15 JULY 1899, Page 24

Company Frauds Abolition. By Richard Russell. (Effingham Wilson.)—We wish Mr.

Russell success, but we doubt whether he has taken the best means to attain it. His book is scarcely businesslike. He gives the scheme of a law which he would have enacted. But what is so repulsive to the general reader as a Bill ? If he had put the points on which he insists briefly there would have been more chance of attention. After

-all, putting aside the absolutely fraudulent schemes, the real danger to the public is ever-capitalisation made possible by excesisive valuation of profits and assets. How is this to be hindered ? A prospeetus sent a few weeks ago to the writer of this notice contained a valuation of two small properties in a provincial town which worked out at about £800,000 the acre.