The collapse of at least one bank was due to the uncontrolled habit of speculation which has always distinguished the City of Bombay. Few persons now remain who can remember the famous Share Mania of the early ’sixties: but the spirit of gambling which underlay that colossal financial fiasco is still alive and manifests itself from time to time in wild speculation in the cotton and share markets. The abnormal readiness of the average Indian to follow the lead of any man of outstanding personality, and the ease with which credit is obtained and renewed in Indian circles only serve to aggravate the evil. The suicide of Mr. Dwarkadas Dharamsey, a leading Bhattia mill-agent and merchant, in September, 1909, provided an example of the latitude allowed to one whose financial position had for several years been very unsound. Dwarkadas Dharamsey was a man of great mental capacity, but devoid of scruple. He occupied a leading position in the mercantile and social world, was well-known on the race-course as an owner of horses, was a member of the Municipal Corporation and of the Board of the Improvement Trust, and had been appointed Sheriff of Bombay two or three years before his death. Yet in the very heyday of his prosperity he was spending more than he possessed, staving off importunate demands by all manner of temporary expedients, and juggling with the funds of the mills of which he was director and agent. Faced at last with almost complete insolvency and unable to raise further funds, he shot himself with a revolver at his house in the Fort. He left a kind of confession behind him in which he explained the reason for his action and referred in ambiguous language to some greater crime that he had committed. Though various conjectures were made as to the nature of this act, no definite solution was ever forthcoming. His secret died with him. Immediately after his death, the police discovered that the operatives of his four mills had not been paid their wages for two months, and owing to the closing of the mills they were left stranded and unemployed. With the assistance of Mr. R. D. Sethna, the Official Receiver, the Commissioner was able to get the mill-hands’ wages treated as a first charge on the estate of the deceased, and within a short time the wages due to the men were liquidated under Mr. Sethna’s orders.