A LIVERPOOL SHAREBROKER.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 592, 5 April 1851, Page 4

A LIVERPOOL SHAREBROKER.

The following able article, respecting the extraordinary eventful career of Mr. Martin Luther Pritchard, a Liverpool sharebroker, we extract from the Times, and will, we doubt not, be perused with much interest by our readers:—

“Our scene rises upon the busy town of Liverpool, and in a year as recent as 1839, so that the unities of the drama will be preserved at any rate, as regards the time. Ten short years, in fact, sufficed for the whole course we have to describe, and it is a circumstance not a little indicative of the spirit of the age that the incidents of a life should thus be crowded into the space of a single decade. But men and things travelled very fast in those days, &s will soon be seen. In 1839, then, Martin Luther Pritchard became a clerk to Mr. Forsyth, a sharebroker at Liverpool, we presume with the ordinary prospects attending such a beginning. Times, however, were propitious, and in the very same year, if the dates are accurately given, the clerk became a partner. We get a little clue to this sudden rise in an intimation that the clerk had already shown symptoms of unusual genius. He had speculated successfully, partly on his own account, and partly upon an account which it is not very easy to define. In the bankrupt’s books appeared a long series of transactions conducted by him for and on behalf of a Maria Barlow, the financial results of which were so favourable that the said Maria Barlow was credited with a general balance of £3,945 profit upon the whole ten years. About the figures of this account there was nothing wrong nor mysterious, but certain parties proposed to read “Harris” instead of “Barlow,” alleging, in short, that the said lady had no substantial existence, but was a mere symbolical representation of Mr. Pritchard himself, for the purpose of book keeping and trade. We conceive that such surmises were not illfounded, but in any case the expedient was commercially innocent, for it was clearly proved that the creditors could be in no wav indemnified by such a division of the bankrupt’s identity, and we notice the fact, therefore, merely as a feature of the art and mystery of sharebroking. In 1844, the senior partner of the firm thus constituted determined on retiring— no bad indication of the state of trade. For some time Pritchard remained the sole representative of the house, until, in 1848, he acted towards another as Mr. Forsyth had acted towards him, and called his clerk—Mr. Dale—up to a solid share in the concern. . Promotion was evidently

very rapid on the Liverpool exchange anil wonder, for the business which has only b five years in our view, and which we Uf “ have been almost the creation of p r^tc f ft|l himself, was returning at this period nual profit of no less than £7,650, up on * n ’ average of three years. Certainly the tow n ,h t Liverpool in 1845 was no bad field for e J’ prising young men. It is only a pity t h at ,5 brilliant careers should terminate so raoidi, and in such a court as Mr. Fane’s. The v 1846 was the turning point of Pritchard' 1 fortunes. At that lucky mornent he »* tempted by a glittering prize, which promigpj him friends and profit in perpetuity, but which brought him enemies and ruin. His success we may presume, was somewhat conspiemm' even at Liverpool, since he seems to h av ‘ been selected by observant eyes as one o f those spirits emphatically calculated the affairs of a railway. His services sought for the South Eastern after urgent applications, were secured, bait was alluring. The situation in qu est i n „ had just been vacated by a nobleman, was removed for the Governorship of nificent dependency, and whose though but of fifteen months’ duration, foj been acknowledged by presents valued at £2,700. Pritchard at length accepted the offer; and here, then, in the seventh year of his course the Liverpool clerk found himself deputy-governor of one of those mighty com. panies, before which all Britain was to bow I Now, however, the tide begins to turn. Loth I don bridge station proved the Wngram-of out I Napoleon’s destinies, and from this moment K his fortune was reversed. He left what we I suppose, by comparison, we may term hij I humble office in Liverpool, and took up his | abode in London. Not unnaturally, he launched I into a higher style of living, though, to his I credit it must be said, that personal extrava. gance was never his fault, either in one station or another. He considered himself eatitled, at least, to £1,500 a-year from ihe company, and was not, perhaps, without hopes that his Liverpool concern was now strong enough to run alone. In both these expectations he was doomed to heavy disappointment!, As far as we can collect from the reports, it appears that his incomings from the company never took any more substantial form than obligations, and that his services are still unrecompensed, and his disbursements of some' £2,500, in their behalf, still unliquidated. Nor was the Liverpool business more prosperous. Deprived of its master, and caught in the storm of reactionary panic, this concern, too, dragged its anchor and was swept off to sea. In the month of May, 1849, a fiat was issued against Pritchard and Dale, as bankrupts, and when, in the sequel, our unfortunate hero takes his stand before Mr, Commissioner Fane, we find his most uncompromising foes in the South-Eastern Railway Company. Thus in 1839, a clerk; in 1840, an independent and successful sharebroker, Mr. Pritchard finds himself, in 1846, a deputy chairman of a board of omnipotent directors with a prospect of becoming—we can scarcely say what. To the visions of the share market of this period there were no bounds or limit—parksand peerages were apparently at his call, till at last comes a darker reality, and this strange eventful history of ten years terminated abruptly in a bankruptcy court and a prison. In pointing a general moral by a particular example, we are bound to render justice to the individual concerned, and we entirely concur with Mr. Commissioner Fane in thinking the bankrupt exculpated, on the face of these proceedings, from any oi the charges so commonly attached to partiea in his position. If his gains were quickly spent they did not appear to be ill-gotteD| though the success of the Liverpool-office is scarcely reconciieable, except as an extraordinary exception with the practice and result of sober trading. But it is probable, too, that the reverses of the times might have his strength, even had he not embarked hi®' self or his fortune upon a course beyond » i! own control. Years like 1845 have aW their counterpart. Perhaps in casting hh lot into a railway concern, the bankrupt di® little but follow out the track on which he hw started. But this much at least, is from the story before us, —that fortunes sit not to be rapidly made without risks prop°f* tioned to the gain ; that faith aud friendship have like places in such combinations, &® that even commercial sagacity and perso® 1 thrift, are no safeguards against specii' 3 ' tive trading.