13 MAY 1882, Page 22

Ingall's Foreign-Stock Manual, 1882. (Effingham Wilson.)—This is a useful little

manual, instructive, and even, we can imagine, entertaining, to those who are not made unhappy by the possession of riches. It gives the indebtedness of the world, stating the par- ticulars of the loans which each State has contracted, the amounts paid off, the amounts still due, and in not a few instances, alas ! the interest overdue. The defaulters are chiefly to be found in Central and South America. Honduras, in one way, takes the lead, not by the magnitude of its operations, but by the overpowering proportion of what it has not paid to what it has. It began with the modest sum of £90,000, in 1867 ; on this, it paid the interest and the drawings for seven or eight years. Another loan was issued in the same year for a million, and a third in 1870 for two millions and a half. Not much of these last two accounts seems to have been paid, the upshot being that the State owes £3,222,000 on capital account, and £2,864,340 for overdue interest. Pent owes more than ten millions in overdue interest, and Turkey more than fifty-three.