BEING A Practical Treatise ON THEIR FORMATION, MANAGEMENT AND WINDING-UP UNDER "THE COMPANIES ACT, 1862." COMPRISING INTRODUCTORY SKETCH AND STATISTICS; COPIOUS INSTRUCTIONS TO PROMOTERS, DIRECTORS, OFFICERS AND ALL PERSONS OFFICIALLY OR OTHERWISE CONNECTED WITH PUBLIC COMPANIES. CONTAINING ALSO A LIST OF THE BOOKS REQUIRED BY A PUBLIC COMPANY, AND HINTS AS TO FORMS AND MODE OF KEEPING SAME. TOGETHER WITH Abstracts of Table B from The Joint Stock Companies Act, 1856; of The Fraudulent BY R. SPEARMAN E. FARRIES. LONDON: PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE PROPRIETORS, FARRIES BROTHERS & Co., 18, BUCKLERSBURY, 1865. PREFACE. THE passing of "The Companies Act, 1862," effected many important changes in the then existing law, and greatly increased the facilities for promoting Joint Stock Companies, with or without limited liability. Indeed, it may almost be said to have introduced free trade into that useful branch of commerce, judging from the comparatively few restrictions which are now placed upon public associations. And if the utility of any measure may be estimated by its success, the number of companies to which this Act alone has given birth, would warrant us in claiming for it a very prominent place in the Statute Book of Great Britain. It is not at all improbable that we shall, ere long, ignore private enterprise altogether, and have every want supplied, under the immediate auspices of a "body corporate," with limited liability. At the present time we have our breakfast-tables supplied by an aërated bread company-we hurriedly glance over the morning papers and find them monopolising the lion's share of the advertising columns-we rush out of the house and in a moment are ensconced in a company's omnibus— we dabble all day and transact a great part of our business with the aid of directors and common sealswe dine at a limited company's hotel, and are again landed at our homes under their mighty protection. In short, every business-man is either directly or indirectly influenced by this great monomania, and whether it be in the capacity of a promoter, director, officer, shareholder, or creditor, it is well that he should know some |