none could, or would, pay their share of the
liquidation, and those to whom the bank owed
money began to look very blank indeed. Some
paid up on the shares that stood in their
names, but very many of those who did not
leave England sought refuge in the Bankruptcy
Court, and thus got rid of their liabilities. The
bank, or rather the official liquidator of the
concern, had to fight every inch of the ground
before they could obtain anything at all from
most of the shareholders, and even then had
very often to end with a compromise, on the
principle of half a loaf being better than no
bread. It is not too much to say that for every
five-pound note we recovered, the expenses
incurred were not less than three pounds. As
I have said before, it was rare times for the
lawyers and accountants, but not for any one
else, and the poorer of the creditors began to
think that they would never see their money.

For some of these creditors the case was,
indeed, a very hard one. Following a custom by
no means uncommon amongst joint-stock
companies of the present day, many of the tradesmen
who had supplied the offices with furniture,
stationery, or other goods, had consented to
take the payment of their bills in shares. They
had been accordingly allotted these shares, which
now stood in their respective names in our books.
When the crash came upon us, not only were
these shares—like all the rest in the concern—
utterly valueless, but the tradesmen that had
taken them in payment had actually to
contribute their quota towards making good the
deficiencies of the bank; or, in other words,
they not only were not paid for what they had
provided for the bank, but had positively to pay
money for having given the bank credit. The
parties thus let in were by no means in a good
temper at what had happened to them. For a
tradesman to make a bad debt and lose his money
is bad enough; but when to this injury is added
the insult of having to pay money out of pocket
in addition, it is not to be wondered at if those
who were thus hurt felt keenly the annoyance.
In fact, it was these tradesmen who had thought
they had taken the best care of themselves that
were the most injured. For some of these
parties, in order to make more money out of the
concern, had only accepted the payment being
made in shares on condition of a long price being
given for what they had supplied. These long
prices, of course, were paid for in so many
additional shares, and the greater number of shares
any persons had standing in their names, they
had all the more to pay. At first the tradesmen
attempted to resist this, but they were very soon
shown by the law courts that no matter how or
for what they had received the shares, they were
obliged to pay up their proportion upon each
such share. Nor could the question have been
decided otherwise. Although they had received
these shares in payment of goods, they stood in
our books as bonâ fide shareholders, and as such
were obliged to pay up ten pounds per share,
like the rest.

To such of the directors as had not run
away, or were not playing at hide and seek
with their creditors, the case was a very hard
one. It is true that each of them had been
"qualified" for the board by receiving a number
of shares gratis, but they had now each to
pay ten pounds on every share, for which
they had not received any benefit whatever,
And what was still more annoying to these
gentlemen, as well as to every olficer or clerk
connected with the concern, our bank had got so
very bad a name in the City—nay, even worse
than that, it had been so much laughed at—that
any person connected with it found, if a director,
the greatest possible difficulty in getting
connected with any other public company, and if an
employé, an impossibility of obtaining any situation
in another office.

There were, however, certain laughable
circumstances which came to light with our winding-
up. Amongst the original promoters of the
bank was a gentleman of whom I made no
mention in the paper which treats of its foundation.*
This individual had in the first instance been
promised three hundred shares, with ten pounds
nominally paid up on each, if he performed
certain services for the concern. What he had
undertaken to do he did, and did well, claiming
as his payment the three hundred shares, which,
being worth three thousand pounds if sold at
par, were wages worth working for. His co-
promoters, however, tried their best to cheat
him of what he had earned, and upon one
pretext and another kept him out of the shares for
a very long time. To obtain possession of them
he moved heaven and earth, even going to no
little expense in obtaining counsel's opinion
respecting his claim, and in taking certain
preliminary steps in the courts of law towards
obtaining what was his undoubted right. At last
—not a fortnight before the crash came—he
frightened the other promoters into giving him
his shares, which were duly transferred and
registered in his name. He had hardly had time
to get his scrip fairly in his possession, when the
order to wind-up the bank was obtained, and his
shares were not only utterly unsaleable, but he
was called upon to pay up three thousand
pounds upon them. Such are the glorious
uncertainties of company promoting. This gentleman
was by no means a rich man, and he had
calculated upon selling these three hundred
shares at a premium, and thus having a capital
to commence business upon of better than three
thousand pounds. Instead of this, he found
himself three thousand pounds worse off than
nothing. As a matter of course, he—like many
other of our shareholders—had to go through
the Bankruptcy Court in order to avoid legal
proceedings being taken against him, and he
thus cleared himself of his liabilities, but did not
make much by the magnificent fee which he had
earned by serving the promoters of the "Grand
Financial."

* See How we Floated the Bank, vol. xii., page
493.

Another gentleman, a captain in the army,