SUSPENSION OF FOX, HENDERSON, AND CO.
Wu° shall say, in the present state of commerce, that he can pay his way ? It would need an isolation almost incompatible with general activity. Messrs' Fox, Henderson, and Co. may have been quite able to manage their own affairs, but they were in-
extricably mixed up with other people's affairs ; and it is difficult to avoid the mixture. Iron-work is needed in the construction of crystal palaces, railways, bridges, and other works ; but that house is most likely to obtain a contract which has some vested interest in the crystal palace, the railway, or the bridge ; and what course more natural than "to take shares" ? There is a premium on the extension of such relations, since the profit over a large field usually covers the risk of loss. But the one firm cannot supervise all the undertakings ; each enterprise will have its own management, and a mistake in one part will derange the whole series. It is not only impossible to supervise, but even to attest the genuine character of houses with whom the firm is brought into connexion. A man may be apparently at the head of iron-works, and yet be nothing more than a man with his brains—his capital borroVed, his establishment not his ; and yet, save to those who are in the secret, he will look as substantial, as capable of taking a bridge contract, as any "firm." Nay, we have seen by what fine gradations the highest houses in the City may become connected with swindlers like Cole or Robson ; and a gigantic fraud, as well as a gigantic blunder, may interrupt the series of circulations on which depends the power of " meeting your engagements." The conduct of the creditors in Messrs. Fox, Henderson, and Co.'s case, implies a great advance in the theory of mercantile rule. The resources of the firm are reckoned to be sufficient—. the payment is only a question of time. Time, indeed, is money; and when creditors agree to wait, they virtually waive a portion of their claims. But there is no doubt that the abrupt closing of the affairs of many a house has entailed a more positive and abso- lute loss. The interweaving of commercial relations constitutes the whole body mercantile a species of joint-stock association, in which each " principal" is administrator for a certain portion of the general affairs ; and there is thus a community of interest all round which renders it better to keep the whole circle going, with the experienced man of each post still at his duties. This is one reason why we have several houses continuing in business " un- der inspection." It is an approach to the Oriental mode of assist- ing a bankrupt to go on, instead of compelling him to leave off.
It necessarily involves such a change in our bankruptcy prac- tice as will gradually pave the way to a further improvement of the law, under which the Courts of Bankruptcy will become, for the honest but disappointed trader, less penal in their action and more auxiliary ; while the fraudulent trader will be handed over explicitly to the ordinary penal courts.
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