BEARER SECURITIES. Stocks and shares can be held in various shapes by the proprietor. The bond to bearer is a docu ment stating upon its face that the bearer of it is entitled to a specified amount of stock in the loan, debenture, share or other security which that bond represents. The instrument may be for a British Government stock, such as Consols or War loan; for (most popular of all in this shape) foreign government loans; for shares in a rubber, oil, mining or other such company. The interest or dividend payments are met by the provision of coupons, small pieces of paper, numbered and, as a rule, dated, which must be presented to named bankers when the payments become due, and which, after a few days for examination, will be exchanged for cheques in payment of interest or dividend due on his hold ing.
Bearer securities are regarded as being more liable to loss than are registered or inscribed stocks and shares, for the latter must be dealt with by deed of transfer, involving signatures and witnesses, whereas bearer securities belong, as the name implies, to the bearer, and can be passed from hand to hand like a bank-note. A stolen bond may be difficult to trace to the thief if he has succeeded in selling it and in hiding his subsequent tracks after being paid for it. The British investor greatly prefers registered or inscribed stocks and shares, for reasons of safety, but the French, Belgian and other European Continental capitalist has an equally marked preference for bearer securities, and why there should be this difference of predilection is a pretty problem for the financial psychologist to tackle.
The American partiality is for a com bination of bearer-and-registered security. While the bonds of American railroads are generally bearer securities, the share capital is represented most often by certificates made out in the name of an individual or a firm who, when selling, will sign the certifi cates on the back and pass them on to buyers who not infrequently treat the certificates as bearer securities, leaving the stock or share in the names of the original holders as stated on the face of the deed. The certificates pass from hand to hand in the same way as a bearer security, although any holder can have the stock registered, if he desires it, into his own or other name. Dividends, as they fall due, are claimed and collected by the holder at the time the payments fall due : if the registered proprietor does not want to be troubled with such claims, he merely gives notice of his desire, and the actual proprietor will then put the shares into his own or some other name. Various companies issue registered bonds, but these securities are not to bearer. The risk of loss en tailed by the holding of a bearer security is the reason why many proprietors deposit such bonds with their bankers, who will detach coupons when these fall due, present them for payment to the proper agents and credit the interest or dividend to the proprietors' banking accounts.
Stamps on
securities in Great Britain require to be stamped with a duty of £ 2 on every f i oo upon their first being negotiated. After this no further charge is made. Therefore it is cheaper to deal with bearer securities than it is with those registered stocks and shares which take a 1% stamp when they are transferred from one holder to another. The prejudice of the Continental investor in favour of bearer securities is so pro nounced that many companies in whose shares there is an inter national interest have arrangements for conversion of registered shares into bearer securities, and vice versa.
), a North American plant of the lily family (Liliaceae), called also elk-grass, squaw grass, fire-lily and turkey-beard, native to mountainous districts from northern California to British Columbia and eastward to Montana. It is a very smooth light-green perennial with a stout, unbranched stem, from 2 ft. to 6 ft. high, which rises from a woody, tuber-like rootstock with cord-like roots. At the base the stem bears a dense tuft of very narrow, grass-like, rough-edged leaves, from 2 in. to 4 in. wide and from 2 ft. to 3 ft. long; the leaves of the upper part of the stem are similar but much smaller. At flowering, which occurs only once in from five to seven years, the top of the stem develops a large showy cluster, 6 in. to i8 in. long, of very numerous small creamy white flowers, each on a slender stock r in. to 2 in. long. In many parts of its range the plant is very common on dry hillsides. When in bloom it is a striking feature of the vegetation of mountain slopes. Because of its attractive appearance it is a favourite with tourists who visit alpine resorts within its range, being especially abundant in Mt. Rainier and Glacier national parks. Hupas and other north western Indians used the fibres of the leaves in making garments and baskets and roasted the bulbous rootstocks for food. The turkey-beard (X. asphodeloides) of the southern United States, found in dry pine-barrens from New Jersey to Florida, is similar but with less showy flowers. In the Southern and South-western United States the name bear-grass is given to various kinds of yucca, especially to Yucca filamentosa and Y. glauca; also to the camas (Camassia esculenta) and the aloe-like Dasyhrion texanum, all of which have grass-like leaves.
