secured by harbouring the banking account of
"Leopold Redpath, Esq.," the bankrupt insurance-
broker, was more than counterbalanced, in
all probability, by the bad example it placed
before the bank clerks. It is evident that William
George Pullinger was not improved by coming
into contact with a banking account like
Redpath's; and it is evident that the Union Bank
of London was not improved by the demoralisation
of William George Pullinger. One of the
statements to be submitted to the suffering
shareholders at the next half-yearly meeting in
July, should run thus:

SPECIAL PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT (No. 1).

Showing gain by a Fraudulent Customer; and loss
                      by a Fraudulent Clerk.

It is a very singular thing that shareholders, in
the face of such warnings as these, should still
cling to an empty, because a low-priced, system of
audit. Whenever their affairs are purposely
entangled by men like Leopold Redpath, and they
have to call in professional accountants, and
resort to an "independent investigation," they
then learn that real auditing is a necessary part
of a business organisation, and that it becomes
all the more costly the longer it has been
neglected. The damage done to a large enterprise
by half-shareholder, half-honorary, five, ten,
fifteen, and twenty-pounds-charging auditors is
seldom even explained, and never repaired by
five, ten, fifteen, and twenty-thousand-pounds-
charging accountants. The frauds of Redpath,
if taken at five per cent, upon the amount, will
represent an income for ever, of twelve thousand
pounds per annum. The frauds of Pullinger, if
treated in the same way, will represent a perpetual
annual income of fourteen thousand and five
hundred pounds.

The first sum would surely pay for the
continuous and only effective audit of many British
railways—perhaps of all; and the second sum
would probably do the same for all the joint-
stock banks. It is a singular thing that
shareholders, at present, are blind to this, and are
satisfied with a few respectable, fully occupied,
middle-aged gentlemen "auditors," who manage
to "run in" to glance at the books and vouchers
about twelve times, or less, in the course of the
year. It is a singular thing that these
shareholders look to future economy and future profit,
to cover these heavy and periodical losses by
fraud: forgetting that the future money saved
or made is not the money that was lost, and that
the same economy and industry might have been
practised without the unhealthy spurring on of
gigantic forgers, and thieves.

On the other hand, it is an equally singular
thing that men of position, of means, and
reputation, can be found to fill the chairs of amateur
auditorship, for dinners, small patronage, and
trifling fees. A new piano for Miss "Auditor,"
a new dress for Mrs. "Auditor," a family trip
to Germany, or Italy, a few banquets at town
and suburban taverns, may be very agreeable
things in their way, if they be not purchased at
too great a cost. A few "attendances," a few
"signatures" may not appear much to give for
such luxuries, if the responsibility incurred is
carefully forgotten. The capital invested in
British railways alone, is estimated at four
hundred millions sterling. It is all "audited" by
these daring amateurs.

         HIGHLY IMPROBABLE!

THE apartments assigned to Solomon Gunn,
when—goodness knows why—he entered the old
wilderness of an inn in the dirty town of Wake,
consisted of a sitting-room and bed-chamber,
adjoining each other, and both opening on a long
corridor. The windows of the sitting-room looked
into the main street, the one window of the bed-
chamber into a narrow lane that ran along the
side of the house.

In the sitting-room, hung against the wall that
parted it from the bed-chamber, were two grim
portraits, such as you may find by the dozen in
the course of a journey through any of the broker-
shop neighbourhoods of London. One
represented a military gentleman, with a cocked hat,
the other, a venerable civilian, with a bobwig;
and both were executed in that wooden fashion
which repels the mind from the supposition that
any live specimen of humanity ever favoured the
artist with a sitting. Nothing could be less
remarkable than the circumstance that two ugly,
old-fashioned pictures decorated the wall of a
country inn; but it was very remarkable, indeed,
that when Solomon Guiin stepped into the bed-
chamber he found the same wall ornamented on
the other side with two pictures representing the
backs yes,—the backs—of the gentlemen in the
adjoining room. Moreover, the pictures in the
bed-chamber were so placed that they exactly
corresponded to their companions in the sitting-