ABSTRACT
In our last issue was concluded the report of a lecture on the above, which we have no doubt has been read with interest and advantage by our subscribers in general, and by South Britons with a natural feeling of curiosity as to the ideas and practices prevalent north of the Tweed on what always has been, and probably always will be, the chief branch of the work of professional accountants. The paper is able and instructive. It is written with the thoughtfulness and the literary exactness which we instinctively expect Scotchmen to possess; containing also, here and there, idioms not wholly familiar to the average Englishman. Evidently intended to deal with the subject in a general way, the few isolated and specific references it contains to manufacturing concerns, and to what we presume to be ordinary building societies or mortgage companies, rather impairs the unity of the paper, and perhaps its power of resistance to criticism. For Mr. Hutton must know we do criticise each other, and sometimes ourselves, in England, and though the Caledonian debater, like the Caledonian heckler, is not to be lightly engaged or faced; discussion is always good whichever side prevails. And we are of those who try at least to get at and acknowledge the best views and the best practices, even if we have not always held or supported them; and in this spirit we propose to take up a few points that strike us in Mr. Hutton’s paper.
