AN UNFORTUNATE ENTERPRISE 293 



rate qualities, their best having gone to the 

 ordinary commission agents or dealers. West- 

 end patrons found, therefore, that not only was 

 it inconvenient to go to Long Acre for their 

 supplies, but they could not depend sufficiently 

 on them if they did. 



Hence the patronage of the central depot fell 

 off, and there came a time when the losses on 

 a business which, as the result proved, had been 

 started both in the wrong place and on too 

 large a scale, amounted to £250 a week. Nor 

 was any greater degree of success gained from 

 the wholesale department in Covent Garden 

 market. In June, 1899, the central depot was 

 removed from Long Acre to Lower Seymour 

 Street, Portman Square, so as to be nearer to 

 West-end patrons : but fifteen months later the 

 original association was wound up, and a new 

 one, with a modest capital of £6,000, in £1 

 shares (17*. 6rf. paid up), held by some half- 

 dozen persons, took over the Lower Seymour 

 Street concern, lint the new association works 

 on different lines from those of the old. It 

 receives nothing but eggs direct from the 

 fanners. The idea of operating with a com- 

 bination of farmers in the country lor general 

 supplies was abandoned, not so much, perhaps, 

 on account of difficulties such as those stated 



