Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-12-29 00:00:00

OTHER MATTERS.

BRFORB Ma. COMMISSIONIZ STLITINNOIf.

In re lone DOIIIRTY.—It being understood that the
examination of the bankrupt would be resumed this
morning, the court was largely filled by parties anxious to
witness the proceedings. Mr. Aspinall appeared for the
assignees, and Mr. Deighton for the bankrupt. On the
sitting of the court at eleven o'clock, Mr. Deighton said,
I am instructed on the part of the bankrupt to apply that
this case may be adjourned sine die. I came down here
prepared to take an objection to the course which my
learned friend is pursuing, in going into these particular
matters in an opposition which, if admitted here at all, is
not opposiition on the part of the assignees. Your
Honour is aware that the chargea made against Mr.
Doherty were of a very serious and grievous character. I
did come prepared to take an objection ,to the course
pursued, and also to the course which my learned friend
was pursuing in examining Mr. Doherty for the purpose of
substantiatirg the charges, instead of doing that by direct
evidence, which is the only proper evidence in such a
case. I am, however, instructed this morning, that Mr.
Doherty is in a frame of mind such as renders it uttesly
impossible for him to give such information as would be
necessary either to satisfy this court in the matter,
or to give his solicitor or counsel the power
of meeting the serious charges which have been
made against him, Your Honour must know that this
case has become, I may say, offensively public. From the
very commencement of Mr. Doherty's misfortune, he has
been made the subject of public comment, and I may say
that there appears to be a very strong opinion abroad on
the matter. He has also, as you know, been harassed by
criminal proceedings very lately. All these matters have,
at I am informed, tended so much to interfere with the
mental powers of Mr. Doherty, and also with his physical
powers, as to render it quite impossible for him to be
enabled now to meet the charges which are made against
him in a fair manner, or in a manner which would do jus-
tice to himself. lam instructed also, and I believe it to
be so, that if those charges were fairly and properly gone
into, they would wear a very different aspect from that
which had been presented to this court. .1 believe tint an
answer could have been given to those charges by Mr.
Doherty, and that he could have explained them to the
court so fully that my learned friend wo .1d have seen,
after such an explanation, that the language applied in
making the charges was not justified ; al, ough I fully
admit that if they were established they could hardly be
spoken of in language too strong for their condemnation. I
may say, however, that if they had been gone into, Mr.
Doherty, according to the instructions I have received,
could have given a clear and satisfactory answer, anal have
thoroughly exculpated himself. But at the present time it
is utterly impossible, from the state of Mr. Doherty's mind,
for him to be able to do this, and, therefore, I have to apply
to your Honour that this ease may be adjourned sine die, to
enable Mr. Doherty to come here at a future day ; and
then, when he is in a different frame of mind, to meet the
charge, and to apply to your Honor for a certificate.
Mr. Aspinall said that he c still not, for a moment, have
any hesitation as to the course which the assignees should
pursue in reference to the application. There was no
doubt that the bankrupt could never have obtained a cer-
tificate, and that having been well advised to that effect,
ho thought it more prudent not to submit himself again
for examination ; but it could not be allowed that the
course now proposed to be taken, eliould be taken without
answer, He (lir. Aspinall) might remind His Honor of the
state of health in which he saw Mr. Doherty a few days
ago, and that he was then perfectly competent, not only to
act under the advice of his counsel, but even in cases
where he thuett the questions might he answered with
less harm and danger to himself to pick out those ques-
tions, and to answer them with the unsiost possible
ingenuity without the assistance of his advocate—showing,
in point of fact, the greatest possible mental accumen and
ability, to defend himself by putting forward every circum-
stance which could possibly tell in his favour. It was
impossible, then, for the Court, seeing that that on the
bare statement of the bankrupt—a statement which hie
learned friend was, no doubt-, instructed to make—the
Court con!d accede to such an application. The statement
was nut merely improbable in itself, but it was not
supported by evidence. It should have occurred to his
learned friend, that if any reliance were to be placed upon
it, the Court would call for evidence in support of it, but
they were not informed that that evidence would
be forthcoming. His learned friend said that Mr.
Doherty had been harrassed in this matter, but
he (Ur. Aspinall) denied that he had been harrassed
beyond what was necessary for the interests Of justice and
commerce. It was for the advantage of the community at
large that proceedings of this description should be made
public through the newspapers, and that the widest
publicity should be given to them. He did not know
that the newspapers male a'iy comments on the case, and
if they did not, why complain of them? So far from Mr.
Doherty being unnecessarily harrassed, it was a notorious
feet, and in some measure discreditable to the parties,
that there was in some quarters a considerable feeling in
favour of Mr. Doherty. He did not allude to
any gentleman whose absence had been the sub-
ject of discussion, but there was unquestionably
in some quarters a desire to screen Mr. Doherty from the
faults he had committed ; and he (Mr. Aspinall) denied
that there was one word of truth in the statement that
Mr. Doherty had been subject to persecution. Mr.
Doherty's own conduct was the best answer to that. He
now sought to rein from the inouiry and to make the
best terms for himself. He could never get a certificate,
and therefore it was proposed to let him down as easily as
possible. He (1)Ir Aspinall) should oppose the applica-
tion for adjournment, and would suggest to the Court that
when the bankrupt did not come forward, a day having
been fixed for the consideration of the certificate, it was
the duty of the Court to refuse the certificate altogether.
His Honour observed that he could not consent to a
general aij )urnment. If Mr. Doherty was advised to
absent himself— . Mr. Deighton : The advice doss
not come from me in any way whatever. His
Honour : Have you any medical Evidence as to Mr.
Doherty's health ? Mr. Deighton : There is no medical
evidence. His Honour : How long will he require to
recover? Mr. Deighton Mr. Gregory (the bankrupt's
solicitor) says twelve months. His Honour: Oh, that is
Out of the question—it is equal to total absence. If the
adjournment were for a short time, and if the assignees
were satisfied— Mr. Aspinsll : The assignees have no
vindictive feeling towards the bankrupt. If any medical
evidence were brought forward they would leave the
matter entirely in the hands of the Court. His Honour :
Am I to understand that the bankrupt does not intend to
come forward at any time. Mc. Deighton : I am not
instructed to say that. Mr. Aspinall suggested that an
adjournment for a fortnight should be taken, and
in the meantime he would ask for a summons for Mr.
Doherty. He should obse vo, that if a medical certificate
were then produced, he would require the medical gentle-
men to be then presen a His Honour said, that in such a
case ho should certainly require the medical gentleman to
be present, to bj examined. Mr. Aspinall said that he
would also require the b:11 of lading, and the two bills of
exchange, relating to the late prosecution, to be produced.
Mr. Gregory replied that they would be forthcoming. The
sitting was then adjourned for a fortnight.

