But now, in addressing ourselves to this | the clauses, for it has been previously proremedial measure, and passing from the vided in the bill that, in all cases when mere question of the machinery by which judgment has been obtained, the debtor it is to be worked, we will take occasion to may be forcibly brought up, and compelllay before the reader what we deem to be ed to disclose and part with his property, the proper object of laws concerning in- or go to prison. solvent debtors. We think they should embrace punishment for the past, present division of property, and future labour for the benefit of the creditor. We should like to see a provision that, in the cases excepted by Sir John, and in any others, whether of the like nature or not, which may seem to the commissioner to demand punishment, the certificate shall not be operative until the whole, or a particular dividend fixed by him, shall have been paid through the future exertions of the bankrupt. From his judgment we would give the right of appeal to one superior tribunal, but only to one. 1.* Punishment for the past. We have said, that we think there should in general be some punishment, even for those who cannot pay; it has usually been misconduct that has brought them to that condition. But we do not think the punishment should be in the uncontrolled discretion of each creditor in his own case; experi- 2. The present division of the debtor's ence has shown, that it is not only often property is the next object of attention. abused by him, but always measured Upon this subject, we approve in general rather by his particular temperament, than of Sir John Campbell's Bill. It is very imby the actual desert of the debtor; so that portant to procure from debtors an early one man will punish the merely unfortu-surrender of their property; the waste of nate, while another will not give pain even it, from that which would entirely or nearto the fraudulent. Further, if imprison-ly pay all their debts to that which will ment is to be the punishment, we conceive scarcely furnish a dividend, chiefly occurs it ought not to be that state of idleness, after they have got into difficulties; it is which, under the present system, leads to all kinds of dissipation. For ourselves, we think it ought not to be imprisonment; we are friendly to a full abolition of imprisonment for debt; there are, as we observed at the outset, many evils in that particular punishment, and they are evils which may be avoided in others. then that resort is had to raising money at any sacrifice. Now, it will be remembered, that when Sir John's Bill (we mean the new version by the Lord Chancellor) was lately before the House of Lords, the Duke of Wellington urged that there would not be sufficient inducement to debtors to give up their property. We beg, On this head, we think Sir John Camp-with sincere respect to his grace, to obbell's Bill is rather defective. For three serve that, in the first place, we conceive or four particular crimes, as we have there will be more inducement than in the seen, the punishment is to be imprison-existing insolvent laws, and, secondly and ment and hard labour. Cases of general principally, that inducement is nearly out improvidence and wastefulness are in no respect distinguished by any punishment; if the debtor delivering up his property can obtain his certificate from threefourths of his creditors, he is a new man. Now, probably, this is the best tribunal to which to leave such cases; but there may be instances of misconduct towards particular individuals whose debts are outweighed in obtaining the certificate. In this bill there is an exception from the abolition of arrest in instances where judgment has been obtained for damages for dissolute or malicious conduct, (to which are added, cases of trespass to the person or property of the plaintiff, though the right to adopt the particular remedy of trespass is by no means a good test of the nature of the transaction,) in these the defendant may be imprisoned until he give up his property. But this provision does not seem meant so much for a punishment of these particular practices as for an increased power, in such cases, of getting at the present property of the individual; and we confess we do not see the use of of the question, it must be compulsion. A man fancies he can, by this and that sacrifice, keep up his credit and weather the storm; it is then he cuts his property to pieces; this will be prevented by Sir John Campbell's Bill, which, in effect, compels him to become bankrupt the moment he is in difficulties, unless they are of such a nature that he can be sure to surmount them; for it provides for the transfer of his property to the judgment-creditor till he be paid, and it requires him to state what his property is, adding the penalty of imprisonment and hard labour