Wacha, Dinshaw Edulji: Premchund Roychund: his early life and career (Bombay, 1913)

tions instead of laying it out in sound
industries of a permanent and beneficial
character. No doubt some part of the
large wealth went to the producers who,
it has been just said, indulged for a time
in silver ornaments even to covering wheel
tyres with silver.
As stated in the last chapter, the
establishment of the Asiatic Banking
Corporation under the most inhuential
auspices, coupled with the fact of its shares
having been skilfully rigged up to a pre-
mium of 65 per cent, in a few short months,,
was the forerunner of the 94 other mone-
tary institutions which came into brief
existence at its heels. The first vital spark
of the speculation which eventually burst
out into a huge conflagration, was kindled
by the Asiatic Banking Corporation, and
that Corporation alone while person
of all persons to apply the match and fan
it into a fierce flame, unconscious of the
ultimate catastrophe to which it might

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