A very remarkable debate was raised on Thursday night by
Mr. H. B. Sheridan, and continued on Friday by Sir J. D. Hay. Mr. Gladstone, in his speech on his Annuities Bill, had somewhat imprudently selected from among many insurance offices one
or two examples of bad or fraudulent management. One of the latter was the British Provident Association, of which he said, that in the eleven years of its existence it had only regis- tered its accounts for three, that its expenses had been fifty per cent. above its receipts, and that a trial had taken place which was virtually a trial of its manager on a charge of making an interlineation in the bonds for his pecuniary discharge. Called on for explanations, he on Thursday night reiterated the charges, and proved from official records all but the last ; upon which the case stands thus. The Vice-Chancellor's head clerk, who puts the evidence into shape, decided that the interlineation had been effected before the bonds were signed; but a jury found that it had been done after, and the Vice-Chancellor concurred: It had, however, not been effected by the hand of the manager, Mr. John Sheridan. His brother's argument was, of course, that this particular society had been selected for censure in order to abuse and annoy him, who had only once been auditor of the "Provident," but who had brought forward an inconvenient motion for the reduction of the Fire Insurance duty. So far as we can perceive, the imputation is unwarranted, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, though most imprudent in denouncing any societies by name,—for the words of a Minister have in such cases the public force of a judicial sentence without being always preceded by a judicial inquiry—was fully warranted in selecting as his example the one in which all the facts quoted were on judicial record, and which a member of the House was present to explain.
