Malutto, for he had stained his skin to destroy his likeness, was arreßted while leaving a house at Blackheatb, into which he had broken in the moat scientific manner. A policeman secured him with marvellous courage, for the burglar fired five shots at him with a revolver. It was then found out that he had been previously convicted, and for this new crime he received a sentence of penal servitude for life. Then a Sheffield policeman who well knew the murderer of Mr Dyson, found out that this interesting criminal was the long missing Peace, and the county authorities went to the expense of bringing home Mrs Dyson from her home in the United States. She also at once identified him. He was taken down from London to Sheffield last week for examination, and on the road made a daring attempt to escape from the warders by leaping from a window of the express train by which they travelled. He knows South Yorkshire well, for he has travelled over every mile of it as a hawker, and just as the train was approaching that county ho leaped through the window, but in the fall was so severely hurt that he could not move. Ths train was stopped for the warders to get out, and on their going back about a couple of miles they found him bleeding and half stunned, but able to smile when he recognised them. He will be tried next week on the charge of murder. The Earl of Ayleaford ia a young nobleman whose name has, before the present month, appeared in my letter. He was then an injured husband, who claimed a divorce on account of his wife's misconduct. Since then

wo have not hoard anything of him until a few days ago, when he committed a very brutal assault on two of the box-koepers at Covent Garden Theatre —where, by the way, is to bo seen the very best pantomime ever produced in London—beciuse they would not. fid-nit him to a box without the ticket, which it turned out was in the possession of one of his friends, who had not come to meet him. Thereupon he flew into a very after-dinner-like rage, and laid about him with a walkingatick, which severely hurt one of the attendants. The result was the compulsory appearance of the noble earl at Bow street Police Court, where he was heavily fined. Of course money is nothing to him ; but, besides the disgrace of having his misconduct published all over England, he has cßugiht it very severely from some of the more influential newspapers for the odium he has brought upon his order by brutality, which might have been all very well in the reign of that pattern monarch, George IV., but is not at all in keeping with the manners of the forty-first year of Victoria. The agitation amongst the farm laborers of Kent has assumed considerable proportions, and, as I mentioned in my last letter, steps have been taken to send a large number of them to New Zealand, whither I am told many of them have already emigrated, much to their own advantago. But during the past month the contest betweon employers and employed has been fought out very bitterly, aud the law has been appealed to in order to enforce tho eviction of the laborers from the cottages that some of them had occupied for long years. Yesterday nearly four hundred men, and children, but principally, I am told; young agricultural laborers, came up from Maidstone, and are to-day on their road to Plymouth, whence they will set sail for your colony. I have not a very hopeful feeling as to the result either for them or for you, and I am still less sanguine about the success of their especial object, viz., to cultivate the Kentish hop in New Zealand. Hopß do not grow everywhere; in fact no one really knows why they will only grow in the favored Counties of England, and not at all in Ireland or Scotland. If New Zealand can grow even passable hops, ntto say first-rate ones, there is a fine opening for their conaumption at home, for the brewers of bitter ales are doing an increasing trade, not only at home, but also over the Continent of Europe.