BICrOIIE hrR C3MMISSIONERPERRY.
In re J. CADHAN.—The bankrupt, a brick-maker, of
Billinge, came up on hie last examination, and passed,
and a day was fixed for the certificate meeting
In re ANDREW.—The laßt examination of the bankrupt
was adjourned, no balance-shoe: having been filed.
In re R. D. NUTTALL.—In this caso, also, the last ex-
amination of the bankrupt was adjourned.

THE Rev. MR. CAIRO.—Mr. Caird was inducted into
the New Park Church on Thursday. The Dr, Mrraggart
preached and presided on the occas'on. In the evening,
the young minister and the Presbytery of Glasgow were
entertained by the managers of the chu-ch to dinner in the
Corporation Hal. Mr. Caird will be introduced to his
new congregation on Sunday, by the Rev. Norman Macleod
of the Barony.—Glasgow Daily Mail.
FRENCH liatLwAys.—The Paris Moniteur contains the
official return of the receipts of the various French Rail-.
ways for the three expired quarters of the present year,
separately, and the total for the nine monthr. The arnaunt
of the q carter ending in September last, was 83,091,8811 r.,
being 6,000,618 fr. more than in the quarter immediately
nrece !jag, and 11,401,2281 r. more thin in the first three
months of the year. The receipts for the first nine months
of 1857, amounted to 231 882,6171., showing an improve-
ment of 28,899,774 fr, as compared with the corresponding
period last year.
DIIIPARTURE or Tuoors FOR INi:el4.—Orders have been
issued from the War Office directing the commanders of
the depot battalions at Chatham, Colchester, Shorncliff,
Canterbury, and Maidstorte, to hold in readiness detach-
ments
of the undermen'‘ioned corps, the whole of whom
are to euibark. on Salt' day at Gravesend, in the
ship Salamanca, fer conveyance to Bombay, viz, 1 officer
and 6 men of the 3rd Dragoon Guards, 3 men 14th Light
Drag muE'r 21 men Royal Artillery, 1 officer and 105 men
18th Royal. Irish Refit. , 1 officer and 84 men 51st- Light
In,an'ry , 9 men of the 55th, 23 men of the 72nd (Duke of
Alb iro:'s Own) H-ghlanders 12 moo, 83rd 1 officer, and 23
mar. 86th ( '‘oyal County Down), 3 officers and 79 men of
V..e 89th, and 5 men 9801., Stuff Assistant Surgeon Kilroy
from the Gonerel Fort Pitt, Chatham, embarks in medical
charge of the troops, total being 8 officers and 370 non-
cemmissioned officers and privates. The ship was in-
spected on Friday by the Commandant from Chaitham,
Colonel Eden, assisted by Major Gordon, the Brigade
Major.

