ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 411, 19 January 1850, Page 185

ENGLISH EXTRACTS.

Mr. Hudson's Misappropriations. — In our postscript last week we could only briefly n6tice one or two items in the report of the committee of investigation of the York, Newcastle, atad Berwick railway; we now present a summary of the whore of the leading facts. Ihe first circumstances detailed by the committee are, that Mr Hudson, being authorised by the company to subscribe for 3,000 shares of the Sunderland Dock, took also into his name a further quantity of 2,345 shares, the calls upon which he paid, without the slightest authority, out of the funds of the company, such payments being kept from the knowledge of the shareholders ; that Mr Hudson now states be made the purchase of these additionol shares on behalf of the company, and the committee are of opinion, from the mode in which the transaction Was conducted, as well as from the fact that no minute of the purchase was entered until two years afterwards, when the appointment of a committee of investigation was known to be m contemplation, that this statement cannot be received. The committee, therefore, although they regret the individual consequences that must follow, recommend steps to be taken to recover from Mr. Hudson the amount thus misappropriated. The next case is, that the creation of 42,000 shares having been authorised for the Newcastle and Berwick line, the issue was increased to 56,000, such issue being concealed from the shareholders by delaying the completion of the register and other means, which " call for the strongest reprobation ;" that this proceeding was carried to an extent, and involved an amount of profit, which " the committee hope and believe to be without a parallel in the history of public companies ;" that it was done entirely by Mr. Hudson and the secretary, unknown to the other directors, and without minute or entry of any description ; that the number of these shares taken by Mr. Hudson was 9,956 i, and that the profit realised by him on these secret operations must have amounted to £145,704, if the sales were effected at market prices. The committee further state that Mr. Hudson, having been called upon, had, in their opinion, wholly failed in offering any justification, and they recommend that he be compelled by legal measures to make full restitution without delay. On the third point of inquiry— namely, the York and Newcastle extension shares— the facts announced are, that Mr Hudson took 590 shares of this issue, to which he had no right, the aggregate premium on which amounted to £4,000, for which also the committee recommend he should be required to account. They further report, that although Mr. Hudson paid neither deposit nor calls upon 200 of the shares from the date of their issue, in February, 1847, until the present investigation, the parties to whom he sold them have been receiving dividends upon them out of the funds of the company as regularly as if all calls had been duly met ; and it is likewise observed that while Mr. Hudson was making these sales for bis own benefit, 9.682 unappropriated shares were held by the company, which might have yielded a profit of £100,000, but that no such sales have ever been made for the benefit of the shareholders. The fourth case detailed comprises the fact of 2,000 shares of the Brandling Junction Railway being voted to Mr. Hudson by his brother directors at a time when they were at £21, premuim, being equivalent to a bonus of £42,000. The fifth case is a transaction in iron. On tbe|llth of January, 1845, Mr. Hudson concluded a contract for 10,000 tons of iron rails at £6 10s. per ton, and within three weeks he advertised for 20,000 tons as chairman of the Newcastle and Berwick line. Of this quantity, 7,000 tons were supplied to the company at £12, per ton out of the 10,000 he had just purchased on his own account. The profit on this, the committee remark, " would amount to £38,506, and Mr, Hudson must have known he was acting illegally." The sixth and last statement is that Mr. Hudson, in 1845, took from the funds of the Newcastle and Berwick line £31,000 which he entered as a payment for " land," but wheih he applied to his own purposes, none of ths checks by which he obtained this amount having been handed to the parties in whose favour they purported to be drawn. Since the appointment of the committee of investigation, however, Mr. Hudson has refunded £26,000, "with interest for above three years, during which be had improperly held the money." Finally, Mr. Hudson, in 1847, drew out £40,000, which was charged under the head of " works," but which he paid to his own private credit, at his banker's. This sum also, with £2,479, for interest, he refunded nine weeks back. It only remains to be added, that, like the former one, the report thus presented by the committee is merely an instalment of what they will have to submit to the shareholders as the result of their investigation, the duty being too extensive and complicated to allow them as yet to announce its definitive completion. At a special meeting of the York, Newcastle, and Berwick Railway Company, held at York on [Thursday, it was resolved, after a prolonged discussion, to institute legal proceedings against Mr. Hudson.— Examiner, July 21. The friends of the late Mr. Charles Boiler have obtained, with Dr. Buckland's permission, the site for a monument in Westminster Abbey, between the tombs of Homer and Warren Hastings; — the monument, consisting of a tablet and bust, is nearly finished. Alleged Effects op Electricity on the Qholera.— The following is the letter of M. Audrand to the President of the Academy of Paris, respecting his experiments on the decline of electricity in the atmosphere as leading to the increase of epidemic diseases, especially cholera, and which at this time excites so much attention :—" Paris. June 10. M. ths Presi-

