make them pay would have been but another
means of forcing them into the Bankruptcy
Court. Others had betaken themselves away to
climates more congenial than England to the
complaint of indebtedness. Of those worth any
money but three or four remained, and had
these given up all they were possessed of, it
would have been but a mere drop in the ocean
compared with the sum required to satisfy the
body of shareholders. That they should contribute
their due proportion on the shares they
held towards a settlement of claims, was but fair,
but that they should utterly ruin themselves for
the faults of others, certainly appeared most
unjust; the more so as it could do no one any
good.

The directors were, however, not the only
persons threatened with proceedings which
would have ruined them for ever. Some of the
more turbulent amongst the shareholders threatened
the manager, secretary, cashier, and other
officers, with criminal prosecutions on account of
what they had done or left undone when the
bank was in operation. Of course proceedings
of the kind were in every way most absurd; still,
no one likes to have his name figuring in a police
report, and some of us—I for one—were
prepared to start for the Continent at a moment's
notice, for which purpose I kept a ready-packed
carpet-bag under my desk for nearly a fortnight.

The anger of these parties very soon wore
itself out. The decision respecting the non-
liability of the shareholder, who said he had
taken shares on the faith of the prospectus, was
reversed upon appeal to the higher courts, and
matters began to assume a quieter aspect in
every way. Our greatest difficulty in winding-
up the bank lay with the multitude of bad bills
which had been discounted, and the difficulty of
realising upon them even a tenth of what had
been paid for them. Many of them were
literally not worth the stamp on which they had
been written, the drawer as well as acceptor
having in several cases found their way to
Basinghall-street. It was now that the utter
rottenness of the business done by the bank
came to light, as well as a view of what the
concern might have been if managed with ordinary
care and prudence. Of deposits, or drawing
accounts, we had very few in hand when it
was determined to wind us up, for, as I
mentioned in a previous paper,* all the accounts
worth keeping had been gradually withdrawn,
and of deposits on interest we never had many.
This made matters all the more easy to settle, and,
perhaps, prevented an immense amount of misery
amongst some of our poorer customers. But the
funds of the bank appeared somehow impossible
to realise, so much so, that during the liquidation
the salaries of the officers were greatly in
arrears, and, in fact, it seemed almost impossible
to obtain money on any account whatever. As
the bills which had been discounted by the
bank when the latter was in operation fell due,
they were returned upon us protested for non-
payment, and this made more work for the
solicitors of the winding-up. Our official liquidator
had his hands full. He only appeared in
the bank once a day, and then seemed to ease
his mind by bullying every one that came within
his reach. Nor was it to be wondered at if his
temper was of the shortest. Winding-up a
bank is a profitable, but by no means an easy or
amusing undertaking. Every person to whom
the concern owed money appeared to claim
their dues, whilst all who owed it money
shirked payment of it in every possible way.
All this was good for the lawyers, but by no
means so for those to whom the bank was
indebted. As little or no money was received,
none could be paid away. The small slip of
grey-coloured paper signed by the secretary
and two of the directors, which each officer in
the bank had, when the establishment was of
work, received on the last day of every month
—and which had only to be presented at the
counter to be turned into hard cash—was now
a week, ten days, and even a fortnight in arrears,
so much, that many of us began, in spite of
ourselves, to get into debt, and county court
summonses were not unfrequently served upon
some of us in the bank itself. In short, there
was seldom a more uncomfortable time passed
by any set of employés than by us during the
four or five months in which it was not known
how a settlement of the bank's affairs would, or
could, be brought about.

* See How the Bank came to Grief, vol. xiii.,
page 102.

At last an order was obtained from Chancery
relative to the proportion that each shareholder
had to contribute towards liquidating the affairs
of the concern. Our shares were each of fifty
pounds value. On each of these ten pounds per
share had already been paid, and it was now
ordered that ten pounds more be paid on each
share, in two instalments of five pounds each.
To such persons as owned but a few shares, this
contribution was by no means hard, nor could the
terms of payment be complained of. But to
many it came very difficult indeed to pay. There
were several individuals who owned a hundred
shares each, whilst one or two had five times
that number. To pay down five hundred pounds,
with the prospect of having to pay as much
again in a few months' time, was by no means
pleasant, and still less so was it to those who
had to contribute larger sums. So much was
this the case, that when the official liquidator
began to make tender inquiries after some of
our largest shareholders, he found that either
the desire for change of air had induced them
to go to France, or that urgent business had
obliged them to go somewhere out of England,
having previously, with a generosity most
uncommon in these days, made over the bulk of
their property to some near relative or dear
friend. One gentleman to whom the liquidator
applied for his contribution, had the impudence
to reply, from Pisa, that "a chronic weakness of
the chest" obliged him to be absent from
England, and prevented him from remitting the
amount demanded of him. In short, few or