and melodious tone, while Jemmy touched his fiddle. Lost, stolen, or strayed, O yes! O yes! O yes! 'Twas lost on Sunday eve, The maiden sought around, It was not to be found, She searched each nook and dell, All anxious with desire; "Well, I do believe that I shall begin to sing again," replied Nancy. "I'm sure if Corbett was only once settled on shore in a nice little cottage, with a garden, and a blackbird in a wicker cage, I should try who could sing most, the bird or me." "He will be by-and-bye, when his work is done." "Yes, when it is; but open boats, stormy seas, and the halter, are heavy odds, Mr. Salisbury." "Don't mention the halter, Mistress Nancy, you'll make me melancholy," replied Jemmy, “and I sha'n't be able to sing any more. Well if they want to hang me, they need not rig the yard-arm, three handspikes as sheers, and I shouldn't find soundings, heh! Moggy?" Nancy laughed at the ludicrous idea; but Moggy exclaimed with vehemence, "Hang my Jemmy! my darling duck! Í should like to see them." "At all events, we'll have another song from him, Moggy, before they spoil his windpipe, which, I must say, would be a great pity; but, Moggy, there have been better men hung than your husband." "Better men than my Jemmy, Mrs. Corbett! There never was one like him afore or since;" replied Moggy with indignation. gy "I only meant of longer pedigree, Mog," replied Nancy, soothingly. I don't know what that is,” replied Moggy, still angry. my. "Longer legs to be sure," replied Jem"Never mind that, Moggy. Here goes, a song in two parts. It's a pity, Mistress Nancy, that you couldn't take one." "When will you give up this life of wild roving? "My ship is my wife, Sue, no other I covet, Till I draw the firm splice that's betwixt her and me; "O William, what nonsense you talk, you are raving, "You wrong me, my dearest, as sure as I stand here, "Then tell me the time, dear William, whenever "The time it will be when my pockets are lined, I'll then draw the splice 'tween my vessel and me, "Thank you, Mr. Salisbury. I like the 66 To multiply was next the game, But here her patience was worn out, Marrying two husbands or two wives, "And now we must leave off, my dear; "I should think, Mistress Nancy, you might as well leave my husband's legs alone," observed Moggy, affronted. "Lord bless you, Moggy, if he's not angry, you surely should not be; I give a joke, and I can take one. You surely are not jealous?" "Indeed I am though, and always shall be of any one who plays with my Jem my. Or if he plays with anything else?" "Yes, indeed." "Yes, indeed! then you must be downright jealous of his fiddle, Moggy," replied Nancy: "but never mind, you sha'n't be jealous now about nothing. I'll sing you a song, and then you'll forget all this." Nancy Corbett then sang as follows: "So come at eve, my Henry sweet; "That's a very pretty song, Mistress Corbett, and you've a nice collection, I've no doubt. If you've no objection, I'll exchange another with you." "I should be most willing, Mr. Salisbury; but we are now getting well over, and we may as well be quiet, as I do not wish people to ask where we are going." "You're right, ma'am," observed the old fisherman who pulled the boat. "Put up your fiddle, master; there be plenty on the look out, without our giving them notice." "Very true," replied Jemmy, "so we break up our concert." The whole party were now silent. In a quarter of an hour the boat was run into a cut, which concealed it from view; and, as soon as the fisherman had looked round to see the coast clear, they landed and made haste to pass by the cottages; they walked during the night over to the after that Nancy slackened her pace, and other side of the island, and arrived at the cottages above the cave. Here they left a portion of their burdens, and then proceeded to the path down the cliff which led to the cave. On Nancy giving the signal, the ladder was lowered, and they were admitted. As soon as they were upon the flat, Moggy embraced her husband, crying, Here I have you, my own dear Jemmy, all to myself, and safe for ever." (To be continued.) THE MERRY HARP. BY MRS. CRAWFORD. THE merry harp rings through the ha', To ane mair dear to me, What time the bonnie moon is up And lights the silver Dee, Though Gordon castle lifts its head Than Scotland's proudest dame. THE POLICY OF INSOLVENT "In a prison, the awe of the public eye is lost, and the power of the law is spent; there are few fears, and there are no blushes."