if he make away with any of it after action brought, or conceal, or falsely state it, or abscond to avoid discovering it. But here, again, there is one point in which we wish to see the law altered, but which is omitted in this bill. We think, that, neither an execution nor a bankruptcy should take the necessary wearing apparel of the debtor and his family, nor their necessary household furniture and tools of trade; the question of the quantity which is deemed "necessary," to be decided, in the case of bankruptcy, by the commissioners-in the case of an execution, by We hold this to be clearthe sheriff. ly reasonable, if due provision be made upon that subject to which we next pass. 3. Future labour on the part of the debtor for the benefit of his creditors. If a debtor be allowed to retain the necessary wearing apparel, household furniture, and tools of trade for himself and his family, we should say, that even bankruptcy ought not to leave him at liberty to acquire property without paying his old debts; he ought to be subject to periodical examination before the commissioner, and liable to have taken from him as much as can be spared of his future acquisitions till he have satisfied his creditors. There is an adventurous spirit in man that will not be crushed by this; leave him the comforts of home around him, and let him be free from arrest, and then hold out to him as the object of his legitimate and honourable ambition the payment of his debts in full. But this liability might be qualified in this way; if he can, on his bankruptcy, obtain his certificate (as now) from three-fourths of his creditors, let it make him a free man, subject to that controlling power which we have said we would vest in the commissioner, still to compel, if he think fit, payment of a certain dividend upon certain of his debts, or the full discharge of them, before the certificate shall operate. Or, still better, let the creditors have the power to insert in the certificate a condition, that it shall be operative when and so soon as a certain dividend shall have been paid, the commissioner also exercising forthwith the power which we would repose in him; so that the debtor and his friends may know that payment of a fixed sum will entirely free him. With these exceptions, we humbly express our approbation of the proposed alteration in the law of debtor and creditor. And how, it may be asked, do the parties interested regard it? Among debtors it is condemned only by those who are in the habit of getting credit, at any apparent cost, but who have no property to lose, and who never intend to pay. These persons, who wind up their affairs by bankruptcy or through the Insolvent Debtors's Court, as often as they happen to be arrested, contrive to get considerable credit in the metropolis. They are fearful, that under the new system there will be no opportunity for such plunder, because it will be property, rather than person, that will be trusted. Among creditors, the new law is opposed chiefly by high-charging moneylenders, and by persons who keep in custody debtors of known inability to pay, until their wretchedness wrings money from the compassion of friends. Excepting these, there are but few to be found who are hostile to the new plan, when the proposed powers of search after property and examination of the debtor respecting it are understood. The honest debtor and the fair-dealing creditor will be benefited by the change, and, generally speaking, they wish for it. We throw out these hints upon the subject, in the conviction of its extreme importance; it concerns the welfare of a vast portion of our population. We shall doubtless soon hear again of Sir John's longtalked-of Bill; and any or all of the views which we have submitted might easily be engrafted upon it. We cannot justify some of the nisi prius management in the conduct of that bill, but we are hardly sorry that it has been often delayed; it was not a subject for legislation on first impressions. We anxiously wish, however, that it may speedily receive that final consideration and discussion for which it is now ripe. If it were once launched into committee within the first month of a session, it would have a fair hearing; but when we see Parliament meeting on the fourth of February, and the bill not proposed for second reading (in the House in which it originated) until the eleventh of July, what can we think or say? Why-" save me from my friends." OUR ACTORS!