ving reckless credit, and who
encouraged dangerous speculations, are paid cent. per cent. It is the
fear of such a consummation as this that generally makes the
well-intending friend abstain from ultimately committing himself with
those with whom he would have fain co-operated.

It is quite right that trading companies should not trade on false
resources, and be able to laugh at their creditors by placing out of
the reach of the law the funds with which they have speculated. Yet
this can be done under the present system; and there is a class of men
in the commercial world, banded together by peculiar ties and
interests, who are said to accomplish it on a large and comprehensive
scale. It is thus carried out: A penniless man starts in business,
supplied with abundant capital by his friends: they may demand 6, 7,
or 10 per cent. for the use of it; and if they manage, which they may,
to avoid the residue of the law of usury, they are safe from the law
of partnership. The new man, by his prompt payments and abundant
command of capital, works himself into good credit. It is an
understanding, that when he has been thus set afloat, the money
advanced by his friends is to be gradually repaid. He is then left to
swim or sink. If the former be his fate, it is well for all parties;
if the latter, his friends will not be the sufferers: their capital is
preserved, and they can play the same game over again, in some other
place, with the hope of an equally happy result.

The same modifications of the law which would free partnership of its
terrors would be only naturally accompanied with safeguards to protect
the public against such schemes as these. In France, America, and many
other countries, there is a system of partnership, with limited
responsibility, known by the name of 'Partnership in _Commandite_.'
Even with us, limited responsibility is by no means unknown. It is,
however, granted capriciously and unsystematically, without those
checks and regulations which, if there were a general system, would be
adopted to make it safe and effective. 'I wish,' said Mr Duncan, a
solicitor, when examined before the Select Committee on the Law of
Partnership, 'to draw the attention of the committee first to this
simple fact--that all the railway, gas, and water and dock companies,
and all the telegraph companies, as a matter of course, have limited
liability. It is impossible to trace why they have got it, but they
have got it as a habit