-DR. JOHNSON. THE defects of the present system of dealing with debtors, who are unable to pay, have, for some time, been the subject of complaint; and, we believe, not with out reason. We do not propose to excite the sympathies of the reader, by detailing the misery to which imprisonment for debt annually brings hundreds of the families of our fellow-countrymen: we feel for them-we pity them; but we are bound to say, that we think it is safe to state as a general rule, (subject to only a moderate number of exceptions,) that there is so much misconduct implied, or to be fairly inferred, in the case of a person indebted beyond his means of payment, that some punishment is deserved by the insolvent, and is required for the safeguard of the community; and we know of no punishment for the head, which can fail to afflict the dependent members of the family. But the present system is anything but a proper mode of punishment. It is not beneficial to the creditor; for the prisoner for debt is an idle man, doing nothing towards repairing the injury, though it is susceptible of compensation. It falls with gross in equality upon the debtors; insomuch that to some it brings the very deepest wretchedness, while others (and those usually the most culpable) are nearly careless of its infliction. And it produces much real evil which might be avoided; for it brings the novice, and oftentimes the simplehearted, into an association from which he can scarcely retire uninjured in truth, the mere collection of such persons together induces a hardihood and relentlessness, ill calculated to prepare for a return to virtuous and active life. We are aware, however, that it is often said, that imprisonment for debt is resorted to, in order to compel payment rather than to punish; and we suppose, that the doctrine, that the debtor is paying in person under a capias ad SATISFACIENDUM, Will (in spite of the words) be thrown to the winds, now that we are distributing the fifteen millions to prove our adherence to the principle that man cannot have property in man. But it is altogether a mistake to suppose that imprisonment is the best means of procuring payment from an unprincipled debtor. The law must be weak indeed, if this be its strongest arm to reach the pocket. It is well known, that there is now living, within the rules of one of our metropolitan prisons, an individual of ample fortune, who refuses to pay some large debts, notwithstanding judgment has been obtained against him by the creditor; he has placed his property in securities which the law does not take in execution; he is not a trader, and the only remedy left is to keep him in prison. How little like the often-pitied prisoner he lives may be judged of from the fact, that he has thrown three houses into one, to make a sufficiently commodious residence for himself and his establishment. We hold this to be setting the law at defiance; this man is above the law; it is a perversion of terms, it is putting the means in the place of the end, to say, that the law is master because it has him in custody; he is master, for the law is unable to make him comply with its judgment. There was a similar case in the sister establishment to that now alluded to; the individual in question had resisted the debt by legal means, and when a verdict and judgment had passed against him, he still took the liberty of differing from the arbiters appointed by the state, his Majesty's Justices of the Court of Common Pleas, and the consequence was, we believe, that the creditor lost his money; for if we are not mistaken, the large property really left by him, when he died in 1835, after nearly twenty years' imprisonment in the Fleet, had been apparently so completely parted with in his lifetime, that the creditor was unable to follow it. And in these, the principal prisons of our country, there are scores who are, as it is termed, their own prisoners, who are either unwilling to part with their money to pay their debts, or (more fre-tween two individuals, cannot easily perquently) who have learnt to earn more in ceive the nature of his offence. Nay, if, prison than they could out of it, and when there is no thought of resorting to on whom, therefore, imprisonment, as a the Insolvent Debtors' Court, the creditor means to induce payment, is utterly thrown should take a warrant of attorney or cogaway. In fact, we believe that the num- novit from his debtor, in order to get a ber of cases is very limited, in which im- judgment without the cost of an action, it prisonment, or the fear of it, operates be- is deemed by this court an agreement beneficially; in the majority of instances it tween them, and if the debtor afterwards is avoided, indeed, and postponed by every have recourse to that outlet from his diffipossible expedient; but the result of such culties, the creditor is held to have waived a course is usually found to be, that that all complaint of misconduct, on the debtwhich should have gone to the creditor, or's part, in the mode of contracting the has been wasted by the ruinous help of debt-an implied condonation almost almoney-lenders. ways unsupported by its existence in fact. If we now pass to the Insolvent Debtors' And, though this court can punish for a Court, we shall find it an extremely de- vexatious defence of an action, it has no fective tribunal. It has never presented such jurisdiction in the case of