* its pristine purity, for the use of her affectionate but poor widowed mother. Johan THEIR ORIGINALLY INTENDED TRADES, CRAFTS, Abrahams was a prudent young man; he WHAT little Keeley, the actor, said of himself may very aptly be applied to Braham-the evergreen Braham! "Nature, like a cunning workwoman, generally puts her finest goods in the smallest parcels ;" and, though the little vocalist boasts no ancestors known to fame, he has been the architect of his own fortune, and a very handsome independent one he has made, ay, and enjoys in his dulce domum, the manor-house of Brompton, where he now lives, surrounded by the children of his age, and an amiable wife, who, to our experienced eye (de gustibus non est disputandum) was, and is, one of the finest women in England. But to the birth, parentage, and education of our now ancient little melodist. About the middle of the last century a young German Jew, who rejoiced in the scriptural appellation of Abrahams, made a visit to England and some resident relations, and after a time, fixed his abode in Lemon street, in that far east “quartier des Juifs" of our vast metropolis 'yclept Goodman's Fields. He was a very ingenious and industrious Israelite: his principal avocation was the manufacturing of little "rollers for the hair." These rollers were an article in great request, owing to the peculiar manner in which the outsides of the heads of most of his majesty's liege subjects, both male and female, were then adorned. The profits accruing from the great consumption of his rollers were thought by the prudent young German quite sufficient to warrant his making a luxurious addition to his worldly comforts in the shape of a wife; therefore, prudent little Johan Abrahams looked through all the tribes of Israel located from Mile End east to Saint Mary Axe west, (Petticoat lane and the Minories inclusive:) he there saw a Rebecca-not at the well with a pitcher, like her celebrated namesake of old, but with a pail at Aldgate pump, like a dutiful daughter, forcing from the bowels of the earth the wholesome element in all thought twice before he spoke once:-the damsel was pretty ;-one glance from her dark eye-who has not heard, read, or felt the effect of "a Jewess's eye?" We have, and could describe it, but we won't -no-we'll leave it to the sympathetic imagination of our male, and the envy of our female, readers! All must allow that the Jewish maidens in their teens are generally beautiful, but as matrons-oh, Moses!but the lyric poets tell us that "Love is blind." Johan Abrahams was so enchanted with his fair Rebecca that he very soon proposed-proposed and was accepted-but accepted with this sine qua non, that he took the mother also beneath his humble roof. Who could have the heart to part a poor widowed mother from her only child? not Johan Abrahams. All the poor old Jewess's slender stock of worldly goods were transferred from Duke's place to Lemon street, and, as she soon learned to "make rollers" decently, and cook sour krout delightfully, she remained beneath the roof of the honest and industrious young German till summoned to that bourne from whence neither Jew nor Gentile ever returns. Rebecca, in due course of time, presented the delighted Johan Abrahams with a chubby boy, (the subject of our present memoir,) who in the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-two, honoured the aforesaid Lemon street, Goodman's Fields, with his first note. "Mein Got! vot a woice de poy hab gotten," cried the poor but gratified German, as he took his squalling little offspring from the arms of the old nurse; for, be it known to our gentle readers, that both parents were musical, and both were in the habit of exerting their sweet voices at the celebrated synagogue in the far-famed Duke's place, and Johan Abrahams' bass grunt was generally admired by the élite of the choral amateurs on each hebdomadal visitation. The nursling was, in due time named, (according to the rites of the religion, in the belief of which his parents intended to instruct him,) the name was Johan, otherwise John. Death was soon busy in the poor German's humble domicile: first, the fatal dart struck his mother-in-law, then his wife, his beloved Rebecca, and, lastly, himself, leaving our hero, little John Abrahams, an orphan, dependent on the bounty of distant relations. The Jews of England are proverbially kind to the distressed of their own persuasion; they are ever prompt to assuage "The widow's and the orphan's tear!" Little John found a home beneath a poor kinsman's roof: the young urchin was of a very erratic disposition; he, therefore, spent much of his time in wandering from now, as the hurt ears of certain studious the house of the relation who sheltered and learned members of the Albemarle him, and visiting the various Israelitish Street Institution can verify)-the sweet shops of his father's former friends and notes struck upon the musical barber's acquaintances. ears; he looked, and immediately recognized the little wandering minstrel of Goodman's Fields. The Jews always were, and now are, (from David, the inspired harpist, down to Rothschild, the inspired loanist,) doatingly The scissors became mute and motionfond of music; and some (boys then, old