IRRESPONSIBILITY
The spectacle of a $100,000,000 “trust” unable to get hay for its horses on credit was seen recently in Sault Ste. Marie, where the Consolidated Lake Superior Company went into liquidation. The liquidation resulted from the failure of the directors of this big concern to raise $5,000,000 to pay a loan from the Speyer syndicate.
Here is a corporation which was paying seven per cent dividends, and which began two or three years ago with a capital of $102,000,000, so destitute of liquid assets or working capital that it can not pay a loan of $5,000,000, for which its very existence was pawned. Nothing appears to be left.
Lake Superior Consolidated, like all the other trusts, was organized under the Connecticut corporation act, which, like that of West Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware, and other States, was expressly drawn to relieve all concerned of responsibility. No one was responsible for anything in the prospectus. No one could be held, in the promotion or direction, for any statements, promises, or representations. The sidewalk vender is more responsible for the razors and remedies that he sells in the flare of his gasoline lamp than the promoters or directors of an American trust to which millions of dollars flow.—New York American.
(1680)
IRRETRIEVABLE, THE
The people of Florence sent their great poet, Dante, into exile. He went into Ravenna, there died, and there was buried. After his death, Florence recognized how great this exiled son of hers had been, and begged his body from Ravenna, and could not get it. Ravenna would not part with it. Florence might have had it had she asked Dante to come back.
(1681)
Irreverent Laughter—See [Laughter, Perils of].
IRRIGATION