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THE PULLINGETt FRAUDS. h become
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418 The Leader mid Saturday Analyst . ^ [ May 5 , 1860 .
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power wiU only be available toward ? curates , who are already too much under episcopal control / 1 ' ¦ . •' , " . .,. mn .. Now , as matters stand at present , every incumbent is his own master in Ins own parish . His duties are to a certain extent defined , but there is a large margin , in which he is left to his own discretion . The canon law binds him , in some respects , to a course of conduct at variance with the feeling of the nation , and he holds himself therefore excused from attending to this latter . He may refuse to bury one , and to many another . He may refuse the sacrament of the Eucharist to persons whose fitness for its reception obsolete
he doubts . He may adhere to a multitude of regulations , and offend his parishioners every day of his life , under colour ot keeping his ordination vows , and showing himself a good and pious son of the Church—and there is no knowing what direction piety inay take in some oddly-constituted minds . Stanley Fabeb tells us of an ecclesiastical dispute / hot altogether unlike those which weekly take place at St . George ' s-in-the-East , in which an energetic member of the orthodox party " piously poked out the eye ot Stephen , Archbishop of Grau , with a stick . " We confess that to such exhibitions we entertain a very decided objection . It would matter little to sensible laymen what kind of robes the clergy ot Darishes thoueht fit to wear—green and gold , red and yellow , copes , mediaeval ± tome
albs , dalmaticas , stoles , and all the wardrobe ot might be adopted ; and , if this were all , it might all be done without offence : but , when we know that these mummeries are inconsistent with sound common sense—that if a man show himself to be a fool in small matters , he is very likely to be one in affairs of greater consequence , and that the man whose mountebank tricks and harlequin dress offend and disgust us every Sunday is in many respects the most important person in the parish , that he has the especial duty of instructing the ignorant , and training the children of the poor , — then things , in themselves of little moment , assume a grave character . At all events , * the entire destruction of that devotional feeling which ought to characterize the attendants on public worship is not a light evil ; and this , no one can doubt , is the consequence of such absurdities as those which are witnessed , week after week , at -St . George ' s . But a still graver importance attaches to these practices decidedltbad of party
when we know | that they are so y he ges a as to indicate , in almost every possible direction , tUe . opinions of those "" who adopt them . A man wears an embroidered robe of many oolours- ^ -he fancies that the rubrics bear him out in so-doing ; he is therefore opposed to a revision of the Liturgy ; he adheres as far as possible to the ~ canoir law , because he imagines that all hir practices are in accordance with its provisions ; he ^ tlierefore opposes any--alteration in the present most iniquitous arrangements about marr iage . He knows that if the Voluntary system could only prevail for one hour , he and his abettors would be deprived of all power of troubling the Church ' s peace ; therefore he stands up for Church rates and all similar imposts , and he vehemently resists the shghtgst introduction of the lay element into Church polity . He believes that his party have , and will continue to have , the distribution of the loaves and fishes ; he therefore has no desire to see hvmg 3 ftniiftlisfid . or the Doorer clererv elevated as a class . He would take
—^ nen- ^ f ^^ flOund-Ghurch-viewa- ^^^ ut-of-the ^ mire ^—but ^ e-JViiuldwish the mire to remain for the others to stick in . Holding what are called " sacramental opinions , " he does not recognise dissent as Christianity , and therefore has nothing to do with those societies ( such as the Bible Society ) in which the co-operation of Nonconformists - is allowed . He opposes the Church Missionary ^ Society and the Pastoral-Aid Society , or at least withholds from them all aid , on the ground that the one is not in safe hands , and that the other has a large mixture of the laity in its composition . The character thus described is consistent enough , foolish , we grant , and unchristian , but unhappily by no means rare ; and his mode of
celebrating divine service may be , and is , taken as an index ot the man's opinions on all other points of doctrine and discipline . It results from this , not very logically perhaps , that in the popular mind all who agree with him on any one of the multifarious subjects in dispnte are supposed to agree with him in them all . Ho encourages the notion himself as far as he can , and would have the world believe , that the ten thousand clergymen who have signed the document lately addressed to Lord Ebuby , and deprecating any change in the Liturgy , are with him in all his ways of thinking and acting . It would be a bad thing for the Church of England if there were ten thousand of her ministers like Mr . Bbyan King . But it is what a large number of the laity do believe ; and unless the ten thousand can beat a retreat as skilful as was that of Xenophon , the notion will increase in strength , and spread widely . It can hardlv fail to tell with deadly force upon the Church rate
questions and that once settled adversely to the Church , it requires no'prophet to see that tithes will bo the next object of attack ; and to alienate the affections of the Inity at such a juncture is a most suicidal proceeding . Little do the ton thousand think of the mischief they have done , and a very small portion of which is now . in their power to undo— -little do they know how the laity in gcnovjil read their document , and what has already been its effect m the House of Commons . , ' « , ' < tw i v t ' « . . -We shall be told that ages ago the Chuych Establishment was threatened . with sweeping reform , arid that in the reign of Henby IV . the axe was about to > be laid to the root of the tree that threatened men here long , and that the Church is certainly leas corrupt now than it was in the fifteenth century . We are willing to admit the last proposition , but not to the extent that its advancers require . The Church in her temporalities is extremely corrupt at the present time : and if Church rates are doomed , the thin end of the wedge is already inserted . We are not likely to see the full of tithes in a
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hurry . The present generation will pass away , and leave them behind * fe an existing institution . of the English ChnrcU ; but they are onl y safe for a comparatively -short time . It will take more agitation , - * longer period , and the aid of more powerful men to uproot them , than have been necessary to uproot Church rates , because the interests involved are greater ; the . laity are largely concerned , and the whole hierarchy will hold up their hands to preserve their property . But when we recollect how short a time has elapsed since Thobogood of Braintree was , in the late Mr . Babnes ' s admirable language , " a feather-bed-martyr , a parlour boarder in the school of tribulation , an inside passenger to glory , we shall , oh considering the present position of the Church rate question , be able to work out a similar problem with respect to tithes . _ __
... . Now , we wish our readers , and especially our clerical readers , not to mistake our object . We are not arguing in favour of abolishing either tithes or Church rates . We are merely looking with open eyes on the signs of the times ; and we put them on thenguard , not , in the present temper of "the public mind , to provoke the enmity of the people , not needlessly to confirm the idea that there are ten thousand medievalists—half Romanizers—among our clergy , and not to lose any means of conciliation which it may be in their power to adopt .