less-they clipped no more! equally mute men now) are at present living, who can became the vocalist: the friseur begged remember little Abrahams, between seven him to sing on, but the urchin Israelite and eight years of age, delighting all who eyed the enchanted barbatique and said, heard him with his precocious vocal abili-" You don't cut hair for nothing-do you? ty; and "Little Jacky," as he was usually then why should I sing for nothing?" called, was by no means chary of his notes, "Only sing, my good boy," cried the scisfor even then the hope of realizing the sors-flourishing amateur de musique, “I'll smallest coin of the realm would inspire take your notes for cash." "My hand-a the cock sparrow to sing like a journey- covenant." No, we beg pardon;--Braham man nightingale. His voice and natural did not quote Shakspeare at that time, but musical taste were always a passe-partout he said something very like it, as he careto the little back parlours and corner cup- fully buttoned up the pocket of the nether boards of every house whose threshold he garment that contained Leoni's little sixcrossed, and each Jewess, matron and pence intended to reward the ingenious maiden, generally slipped a very small and useful artiste who was to clip his sucoin into the urchin minstrel's pocket. perabundant locks; this was the largest sum that he had ever, till then, at one time, "pursed" for the exertion of his vocal abilities, but "this song of sixpence" was the augury of "a pocket full of gold," hereafter. The fame of the little peripatetic minstrel of the east, by some very fortunate chance, happened to reach the ears of Leoni, then highly popular as our principal English vocalist. He heard him sing a very pretty ballad: he felt compassion There is no happiness without its alloy; for the comparatively unprotected situa- so it was with the new-found joy of little tion of the poor little orphan brother Is- Master John Abrahams; while in the midraelite; he also thought he could make dle of his most favourite ditty, and his money by training and fostering him; he, young heart was gratifying two of its therefore, immediately offered to take him strongest passions, the love of fame and out of the hands of his relations, who, the love of money-while thus excited, having become rather tired of the young and his little throat straining to give the rogue's wandering vagaries, gladly accept- greatest effect to a most powerful passage, ed the offer, and little John Abrahams be- who should pass by the very door but the came a regular articled pupil to that popu- great Leoni himself. The voice-the welllar singer; this was the foundation_stone known voice-vibrated on the maestro's on which his after fortune was raised. His ear:-"Can it be?-the little monkey!" master now restrained him from all visi- exclaimed the enraged patron, as he entations to his former humble but kind as-tered the shop and caught his élève in all sociates; and allotted out his time for the cultivation and improvement of the fine organ which nature had bestowed upon him. Leoni most especially interdicted his singing on any occasion on which he (Leoni) was not present. Little Jackey, though he submitted, yet sighed for the pence and the unrestrained enjoyments of the snug back parlours of Petticoat lane and the Minories. There was an anecdote of Leoni and his pupil which we often heard in our early days. The careful master had given the boy permission to go to a shop and have his hair cut in the most fashionable style, and had also supplied him with "a little sixpence" for the payment thereof. Little John accordingly proceeded to the boutique of a dashing west-end clipper, who, as it so happened, had both seen and heard our juvenile vocalist in his early perambulations in the far east. While under the operation of the scissors, little John began to hum a tune-(indeed, he has not left off the trick even his glory; he seized the harmonious culprit, and hurled him into the street, d-d the barber, and made his exit in a rage! O Jeptha, judge of Israel, was it not cruel thus to check the boy's taste for music-and a little sixpence ? When at home, Leoni exacted from the disobedient pupil a solemn vow, “that through life he never would, on any occasion, either pleasurable or charitable, exert his vocal abilities without the 'Rex pecunia dollar-arum downo!" That vow, taken at the age of twelve, has been strictly adhered to, even up to the moment in which we are writing-a period considerably more than half a century! The only deviation from this "general rule” he has ever been known to make has been while under the influence of (a demon, as it is called by the Israelites) liberality; when he has returned certain sums which had been handed to him professionally, from funds devoted to heaven-born charity. The celebrated John Palmer, (the Drury Lane