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neither  be  materially  influenced  nor  its  value
altered  by  the  variations  which  occur  in  the
annual  earnings  of  the  Brighton  Railway
Company.  Were  these  two  points  then  the
only  influences  upon  the  price  of  the  Debenture, ­
  its  quotation  must  remain  permanently
unaltered  year  after  year  ;  whilst,  as  a  matter
of  fact,  £100  nominal  of  the  Loudon,  Brighton
&  South  Coast  Railway  4^  per  cent.  Perpetual
Debenture  possessed  a  realisable  value  of
£180  in  the  year  1896,  and  yet  in  the  year
1904  the  same  quantity  of  the  same  stock
was  worth  no  more  than  £134.  Here,  therefore, ­
  we  have  a  practical  example  of  an
investment  of  a  seemingly  unalterable  quality
depreciating  46  points,  or  one  quarter  of  its
total  value  within  the  period  of  a  few  years.
Neither  is  this  example  in  any  way  an
isolated  one,  for  we  publish  a  chart  in  The
Investment  of  Trust  Funds  showing  how  a
number  of  precisely  similar  securities  depreciated ­
  to  a  like  extent  during  the  same  period.
Not  only  does  this  chart  show  that  the  depreciation ­
  in  these  stocks  was  identical  during  a
period  of  years,  but  it  also  exhibits  with
startling  clearness  that  the  movement  of  each
stock  in  the  group,  during  each  year,  was
reflected  by  the  movements  of  all  the  other
stocks,  and  finally,  of  course,  of  the  whole  group.