But the labour of such persons, I do not say their spare powers, but their principal energies, fetches a high price.

Business is really a profession often requiring for its practice quite as much knowledge, and quite as much skill, as law and medicine; and requiring also the possession of money.

A thorough man of business, employing a fair capital in a trade, which he thoroughly comprehends, not only earns a profit on that capital, but really makes of his professional skill a large income.

He has a revenue from talent as well as from money; and to induce sixteen or eighteen persons to abandon such a position and such an income in order to devote their entire attention to the affairs of a joint stock company, a salary must be given too large for the bank to pay or for anyone to wish to propose.
And an effectual supervision by the whole board being impossible, there is a great risk that the whole business may fall to the general manager.

Many unhappy cases have proved this to be very dangerous.