THE BANKRUPTCY OF THE WEEK.
THERE ill something almost oldfashioned in the address of Messrs. De Lisle, Janvrin, and De Lisle, to their creditors. Few stop- pages at the first blush created so deep an impression as this; the firm is so respectable, it had been so constantly on the lender side, and was so utterly unknown as borrower. Here genuine credit was at stake, and a certain alarm mingled with the sympathy, as if now something had happened which is real disaster. The address is couched in terms of great simplicity. 16 Devonshire Square. "It is with feelings of deep regret that we have deemed it necessary this day to suspend our payments. Large advances in Canada and disappoint- ments in receiving remittances have led to this painful determination, and we feel convinced that by taking this course we shall best protect the in- terest of our creditors.
" We beg to assure those friends who have placed securities in our hands, that they all remain intact, and are held at the disposal of the parties in- terested.
"We shall request a meeting of our creditors in a few days, of which you will be duly informed ; and, relying upon your sympathy and forbearance under these painful circumstances, "We are, respectfully, your obedient humble servants,
"Da LISLE, JANVILIN, and DE Deus."
The disaster, indeed, is of a kind to counteract rather than to aggravate the effect produced by recent failures. It is nothing new to discover that the greatest attention to business that the keenest sagacity, cannot obviate every turn of luck; for if men could comprehend all the causes leading to future results, there would be no such thing as chance in trade; the firm possessing that superhuman knowledge would be endowed with superna- tural tural power, and might command the world. The bad charac- ter of recent failures has not consisted even in laxity upon this point. It is that British merchants have been found to differ altogether from the character of British merchants, and to emu- late a different class—British misdemeanants of various kinds. In most cases, too, the failure has not been brought about by a disappointment of funds in the usual commercial trade, but by an inordinate personal expenditure unconnected with the business. In many oases the firm in the City is quite sound, but it is the establishment at Newmarket that devours the proceeds ; and funds raised by way of accommodation to carry on a substantial business have sometimes found their way to liquidate debts of honour on the turf. This is the really alarming kind of dis- closure that ought to have an afoot on the countenance and the confidence of the City ; not the diseovery that a most respectable
firm has mistaken its calculations respecting the probity or the ability of correspondents in a. distant colony.
We have marked one passage in Italics. It is creditable to Messrs. De Lisle and Co. that they can give the assurance that they hold the securities of other persons intact.; but what & reflection upon the state of commercial morality, now becoming fashionable in the City, that it should be necessary to ,make it!
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