dent—Since the cholera has been raging in Paris with more or lees intensity for three months, I have made daily observations of the action of the electric machine in order to ascertain if there is not a certain relation between the intensity of the scourge and the absence of the electric fluid, habitually spread in the atmosphere. The machine I have used for my daily observations is rather powerful; in ordinary weather it gives, after two or three turni of the Wheel, brilliant sparks of five to sit cen* timetres. I have remarked that since the in* vasion of the epidemic, I have not been able to produce on any one occasion the same effect ; during the months of April and May the sparks obtained with great trouble, have never exceeded two or three centimetres, and their variations accorded very nearly with the variations of the cholera, this was for me a strong presumption that I was on the traces of the important fact that I was endeavouring to find. Nevertheless, I was not yet convinced, because one might attribute the effect to the moisture of the air, or to the irregularities of the electric machine. Thus I waited with impatience the arrival of fine weather and heat, to continue my observations with more certainty. At last fine weathercame, and, to ray astonishment, the machine, frequently consulted, far from showing, as it ought to have done, an augmentation of electricity, has given signs less and less sensible, to such a degree that during the days of the 4th, Sth, and 6th of June, it was impossible to obtain anything but slight cracklings, without sparks. On the 7th, the machine remained quite dumb. The new decrease of the electric fluid has perfectly accorded, as is only too well known, with the renewed,violence of the cholera; for my part I was not more alarmed than astonished ; my conviction was complete. I saw only the consequence of the fact already supposed. It may be imagined with what anxiety in these moments of the crisis I consulted the machine, the sad and faithful interpreter of a great calamity. At last, on the morning of the Bth, some feeble sparks reappeared, and from hour to hour their intensity increased. I felt with joy that the vivifying fluid was returning in the atmosphere. Towards evening a storm announced at Paris that the electricity had reentered its domain— to my eyes it was the cholera which disappeared with, the cause which produced it. The next day, Saturday, the 9th, I continued my observations, the machine at the least touch rendered with facility some lively sparks. I have thought it my duty, M. President, to give immediate information of these facts to the academy. The question to me Beems now perfectly demonstrated, that nature has provided in the atmosphere a mass of electricity which contributes to the support and maintenance of life. If by "some cause this mass of electricity decreases, or at any time becomes impoverished nearly to exhaustion, what happens ? Everybody suffers ; those who carry within themselves a sufficient stock of personal electricity resist, those who can only live by borrowing electricity from the common mass, this mass being exhausted, perish. This explains clearly, and in a rational way, that not only cholera, but perhaps also all epidemics which from time to time afflict humanity, are caused by the decrease of electricity. If this great fact was recognised and admitted in principle, it would be, I believe, easy for medical science, which possesses many means of producing and maintaining electricity, to prepare itself to combat with success, if it should again return, the scourge that now seems to be arrested in its march. Receive the assurances, M. le President, &c, Audrand." Terrible Ravages of the Cholera in the United States. — Philadelphia, July 8. — The mortality produced by the cholera in many of the large cities of the United States, and the widely spreading prevalence and increase of the fatal pestilence, exclude almost every other subject from the public mind. In the west it is desolating beyond belief. Contemplate the condition of St. Louis, with more than 500 deaths last week, and full 700 the week before— nearly . all from cholera. At Cincinnati the deaths range from .100 to 150 per day, chiefly amongst the German and Irish immigrants. At Louisville, there were 17 cases in two small houses (Irish), and 15 deaths 1 The steamboats on the western rivers arrive at the different ports, partly freighted with the dying and the dead. The track towards California from Independence, Missouri, across the prairies, is no longer marked alone by the footprints of men and horses, and the ruts of wheels ; but a letter-writer graphically says — " It is dotted and lined on either side with newly made graves." In the {Atlantic cities, and on the sea- board, the pestilence is not so fatal, although the mortality is great. In New York the deaths range from 20 to 40 daily ; in Philadelphia from 10 to 25. In both cities, at the suggestion of their Boards of Health, public celebrations, both civic and military, have been postponed, or abandoned altogether, from a well founded apprehension that any great public excitement must tend to augment the disease. The ship Guy Mannering, which arrived at New York, from Liverpool, 779 passengers, had 35 deaths by cholera on her passage, and landed several sick passengers at the quarantine. New Orleans still suffers under the scourge, and on several plantations'in Louisiana there.have been from 40 to 80 deaths among the negroes, within brief periods of a few days only. Indeed, most of them die almost suddenly, and without premonitory symptoms. Prayers are publicly offered op in all the churches ; cholera hospitals are located in different districts of the large cities; and much excitement, anxiety, and alarm prevail— especially as the calamitous visitation may be expected to continue, with greater or less intensity, during th« entire hot season,— -New* of the World.