At the usual dinner of the Commercial Travellers' Agee-
elatii-m, at the London Tavern, on Saturday—Mr. W.
Thackera: in the chair--that gentleman, in the course of his
remarks, saia
I approach the toast of the evening with very great
diffidence, remembem.:7
who have been my last two prods'
cessors in this chair (kr.
Dickens and Sir E. B. Lytton),
and how consummate was e eloquence with which each
of those distinguished men a,..!dressed you. Moreover,
after all that has happened very recently, I feel it needful
for me to be particularly cautious wheiaever I come to anl
meeting in the city which has to do with neeney and mone-
tary affairs. (Hear, and a laugh.) It is se- tom that 1
apppear at all in these regions, unless, indeed, it be occa-
sionally to pay a pleasing visit to Messrs. Bradburev au!,
Evans, in Bouverie-street, or to Messrs Smith and Co.a°'
Cornhill, But I read my paper, like every good Britoil,
and from that I gather a lesson of profound caution in
speaking to mercantile men on subjects of this kind;
Supposing, for instance, that I have shares in the
Bundelcund Banking Company or in the Royal British
Diddlesex Bank, I come down to a meeting of the share-
holders and hear an honoured treasurer and an admirable
president make the most flourishing reports of the state
of our concern, showing to us enormous dividends
accompanied with the most elegant bonuses ; and proving
to us that our funds are invested in the most secare way
at Bogleywallah, Bundelcund, and Brauksea Castle.
(Laughter.) Igo away delighted at the happy prospect
before my wife and family, feeling a perfect confidence
that those innocent beings will be comfortable for the rest
of their lives. What, then, is my horror, when, in one
brief fortnight after, instead of those enormous dividends
and elegant bonuses, I am served with a notice to pay
up a most prodigious sum (laughter) ; when I find that
our estates at Bundelcund and Bogleywallah have been
ravaged by the Bengal tiger ; that the Island of Branksea
under water ; that our respected president is obliged to go
to Spain for the benefit of his health, and our eloquent
treasurer, cannot abide the London fog. (Renewed
laughter.) You see I must be a little careful. But, granted
that the accounts we have here have not, like our dinner,
been subjected to an ingenious culinary process (a laugh)—
granted that you have spent, as I read in your report,
£25,000 in raising a noble school and grounds; that you
have invested another £15,000 in the funds ; that you
have collected around you the happy juvenile feces which
I see smiling on yonder benches, to be the objects of your
honest, Christian kindness ; and that you have achieved
this scheme among yourselves—granting all this to be
true, then, gentlemen. I am your most humble servant,
and no words that I can find can express my enthusiastic
admiration for what you have done, and for the excellent
institution of which you are the hearty patrons and sup-
porters. (Cheers.) I sincerely wish, on behalf of my
own class, the literary profession, that we could boast of
anything as good. I wish that we had an institution to
which we could confide our children, instead of having to
send them about to schoo's as we do, at an awful cost.
When the respected Mr. Elqueers, of Do-the-boys Hall,
announces that he proposes to take a limited number of
pupils—l should rather say a number of very limited pupils
(a laugh)--as it is not because he is in love with the little
dnrlings that he does it, but because he eles'gns to extract
a profit out of them. It always pains me to think of the
profits to be sc awed out of the bellies of the poor
little innocents. Why have we not, as men of letters,
some such association as that which you have got
up ? I appeal to my literary brethren if any of them are
present, whether we. the men of the H-e, cannot emulate
the men of the road ? (sear, hear.) A week ago a friend
engaged in my own profession, making his £l,OOO a-year,
showed me the half-yearly account of his two little boys at
school. These little heroes of six and seven, who are at a
very excellent school, where they are well and comfortably
provided for, come home with a little bill in their pocket
which amounted to the sum of £75 for the half-year-
Now, think of this poor Paeerfamilias earning his moderate
£l,OOO a-year, out of which he has his life assurance, his
income tax, and his house rent to pry, with three or four
poor relations to support—for, doubtless, we are all blessed
with these appendages—(a laugh)—and with the heavy bills
of his wife and daughters for millinery and mantua making,
to meet, especially at their present enormous rates and sizes.
(Renewed laughter.) Think of this over-burdened man
having to pay £75 for one half-year's schooling of his little
boas. (Hear, hear.) Let the gentlemen of the press, then,
try to devise some scheme which shall benefit them,
as you have undoubtedly benefitted by what you
have accomplished for yourselves. I will not allude to
the educatory process through which you put your children,
and which was spoken of last year by the distinguished
man who filled this chair in terms of most just praise,
except to say that you appear to teach the pupils modern
languages, mathematics, music, and the various other
