might become to
our country, and, in opposing the extension of the bank's charter, said:

"The power to charter companies is one of the most exalted
attributes of sovereignty. In the exercise of this gigantic
power we have seen an East India Company created, which is
in itself a sovereignty, which has subverted empires and set
up new dynasties, and has not only made war, but war against
its legitimate sovereign! Under the influence of this power
we have seen rise a South Sea Company, and a Mississippi
Company, that distracted and convulsed all Europe, and
menaced a total overthrow of all credit and confidence, and
universal bankruptcy."

Can we afford to ignore the lessons of history?

Mr. Henry Clews makes some spicy and pertinent observations on railroad
men's methods in an article which recently appeared in the _Railway
Age_. Mr. Clews seems to have but little confidence in the average
railroad director. He advises stockholders to exercise constant
vigilance and defensive conservatism, "lest they become the instruments
by which unscrupulous and crafty directors work out schemes that are in
reality nothing but frauds or robbery." And then he adds:

"In estimating corporate acts we must never forget that,
while the best of men will bear watching as to their
individual dealings with others, they need to be doubly
watched when they sit around a corporation board and vote as
to transactions in respect of which none of them can be
called to personal account. Temptations attack with enormous
force when the gains are prospectively great and the risk of
penalty inappreciable or non-existent."

Mr. Clews also tells us how roads are wrecked by their boards of
directors. "In one case," he says, "the stock of a leading railway,
which in 1880 sold at 174, in 1884 sold at 22-1/2, and in 1885 at 22.
This vast shrinkage of value was not owing to panic or to stringency of
money, nor did it arise from a diminution of traffic on the original
line; but it was because consolidation had been pushed to an extreme by
the directors of the corporation, so much so that the entire system
yielded no dividends; a fleet and useful animal had been loaded down
with dead wood and rubbish till he could scarcely crawl; barren acres
had been added to an originally fruitful farm until the whole estate
could hardly pay taxes; a mass of rotten