STOCK EXCHANGE BUILDING,
St. Louis, June 8, 1905.
GENTLEMEN: We beg to inclose herewith statement of receipts and disbursements of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company from the date of its incorporation to April 30, 1905, and to report as follows on the audits which we have from time to time made, and which together cover the whole of the period above mentioned. For your convenience we propose to deal in this report with the accounts for the whole period, and therefore to repeat some of the comments contained in our previous reports.
Receipts.
Collections on account of sales
of capital stock:
The total subscriptions to capital stock, as
shown by the
treasurer’s record, amount to ................
$5,294,490.00
Of this sum there had been collected, in cash,
to April 30, 1905 ................ $4,821,456.11
In a number of cases where the
liability on
subscriptions was disputed, compromises
were effected, and under these compromises
the company waived claims amounting to 48,952.09
------------
4,870,408.20
Which would leave a balance uncollected on April 30, 1905 of ............................. 424,081.80
We have been furnished with detailed statements of claims in the hands of attorneys for collection, amounting in the aggregate to about $25,000 more than the balance shown above as outstanding. We are informed that this difference represents principally receipts by the company which were credited as capital stock collections, but in respect of which no certificates were ever issued, though it is also due to some extent to clerical errors in the treasurer’s books, which have not yet been located and adjusted.
The greater part of the balance now outstanding is expected to prove irrecoverable, owing to deaths, removals, etc., of subscribers, and to repudiations of liability in some cases. In this connection, it may be mentioned that the number of subscribers exceeded 20,000.
It should be added that it is not yet possible for the treasurer’s department to prepare any final report and adjustment of the capital stock accounts, and that such a report will necessarily be deferred until the whole, or at any rate the greater part, of the suits now pending can be disposed of.
Proceeds of Sale of City of St. Louis Bonds.
In accordance with an amendment of the charter of the city of St. Louis, approved at a general election held on November 6, 1900, the city sold, in the month of June, 1902, its 3-1/4 per cent bonds to a par value of $5,000,000. The price realized for these bonds was $1,000.01 for each $1,000 bond, and the proceeds were turned over to the treasurer of the company on the following dates:
June 26, 1902 ............................... $1,800,018.00 July 2, 1902 ................................ 3,200,032.00