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" TOINT Stock Company" has well nigh become a cant term tor I a rogues' nest , and unless the morality of these institutions can be improved , honourable men will shrink from being directors , and the management of associated enterprises will fall entirely , as it has already done to a large exfcent , into the hands of speculative tricksters , who prefer an exciting career of plunder to one o f steady industry and slow accumulation . In some instances of defalcations , the directors have been the parties directly guilty of the offence , as in the case of those fraudulent banks and swindling assurance offices whose names have become feloniously familiar . In other instances the robberies have been committed by servants , such as Robson at the-Crystal Palace , Rekpath , at the Great Northern , and PTTLiiNGEE at the TJnioirBank ; but in ^ ll these cases the directors
have pursued a course of jconduct that naturally led to the calamitous result . In the CrysiSi Palace there was ! f ' recklessness both of calculation and assertion ; the affahveost three times as much as the shareholders ' were originally led to expect , and a system of profligate expenditure went ; on with scarcely an attemp * -a t check . The wonder was , not that a single official was detected in plundering , -but that the malversation ^ did not reach a much l arger amount . The Great Northern rejoiced in si chairman who'displayed great activity in maintaining his position against a discontented proprietary but the " Board" could find no time for that accurate supervision of accounts that would have detected the transactions of Rebpath long before they reached the enormous amount of £ 240 , 000 . The directors were not in the habit of inquiring into the appropriation of the large sum set apart for the payment of divitnac
dends , and by this gross negligence they facilitated the robbery " took place . After the confidence of the public had been shaken by a remarkable series of joint stock company frauds , Mr . H . L . Mobgan , the accountant employed to investigate the Paxtl and Manini delinquencies , brought the question of directors' duties and responsibilities to a focus in an able pamphlet , in which he pointed out the causes of the catastrophes that had taken place , and indicated the means by which they might be easily avoided in future . Mr . Mobgan observed , that honourable men could only make their position as directors safe by " enforcing a method of book-keeping and preparation of statements so clear and complete , as to afford them from day to day and from week to week as accurate a knowledge of , all important facts as a merchant or banker is in the habit of obtaining in his own counting-house . " _ Mr . Moboan * added . " A > director should assume every thine : to be incorrect which
ho cannot fully understand ; he should hike care that tin audit is a reality and not a sham , and never suffer a single document to go forth to shareholders or to the public upon the authority of any accountant or auditor , however honest and able , unless it bo so arranged as to give to his . mind , without doubt or difficulty , every information to which his constituents or the public are entitled . " Nothing can be plainer or more reasonable than this advice ; and yet the Union Bank frauds show how impervious " Boards " are to anything like common sense . The particular frauds for which Pullingeb is now in custody could only have been committed within the five years during which he held the post of chief cashier , and they amount to a thousand , pounds a week for the whole time , and in the aggregate to
£ 263 , 070 . 8 » . lOd . Not once , while these gigantic robberies were being committed , could the directors or manager huvo adoptod a single rational precaution to know the state of their cash affairs and balance at the Rank . The story laid before the public is , that Pujllingbb deceived the ledger clerk and Board by producing a forged pass-book , and withheld the real book from them , while his tricks were going on * - If this be the case , it will appear that the Management habitually neglected those precautions which are universally adopted by private firms . When a merchant sends a clerk to his bankers ' , he not only ascertains that he takes the right sum with him , but that ho tukes the pass-book also , and on his return nothing is easier than to see from the entry that the right sum has been paid in . It is true the clerk might pocket the money and forge the entry : but his employer is accustomed to the look of the real
The Pullingett Frauds. H Become
THE PULLINGETt FRAUDS .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 5, 1860, page 418, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2346/page/6/
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