branches of instruction needed to fit them for the en-
counter of life which all are obliged to cuter. We are all
travellers and voyagers who must embark on life's ocean
and before you send your boys to sea you teach them to
swim, to navigate the ship, and guide her into port. The
last time I visited America, two years ago I sailed on board
the Africa, Captain Harrison, an officer who has now re-
ceived a much larger command— the Leviathan ; and all
that I can say is,l heartily wish him and his employers well
out of the " fix." (A. laugh.) The Africa, however, eras
steaming out of Liverpohl one blowy October day, and
was hardly ever the bar, when, animated by those peculiar
sensations not uncommon to landsmen at the commencement
of a sea voyage, I was holding on amidships (a laugh), uP
comes a quick eyed, shrewd looking little man, who holds
on by the next rope to me, and says, Mr. Thackersy, x
am the representative of the house of Appleton and Co',
of Broadway, New York—a most liberal and enterpris-
ing publishing firm, who will be most happy to (10
business with you." I don't know that we then aid
any business in the line thus delicately hinted at,
because at that particular juncture we were both of us,
called, by a heavy lurch of the ship, to a casting up 0'
accounts of a far less agreeable character. (Laughter)
But, gentlemen, there are but few of us who are not
travellers. I parted, to-day, from a net neighbour, and
as famous and intelligent a traveller as any thatl
could
name—l mean Mr. William Howard Russell, the traveller
for a celebrated publishing firm in Priatiug-house-equare.
(" Hear,hear," and a laugh.) We all know how he travelled
three years ago, when he went out for his eraployers
tolinepect the shot and shell and bayonet market of the
Crime?, and *epo.ted on the state of French g•ape at the
Maiakhoff, of British beef at Balaklava, and of Russian
hides at Inkermane. (Cheers and laughter) He is now on
his way to Marseilles. In another month he will be in India,
(cheers), and he will see the shattered gates around which,
the brave engineers died at their duty, and through which
Wilson and his gallant comrades passed over heaps
of enemies, until they reached the Imperial Palace of Delhi,
in which, amid shouts of victory, the health of Qese!
Victoria was drunk. He will see the battered walls throng'
which Havelock and Outram, and lastly, Sir Colin Col'
bell and his relieving army, marched to rescue our women
and children, crushing hosts of foes before them, And
l
finally planting the glorious old flag of England on ruck'
now's walls. (Cheers.) Teat, gentlemen, was a melancholY,
dinner of his yesterday—his Christmas dinner, the last meal
he was to take here at home. Tha little children sat round
the table on that sad evening, and the poor wife must ha!!
gazed at them with a wistful eye. But now the parting is
over, and this day he has taken his first step on his log
journey. Many and many a time in the solitude of tralTi_
iu the loneliness of the desert ; on ship-board at the
morning-watch, when sea and sky are flushed with the
golden sunrise ; or at midnight, amid the rushing water':
and under the stars of God, he will think with inexpres.
siblo tenderness of the dear beings he has left at hole.
(Cheers) But for his children he might have bean among
now, gentlemen, as he was last year. He separates fr°.,,,
,e
".,
them in order to do his duty—in order to toil that they pr.',
be comfortable—in order to earn the means of one
coming back to them, and seeing them growing up
him educated and happy. (Hear, hear.) And you,
_u,
tlemen, in your several degrees, also support toil, privy tioes
travel, and separation, in order to make your young °l'etir
happy; and you commiserate, too, the cause of I'he,
brethren in distress you compassionate the poor and
e'do,
unfortunate, remembering His divine ordinance who ISt..
the little children come unto Him. (Cheers) th®
Tnackeray concluded by giving—" Prosperity
~,t°
Commercial Travellers' S choole." (Drunk amid
applause.)

•
THE WINDERMERE STEAM YACHTS. We are Pilch to
understand that the amalgamation of the two soon. yacthot
companies on Windermere has been so far efDeted as
have merged iato that of a new company, entitled
;
Windermero United Steam Yacht Company,"
the directors of which are empowered and directed to
purchase the steamboats and all other effects of the t7l
existing companies. The ctpital of the new coinPar*
be .£5,783, diviJed into 040 shares £9l 24. 41. each.
great number of shares, we understand, have already beer&
taken.—Lancaster Guardian,
work of
ENGLIHI HISTORY.—The Adtenceum says—
interest to every man of English blood, is ina the prcse,
and will shortly be given to the üblic under the sanctie
of Sir John Romilly. This ,is p
catalogue (compiled 03h!
Mr. T. Duffus Hardy, of the Record Office—a mostcoe
petent and careful scholar) of all existing material; for
close 14!:
History of England front the earliest time ta the final
of the Wars of the Roses on the accession of Henry
ow;
Eighth—the point at which modern history begins. of
expectations are highly raised by what we hare see*
0;
the work—the plan being excellent, and follow
sober euthusiasm, both as to principle and detail.
ed with