actor, and the original Joseph Sur "Ears polite on the west of Temple-bar." Therefore, instead of a Braham, he resolved to become the Braham, and certainly his resolution has met with deserved success, and the Braham! has, far more than a third of a century, stood unrivalled amongst English singers. face of the most popular comedy in the cretion, (as the period of manhood is English language,) about the year one sometimes improperly called,) he altered thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, his patronymic by dropping the commencattempted to give Melpomene and her ing vowel, thinking that it gave an east ever-smiling sister Thalia, a respectable end, Israelitish twang, that might not local habitation and a home in the east sound pleasingly to end of our vast metropolis, and opened a new theatre in Wellclose Square, Goodman's Fields; at which time Master John Abraham (then fifteen but looking ten) was introduced by his maestro to the new oriental manager. At Leoni's request Palmer heard the boy, admired his now cultivated voice, and immediately engaged him, calculating that the melodious organ of the young Israelite would be highly at- About the year one thousand seven tractive with the twelve tribes, who are the hundred and ninety-four, an invitation was denizens of that part of London; nor was given him to try his restored voice before John Palmer wrong in his calculation of the most musical, and at the same time cause and effect: for on his first appear- the most critical, audience in the kingdom ance on a public stage he won approba--scandalous and bilious Bath. Rauzzini, tion from both Jew and Gentile. the conductor of the once celebrated Bath concerts, and the first musical professor in England, became Braham's patron and instructor, and to that excellent and judicious master he owes much of the reputation and consequent fortune which he now enjoys. The theatrical management was somewhat puzzled for a character in which his very childish and petite figure could pass muster; at last, after much deliberation, "the god of love" was selected: and as those veracious chronicles, the play-bills of the period, (now in the possession of Messrs. Winston, Field, and other curious collectors and preservers of such records,) inform the public, the piece was called "The Birth-day," and the part of Cupid was performed by Master Abrahams, his first appearance on any stage. Young Abrahams soon gained confidence, (which, entre nous, he has never since lost,) and his next vocal essay was the then very popular bravura of "The soldier tired of war's alarms," in which he was nightly honoured with an encore. About two years after this he lost his voice, (as is usual,) and, as he could not conveniently sing without one, he devoted his time to the study of composition for the exercise of his genius, and the mechanical performance of the pianoforte for his daily bread. During this time he lost his maestro: Leoni embarked for the West Indies, but in losing one good friend our hero gained another, and, through him, a host. We allude to the celebrated Mr. Goldsmid; (the head of the family so well known in the money market;) this liberal gentleman became the patron of the struggling boy of genius, who, by his recommendation, obtained teaching sufficient to support himself till "His truant voice returned, And, like a giant refreshed, the world astounded." And with his voice came pride and ambition. "What's in a name?” quoth Juliet; but our vocalist did not exactly opine with Capulet's fair daughter on that subject; therefore, when he arrived at years of dis From Bath he was soon called to Drury Lane, on the boards of which theatre he made his début about two years after his first visit to Rauzzini: here he was stamped at once as a first-rate favourite with the west-end London public; and all Goodman's Field's flocked to see, in the cultivated man, the little orphan boy, whose talent they had, in auld lang syne, fostered and admired. Here he made a temporary surrender of his character for strict morality, by yielding to the seductive arts of a syren, at that time old enough to be his mother-the then celebrated Signora Storace-a splendid singer, but most profligate woman. This "little arrangement," as it was called, though it might have enriched his purse and advanced his professional interest, must have debased his mind, and caused him years of secret misery; for in a case like that "When reflection comes-and come it must, What will it bring us--but disgust?" He laboured (and a dreadful labour it The Signora Storace in question, (if her chroniclers have writ her truly,) must have been most disgusting as a woman, though charming as a singer-blest with natural talent, to command all the comforts and most of the luxuries and elegancies of life-she-but her deeds will best speak for themselves. |