M. Charles de Lesseps, the son of Count Ferdinand de Lesseps, of Suez Canaf fame, and the victim, of his father's ambitious scheme for a. canal through the Isthmus of Panama, has died in Paris at the age of 82, reports the "Times" Paris correspondent on October 3. His end was sudden. Notwithstanding his advanced yeas, he retained in ful] measure his mental faculties and his physical strength, On Monday he attended a meeting of the board: of the Suez Canal Company in Paris, and delivered an eloquent speech. A few hours later he died of heart failure.
His was a life in which the extremes of sticcess and unmerited failure met, and it gives a noble example of self-abnegation and of dignified resignation to a cruel fate. Having shared in the triumph of his father, the "Grand Frangais," at the opening of the Suez Canal, he preserved the paternal honour by accepting with resignation the responsibility for the failure of the Panama Company in 1892.
The Panama Canal Company was founded in 1881, with a share capital of 300 million francs, and the power to raise additional capital as necessity arose. This power was exercised to the full. in seven years 1,094,716,051, frs. (nearly £44,000,000) had been sunk in the enterprise. In June, 1888, Count Ferdinand endeavoured to raise a new loan of 720 millions (then £28,800,000), but at the end of the year the company found it impossible to face its obligations, and appealed to the Chamber of Deputies for a moratorium for three months. This was refused. A fresh appeal for subscriptions failed to attract a public uncon-vineed by the Count's honest belief that the enterprise was on the very eve of success.
He was now converted to the view that a level canal was a mistake, but he urged that it could be easily converted into a canal of eight reaches between locks. Handicapped by ruinous financial operations, heavy and wasteful expenditure, onerous treaties, ill-organized work, and large orders of material, unusable and unused, the company went into liquidation.
M. Charles de Lesseps, then chairman of the company, accepted full responsibility for its failure. In 1892 he was arraigned before the Paris Courts with other members of the board of directors on a charge of fraud and bribery. In February, 1893, he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, but was released in September of the same year. He accepted the verdict of the Courts without murmur or complaint, and after his release retired into private life.
The principal accusation against him was that he had deceived the
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