47 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



assumed, as a matter which did not admit of dispute, that 

 they would be able to draw a very large income from the 

 grounds, and that they were accordingly justified in sinking 

 large quantities of capital. It will be seen from one of my 

 previous reports that preliminary and Parliamentary ex- 

 penses cost the Company ,12,600 ; leasehold and freehold 

 property ; 10,300 ; the works which it was compelled to 

 undertake, and which are either decayed or abandoned, 

 ^20,800. The Company therefore spent ^43,700, nearly 

 half its capital, before it attempted to earn a shilling. It 

 will be seen from another of my reports that in the first five 

 years of its existence its expenditure on labour, and the 

 purchase of oysters, exceeded by more than ,28,000 the 

 whole of its sales ; without reckoning its other and neces- 

 sary expenditure, the Company had in these ways sunk 

 nearly three-fourths of its capital. It had already ex- 

 hausted its resources, and its profits did hot come. It had 

 no alternative but to retrench, and retrenchment, as it 

 involved imperfect cultivation of the ground, naturally 

 exposed it to attack. As its embarrassments became 

 more pressing, its retrenchments became more marked, 

 till at last, after 1877, it maintained a precarious existence 

 by selling the stock from its stock beds, and disposing of 

 the little brood which it collected over the ground.* 



Mr. Bennett, the Company's counsel, practically ad- 



* It may be worth while stating at this point what the embarrass- 

 ments of the Company were. In June, 1879, it had called up its whole 

 capital of ^100,000, and it had borrowed on debentures and otherwise 

 ^"800, and it owed about ^1,100 to sundry creditors. Its assets were 

 land and leaseholds (at cost), ^10,100 ; plant, ,2,100 ; stock of oysters, 

 ,2,200 ; debts due to it and cash in hand, ^150. Its real property is 

 now sold. The present value of its plant and stock may probably be 

 inferred from any careful perusal of this Report. 



