The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-10 00:00:00

tionate claim, and goes to prison rather than do so.
So that a respectable little home is completely
broken up—the husband loses his situation, and
the wife is left to shift as she can, and to rue her
imprudence and love of finery. Such is not by
any means an isolated case, for the same gentleman
adds—" You can have no idea of the extent to
which the system is carried on in the north of
England; sometimes we have 50 cases in one day
of this kind. Another system which produces much
the same results, though in a different manner, is
the establishment of sales by auction of all sorts of
articles, where the gcods are sold on nine months'
credit with a surety. The auctioneer, who is often
attorney or his clerk, discounts the sale of an imme-
diate payment to the vendor, whereby the right to
sue is transferred to the purchaser of the sale
moneys,land the consequence is that nearly half the
business of the county courts in certain counties is
supplied by this auction system. It is certainly
high time that the Legislature stepped in to remedy
these abuses, and even in less oppressive cases the
blame of the debt, as Lord WESTBURY pointed out,
often rests quite as much with the debtor. No
tradesman is justified in giving credit, when he
knows his debtor is not likely to be able to pay
him, unless he is willing to take the risk. To give
credit for the sake of entrapping the debtor into
toils from which he cannot escape, with a view to
profiting by his difficulties, is a more dishonest pro-
ceeding than recklessly incurring debt. The real
secret of the credit system is that the debtor has
usually to pay 30 or 40 per cent. above the actual
value, and its evil effects are innumerable. It en-
courages the labouring man in those habits of im-
providence and self indulgence to which he is
always too prone, and the first time that he
gets into the County Court he is obliged to increase
his liabilities elsewhere to meet the instalments,
so that matters go from bad to worse. One very
excellent clause in Lord WESTBURY'S measure sti-
pulates that no action shall be or judgment be given
for any score for beer consumed on the premises of
an alehouse or beershop. This will be a great pro.
tection to the labouring man against the cupidity
of tavernkeepers, ;and will remove a formidable
temptation out of his way. The Chancellor pro-
poses to abrogate entirely the judge's power to im-
prison a debtor who has the ability to pay, and
power to imprison is given in cases of fraud or false
pretences, but only under certain limits, and once
for all as Lord WESTBURY expressed it. The judge,
instead of being as at present obliged to confine his
attention to the case before him, is to be enabled to
inquire into the whole state of the debtor's affairs,
to bring before him all the creditors and to arrange
that the sum fixed to be paid shall be paid into
court, to be divided equally among them, so that
henceforward, should this bill become law, the poor
man will have a chance of being. extricated from
his embarrassments, however complicated, instead
of as at present being liable to repeated terms of
imprisonment at the mercy of the County Court
Law or an unscrupulous creditor. Instead of in-
creasing the sums lost by bad debts, this measure
will most probably reduce them very considerably,
as is proved by the contrast afforded by the me-
chanics of the Enfield Rifle Establishment and the
soldiers at Colchester. A County Court Judge states
that while numerous cases from the former are
constantly coming before him he scarcely remem-
bers to have seen a single private or non-commis-
sioned officer. 'The only reason he can give for this
difference is that the publicans and other trades
will not allow gym to run deeply into debt, know-
ing they cannot imprison them. One very im-
portant alteration to be made by the Chancellor's
Dill is the investiture of the County Court Sudge
with summary equitable jarisdiction to be adminii-
tered without delay or cumbrous forms. This will
supply a great want, for although the County Court
system hes been satirically termed " petty Chan-
cery," it is really incompetent to deal with equity
cases, so that a disputed matter coming under that
head is virtually left without a means of settlement;
for, as the Lord Caancellor very truly said, the
Court of Chancery, even in its improved condition,
it a machine totally incapable of dealing with pro-
perty of a small amount. He gave as instance the
case of £lOO left to be divided amongst relations,
and of a quarrel between partners in a small coun-
try business—both instances in which the cum-
brous machinery of his own court would be altoge-
ther out of place. Yet such cases constantly arise
for settlement. The Bill also undertakes to provide
against the abuse of the power of resorting to the
process of superior courts of law—a power which is
now often used for purposes of extortion. Altoge-
ther this is certainly an important step in the right
direction, and tends towards the great object of
making the law as simple, clear, and prompt, and
economical for C 1 classes as it can possibly be ren-
dered without defeating the ends of justice.

The valuable services rendercd by the Cotton
Supply Association in encouraging and promoting
the culture of the cotton plent in many new locali-
ties, besides stimulating it in the old quarters, has
long been generally felt. Au association of this
kind is able easy to accomplish what many are glad
to see done, but cannot easily do alone. It is able
to command some degree of official attention and
assistance, and to carry out in a consistent and
businesslike manner many views and theories,
which, if propounded by a private individual,would
be contradicted or disregarded. It receives a full
account of the progress of the crops, the capabili-

ties of climate, soil, and population in each respec-
tive quarter, and by its timely grants of end and
gifts of machinery, &e., it affords every opportunity
to enterprise and industry. It is highly satis-
factory to find that in many places the Governments
pereeive the importance of th® trade and encourage
the people to attempt the cotton culture. Ita others
the populace themselves are excited by the newa of
neighbouring successes, such as has been the case iv
Jaffa, where the success of the cotton planters last
year has filled the whole place with excitement and
emulation. High prices were obtained for the
crop of last season, and everything seems to indi-
cate an equally agreable result this year. An
English ship has lately taken from Jaffa 1,400 bales
of 3 ewt. each. Such being the freight of only one
vessel, we may readily imagine that the cotton crop
has proved most satisfactory to its planters in that
quarter. From India the news is only confirmatory
of the gradually dawning opinion that she will
hereafter become, in a great measure, our prin-
cipal source of supply. One correspondent
of the Association sends a sample of cotton grown
in India by a European near Kandeish, which
he states was obtained from ground prepared in the
usual manner, excepting that, instead of merely
scratching the surface, it was turned up to a depth
of 8 inches. The yield of cotton was 2251 b. per
begeh, which is reckoned at about two-thirds of an
English acre. This cultivator is very enterprising,
for he has 400 acres of the same land ploughed for
cotton next season, as well as 1,000 acres cleared,
Another gentleman, writing from Calcutta, asserts
that the trespass of cattle interferes very much with
the cotton cultivation in Bengal. He asks for an
act to protect it from this drawback, which applica-
tion it would be well to regard, since anything that
puts hindrances in the way of the great experiment,
or tends to disgust the indolent 'Endo° with the
attempt, is a very serious evil, Alexandria has