226 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[February, 1, 1912. 



was back on the 10th. of the month with, liowever, a slight 

 decrease in the shoe and gaiter tickets. 



* » * 



The prevailing dullness of the trade caused the Alice Mill, in 

 Woonsocket, and the Millville Mill, in Millville. Massachusetts, 

 both controlled by the Woonsocket Rubber Co., to go on a five- 

 day-a-week schedule the week of January 8. The change affected 

 1,400 hands in the former and 600 in the latter. Officials of the 

 Woonsocket concern announced at the beginning of the curtail- 

 ment that they believed the period of the same would be of 

 short duration. The curtailment continued until January 19, 

 when both mills closed temporarily, the date for reopening being 

 set for February 12. 



* * * 



The Consumers' Rubber Co., Bristol, which etnploys 350 

 persons, is now in the hands of a permanent receiver as a result 

 of court proceedings which Terence McCarty, manager and 

 principal stockholder in the concern, started December 27, last, as 

 a result of lack of ready funds with which to carry on the 

 business. 



Mr. McCarty petitioned the Superior Court in Providence 

 for the appointment of the receiver, fearing attachments which 

 would ruin the business. This was followed by the placing of 

 an attachment on Mr. McCarty 's real estate, located in Bristol, 

 by Tobias Burke, of Providence, a creditor of the company. 

 The amount named in the writ was $7,500. The following day 

 Presiding Justice Tanner ordered the company to close its plant, 

 pending a hearing on January 3. At that hearing George H. 

 Kelley, of Providence, who had lieen acting as temporary receiver 

 under a bond fixed at $20,000, was replaced by Robert S. Emer- 

 son, of Pawtucket, as permanent receiver. Lawyers represent- 

 ing creditors in Boston and New York as well as Providence 

 consented to this arrangement. 



The plant was closed for several days while Mr. Emerson was 

 taking account of stock and preparing a report upon which plans 

 for conducting or closing the business could be based. On Jan- 

 uary 8 he secured permission from the court to open the plant 

 for the purpose of finishing the stock on hand. This took three 

 days. 



The report filed by Mr. Emerson on January 10 showed the 

 following assets : Real estate, as carried on the books of the 

 company, $50,000; machinery, $65,000; inventory of merchan- 

 dise, as taken by the receiver, $71,709.67; crude rubber, as 

 pledged to and in the possession of the American Electrical 

 Works, $12,862; crude rubber, held by the Blackstone Canal 

 Bank under an agreement, $34,000; an equity in book account, 

 assigned to the Mercantile Advance Company, $14,843.18; 25,000 

 yards of duck at the Enterprise Dye Works, Woonsocket, 

 $4,687.50; accounts receivable, $1,115.29; accounts payable, show- 

 ing a debit balance, $82.34; cash on hand, $112.59. 



Under the head of liabilities the receiver included a mortgage 

 on real estate for $19,000; promissory notes, for wliich some 

 form of security was held by payee, $60,000; notes payable for 

 merchandise, $103,089.50; unsecured notes payable for cash 

 loan, $69,336.58; accounts payable, $106,689.72; accounts receiv- 

 able, showing credit balances, $63.60. Total, $358,679.40. 

 As he placed the total assets at $254,412.57. there was left a 

 deficit of $104,266.83. While preparing the report Mr. Emerson 

 sold $2,500 worth of merchandise for cash and shipped $5,000 

 'worth more. 



This report was so satisfactory to the creditors and Court that 

 Mr. Emerson was given authority to reopen the plant. He did 

 so on January 15. For a start, 50 cases of gum shoes and 100 

 cases of tennis shoes were turned out daily. The output is to be 

 increased gradually as business develops. 



* * * 



It is estimated that 15,000 persons attended the opening night 

 of the first automobile show of the Rhode Island Licensed Auto- 



mobile Dealers' Association at the State Armory, Providence, 

 January 22. The show continued until January 27. The armory 

 has a floor space as great as Madison Square Garden, New York. 

 The decorative scheme was the most elaborate ever seen in this 

 city. Nine thousand square yards of blue cloth studded with 

 incandescent liglits were suspended on the steel girders 90 ft. 

 high, and 1,900 lineal feet of lattice work with several carloads 

 of smila.\ were used. The display included 51 makes of pleasure 

 cars, 12 of commercial trucks and a host of accessory dealers 

 and tire manufacturers. Various kinds of anti-skid tires at- 

 tracted crowds while demonstrators explained their features. 



* * * 



Colonel Samuel P. Colt ended a two-year figlit with Cyrus P. 

 Brown, president, and several directors of the Industrial Trust 

 Company, Rhode Island's leading banking institution, at the 

 annual meeting of the organization, held January 16, by ousting 

 him and electing his own candidate for the position, H. Martin 

 Brown. He also defeated all his opponents who were seeking 

 re-election to the Board of Directors, and succeeded in having 

 himself made a member of the executive committee along with 

 several friends. 



At a meeting tlie following day, H. Martin Brown was chosen 

 president and Colonel Colt, Charles C. Harrington, James M. 

 Scott, Eben N. Littlefield, Ezra Dixon and Samuel M. Nicholson 

 were made members of the Executive Committee. 



This ends a struggle which began when Colonel Colt resigned 

 the presidency in 1908 during a protracted illness. He is now in 

 undisputed control of the banking institution which he founded 

 nearly a quarter of a century ago. It has several branches in 



various parts of Rhode Island and controls a large capital. 



* * * 



Colonel Samuel P. Colt is one of the principal contributors 

 to a one milhon dollar endowment fund which is being raised in 

 tliis city by Brown University. He boosted the total by $25,000 

 on the morning of January 23. 



* * * 



The American Wringer Company at Woonsocket has pur- 

 chased 110,000 square feet of land in the center of that city, 

 known as Clinton Oval, for the purpose of providing storage 

 space and room for an addition to the plant at a future date. It 

 is understood that the officials of the concern are in favor of 

 centralizing the business at Woonsocket, and that they intend to 

 close their plant at Auburn, New York, within a year or two. 



* * * 



Considerable interest was aroused among officials and em- 

 ployes of rubber plants in Rhode Island recently by the an- 

 nouncement that the United States Rubber Company had in 

 contemplation a system of profit-sharing similar to that in opera- 

 tion among the employes of the United States Steel Corpora- 

 tion. Several years ago the United States Rubber Company 

 drew up a plan allowing employes subscription rights to the 

 cotnmon and preferred stocks. It is expected that the new 

 profit-sharing plan will be approved and made public at the 

 directors' meeting in February. 



* * * 



A basketball team made up of employes of the Consumers' 

 Rubber Company is providing tlie inhabitants of Bristol, Rhode 

 Island, with lively entertainment these days. 



* * * 



It was announced at the plant of the National India Rubber 

 Co., Bristol, Rhode Island, January 24, that the druggists' sun- 

 dries, hose and mechanical fabric departments of the plant are 

 to be closed and moved to Cleveland, Ohio. About 600 employes 

 are effected. 



The plant at Bristol is to be used in the future exclusively 

 for the manufacture of rubber shoes and insulated wire. 



Information as to the change came as a surprise to the em- 

 ployes of the company. The work on hand will be run out and 



