DESTITUTION AND DEATH. Effects of the Failure of the Oriental Bank of London.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 57, 5 July 1884, Page 6

DESTITUTION AND DEATH. Effects of the Failure of the Oriental Bank of London.

Loxijon, May 19. — Widespread destitution and nearly a score of suicides have folloAved the failuie of the Oi iental Bank. No failure since the suspension of the City Bank of Glasgow has caused such wholesale ruin. The organisation of the Oriental Bank corporation was peculiar, in having over 100,000 shareholders, although its capital was only £1, 500,000, ho that the individual holdings of the shareholders averaged less than £15 each. Having its head oilices at 40, Threadneedle-streot, with Sir William John Walter Baynes, Bart., as Chairman or figurehead of the Board of Directors, it had branches at Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Point de Gal'o, Singapore, Colombo, Hongkong, Shanghai, Yokohama, Mauritius, Melbourne and Sydney. It was deemed second only in stability to the Bank of England. It attracted shoals of small investments from Civil Service employes, spinsters, widows, doctors, clergymen, and in fact, from all classes in the English colonies at those points. Not being organised on the limited liability principle, each ono of the shareholders in the concern is liable to the extent of his entire worldly possessions for the debts of the bank. Thousands of writs of attachments have been issued against unfortunate shareholders, both in England and the East, and it is this fac«, coupled with the loss in many cases of their entire means of sabsistonce, that has driven so many oi tho unhappy investors to desperation"" ! death,