the vexathe facilities for cheap investigation and tious bringing of an action, without any inquiry, from time to time, which the ground and to extort money: it is true, bankruptcy system provides in the case there is a power, contained in a clause of commercial insolvency; a justification termed the discretionary clause, to remand of it was attempted by Mr. Serjeant Ste- for six months without any particular phen, in his very able Supplement to the cause of the punishment being assigned; Common Law Commissioners' Report on but, we believe, the commissioners consiArrest for Debt: he insisted, that the In- der that to apply only to cases where a solvent Debtors' Court should not be com- wrong has been done to the creditors geplained of on this head, because it is not nerally, or a class of them, and not to a court for the collection and distribution cases of individual injury. Then, again, of assets, but a court for the discharge of the remand, when pronounced, though obthe person; but we conceive, that what he viously meant by way of punishment, and says it is not, is just what it ought to be; not as a means of compelling payment for when the law deprives the creditor of from a person whose property has been the power of seizing the assets under a taken from him, is not a sentence of imjudgment, it ought to provide for their be- prisonment, it is only a sentence of future ing got in by some other power. But liberation; the question of imprisonment even viewed merely as a court of dis- meantime, or anticipated liberty, depends charge, it is not an efficient tribunal. It upon the proceedings of the detaining crehas wrapped itself in technical distinc-ditor, and if the insolvent can, by bail or tions, not easily perceived by a tradesman by making terms with that creditor, obtain of sound common sense, and yet soon his liberty the day after a long remand taught to the debtor, when his difficulties has been pronounced, he is still, when the have brought him into contact with attor- fixed period has arrived, protected by this neys, and other more "un-respectable" statute; hence, persons sometimes take persons connected with this court; and the benefit of the act, knowing they shall these distinctions, when known, make it be remanded for a much longer time than easy to evade much of the punishment they mean to stay in prison, but (as they which the law designed. Hence the court term it) it reduces the number of crediis seen punishing offences almost unin- tors to be settled with. And, without enutentional, and letting go real delinquents. merating more defects, this system has A number of these cases were collected, had the misfortune to be greatly misuntwo years ago, by a baronet, thrown for a derstood, from its complication, and from short time into the Fleet Prison, through the circumstance of the few clauses which embarrassments arising chiefly from his substantially concern the public being imimprudent indulgence in scientific experi- bedded (we might say buried) in a mass ments; but he unexpectedly obtained his of formal provisions, which might have discharge, and, we believe, retired to the been separated from them, and which, be"refuge across the channel, and has ing mixed with them, perplex a layman's never communicated his note-book to the understanding. Thus few persons are world. If the debtor can lure the creditor aware, that, if an insolvent renew his debt into a treaty, upon the footing of his con- to the creditor, the renewal is illegal, and sciousness of obligation to pay his parti- the instrument void; and many have, by cular debt, and can induce the creditor to this means, purchased off opposition, or negotiate respecting the mode and time of set at nought a remand, and then successpaying it after he shall have been dis- fully resisted payment. Fewer still know, charged, it is called a fraud on the court, that after the discharge the debt still exand that creditor's opposition is not to be ists, and the creditor retains all remedies heard, if the proposed arrangement goes which are not taken away by the Insolvent off; though a tradesman, naturally look- Debtors' Act: hence a creditor may issue ing at it as a mere question of debt be-a fiat of bankruptcy against his debtor, years after the latter has taken the benefit they shall be discharged on giving it up; of the Insolvent Debtors' Act, and thus ninthly, the creation of new courts throughget at his future property; for that act out the kingdom, for taking cognizance of only prohibits the creditor from issuing these voluntary bankruptcies, and examexecution on a judgment, or arresting the ining debtors after judgment; tenthly, the person of the debtor: this point was so acceptance of a composition by sevendecided by the late lords commissioners eights of a man's creditors to bind the of the great seal; the debt inserted in the rest to take it; and, lastly, further provischedule is a good petitioning