We concur in the verdict, especially as regards the new
directors, who, as the judge said, ought never to have been tried at all, but we have no sympathy for the scene which followed. The Court rang with cheers, people broke into tears, and everybody shook the defendants by the hand. Their conduct, though not fraudu- lent, was morally most culpable. They did sell to the public an enormous business without revealing facts about it which were of the last importance to the purchasers, facts which, bad they been revealed, would have prevented the sale. We will not say they sold plated goods for silver, for the gist of the verdict is that they had no such intention, but they sold them with one description to the shareholders and another to the directors. It is as if a man paid a bill with a bank-note without stating his own doubts as to the bank's solvency. People do that kind of thing every day, but it is not conduct which deserves volleys of riving cheers.
