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The statement, it will be seen, is in every respect a surprisingly probable one. The revelations made at the meeting of the oreditors of Ketchum, Son & Co., on Friday last, were not calculated to restore public confidence in private banking houses, and private banking, not only in this country but elsewhere, may be sa'd to have sustained a blow in their failure from which it will not soon recover. The failure of the London banking house of which Sir John Dean Paul was the leading member, about eight years ago, and the subsequent conviction of the latter for breach of trust, in misappropriating securities lodged with the bank by one of its depositors, did as much to undermine confidence in private banks as the forgeries of Fauntleroy many years before, and for which, like the notorious clergyman and forger, Dr. Dodd, he suffered the penalty of death. The bank of Sir John Dean Paul, Strahan & Co., in the Strand, London, was one of the oldest in England, and its failure and the embezzlement involved was something more than a nine days' wonder. More recently another very old and prominent private banking house in Manchester went overboard, although not under such discreditable circumstances. These and other similar failures have done much towards giving an impetus to the extension of the joint stock bank system in Great Britain, and within a few years the progress it has made is unprecedented in the history of banking. The joint stock banks have the merit of publishing a statement of their assets and liabilities at stated periods, and the depositors have the security of hundreds of persons, where they have the security of only one under the private banking system. The business under the latter system is steadi y decreasing, while the other is as steadily improving, and although corrupt management has transpired under the joint stock system-as witness the Royal British Bank of London and the Leeds Bank explosions-they have been on the whole rare. So much has the business of the joint stock banks increased latterly that the I abilities of ten of the most prominent of their number in London amounted at the close of the half-year ending June 30 last to £85,025,985, and their assets to £99,904,912, and all those institutions paid dividends ranging from thirty per cent per annum to five, the average being about &wenty. According to the letters read at the meeting of the creditors of Ketchum, Son & Co., referred to, it appears that so long since as the 1st of June last Mr. Swan, one of the junior partners, was aware of the abstraction of securities belonging to the firm by Edward B. Ketchum for purposes of private speculation on his part. Mr. Thomas Belknap, Jr., another of the partners, in a letter dated August 28, said, "In looking over the loans and securities about the 1st of June. Mr. Swan found that there was missing some $430,000 United States seven and three-tenths per cent notes, $350,000 United States legal tender five per cent motesand $195,000 five-twenty United States bonds. * * . Upon being taxed by Mr. Swan with the abstraction Edward admitted it, and that he was speculating on his own account; but asserted that the securities were within his control if a little time was afforded him.' He then goes on to say that "Mr. Swan informed me of the case at once;" and further, that "Mr. Swan and myself were both of the opinion that by holding over him the threat of exposure he would be induced to retire from speculations and make good his abstractions;" and so, the continues, "we permitted the matter to run along;" but apparently without informing the senior member of the firm of the condition of affairs; for Mr. Morris Ketchum, in his letter to the creditors of the firm, dated August 31, says:Till the morning of the day after he absconded I never had the elightest doubt of my son's integrity; I never supposed him capable of doing wrong to any one, and deast of all to me; even now his conduct is inexplicable, and I cannot believe he was in his right mind when he 80 cruelly wronged you and me. Since the failure of the firm the two following letters have been put into my hands; they explain themselves. The wri ers could mever have supposed that the amount taken was beyond the ability of the house to replace, and the secrecy, therefore, was the dictate equally of good sense and kindness. I do not blame them, for they acted according to their best judgment, and under trying circumstances. They have filled prominent positions in my house for many years, having, deservedly, my entire confidence, unimpaired by the decision they came to in their efforts to regain the securities abstracted. The policy of the two junior members of the firm in keeping secret from its senior member facts of such grave importance to the house and its creditors as were here involved is open to serious criticism, and the subsequent unqualified approval of their course by Mr. Morris Ketchum sounds strangely enough, coming from a banker or this experience and position. It is more than probable that on the 1st of June last Edward B. Kotohum had misappropriated only a small portion of the $2,600,000 which he is now known to have abstracted, and the forgeries of gold checks were of a more recent date. The inference therefore is that had the defaulting member of the firm been brought promptly to an account as
