y is to protect, collect, realize and distribute the
company's assets in due course of administration; and for this purpose
he advertises for creditors, makes calls on contributories, sues
debtors, takes misfeasance proceedings, if necessary, against directors
or promoters, and carries on the company's business--supposing the
goodwill to be an asset of value--with a view to selling it as a going
concern. He may be assisted, like a trustee in bankruptcy, by a
committee of inspection, composed of creditors and contributories.

When the affairs of the company have been completely wound up the court
is, by s. 111 of the Companies Act 1862 (s. 127 of the act of 1908), to
make an order that the company be dissolved from the date of such order,
and the company is dissolved accordingly. A company which has been
dissolved may, where necessary, on petition to the court be reinstated
on the register (Companies Act 1880, s. 1).

Reconstruction.

A large number of companies now wind up only to reconstruct. The reasons
for a reconstruction are generally either to raise fresh capital, or to
get rid of onerous preference shares, or to enlarge the scope of the
company's objects, which is otherwise impracticable owing to the
unalterability of the Memorandum of Association. Reconstructions are
carried out in one of three ways: (1) by sale and transfer of the
company's undertaking and assets to a new company, under a power to sell
contained in the company's memorandum of association, or (2) by sale and
transfer under s. 161 of the Companies Act 1862; or (3) by a scheme of
arrangement, sanctioned by the court, under the Joint Stock Companies
Arrangements Act 1870, as amended by the Companies Act 1907, s. 38 (C.A.
1908, s. 192).

The first of these modes is now the most in favour.

Wrongs by a company.

A company, though a mere legal abstraction, without mind or will, may,
it is now well settled, be liable in damages for malicious prosecution,
for nuisance, for fraud, for negligence, for trespass. The sense of the
thing is that the "company" is a _nomen collectivum_ for the members. It
is they who have put the directors there to carry on their business and
they must be answerable, collectively, for what is done negligently,
fraudulently or maliciously by their agents.

_2. Public Companies._

Besides trading companies there is another large class, exceeding in
their number even trading companies, which for shortness may be