They still derived an immense income from it.

Yet in six years they lost all their own wealth, sold the business to the company, and then lost a large part of the company's capital.

And these losses were made in a manner so reckless and so foolish, that one would think a child who had lent money in the City of London would have lent it better.

After this example, we must not confide too surely in long-established credit, or in firmly-rooted traditions of business.
We must examine the system on which these great masses of money are manipulated, and assure ourselves that it is safe and right.
But it is not easy to rouse men of business to the task.

They let the tide of business float before them; they make money or strive to do so while it passes, and they are unwilling to think where it is going.