creditor's sions for the regulation of the proposed debt, until it has become barred by the new courts. Instead of this one hundred statute of limitations; but this distinc- and seventy-three-claused document, there tion, as to the remedy that is gone and should be three bills-one containing the the remedy that remains, is too subtle for provisions which are made for the greater a subject of this nature, on which the law security of the creditor, another those should be easily understood and remem- which are in ease of the debtor, with the bered. connected exceptions, and the third creatTo remedy these, and some few other ing the new courts. Indeed, this latter defects in the law, a bill has been prepar- measure has no necessary connexion with ed, which has acquired the cognomen of this bill. The new courts, if created, Sir John Campbell's bill, and which con- would not have their jurisdiction bounded sists of the moderate number of one hun- by these limits; they would doubtless sudred and seventy-three sections. We persede the country commissioners of cannot say anything of its simplicity or bankrupt, try causes at present heard by plainness; it more than sustains the repu- the under-sheriff, and relieve or assist tation of our statute-book for the want of justices of the peace, in cases requiring these qualities. It comprises too many technical legal knowledge; then surely it objects for one bill; the mind is confused would prevent many doubts and quesby reading, first, alterations in the prac- tions, to give them their entire authority tice of the courts of law, by requiring and commision in one bill. And the prodefendants to give security to pay the posed act might be pruned in another debt and costs claimed, as a condition of way; no less than ninety-six sections of it leave to put the plaintiff to a trial; second- are very absurdly occupied, by copying ly, a series of additional powers against the greater part of the Bankrupt Act, word the property of debtors after judgment has for word, substituting the term "petitionbeen obtained, providing that, of what-ing debtor" for the term "bankrupt;" ever description it may be, it is to be as- these ninety-six sections are what we have signed to and vested in the creditor until denominated the third branch of the act, he is paid, and that the debtor may be ex- and the whole effect of them is to provide amined from time to time respecting it; that a thirdly, provisions for the voluntary bankruptcy of any debtor, who declares himself unable to pay, and willing to surrender his property for equal distribution; fourthly, a list of cases, to be punished with imprisonment and hard labour, (namely, obtaining goods as for trading purposes, and making away with them, making away with property after action brought, concealing property, giving false accounts or statements when bankrupt, or altering books, and, lastly, absconding af ter judgment obtained, to avoid disclosing property,) with the reservation to courts of request of the right to imprison in such as they think cases of fraud; fifthly, the abolition of arrest, except where there is a judgment for crim. con., seduction, breach of promise of marriage, libel, slander, malicious injury to the person or property of the plaintiff, or where the creditor swears to a belief that the debtor is about to abscond; sixthly, a provision that a creditor so swearing is to be bound to prove probable cause, if an action be brought against him for an unwarrantable arrest; seventhly, power to justices to detain the debtor, while the writ is being procured, if this oath is made by the creditor; eighthly, provision that the property of persons so arrested shall also be liable, but that debtor," declaring himself insolvent, and willing to give up his property, may by "petition" be placed in the same situation as a bankrupt. Why, common sense teaches one, that the straightforward course is simply, in one section, to declare that any debtor fulfilling these conditions, shall thereby become and be "bankrupt," and be dealt with as such, and then all the bankrupt law, without this useless and perplexing repetition, would be applicable to his case. But softly; "what's in a name?" will not hold always; if that course had been taken, where would have appeared the necessity for the new courts? it would have been only sending the less important cases of insolvency to the present bankruptcy tribunals, and then perhaps parliament would have been disposed to try to mend the old authorities, before creating such expensive new ones; but, if so, what could be done with the gentlemen who expect the commissionerships of the sixty new courts at one thousand five hundred pounds a-year, and the registerships at seven hundred pounds? and if they should be quiet, there is another party concerned, that which would have to bestow them. True, true; we see the absolute necessity of the case; we were wrong-we submit. |