The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-07 00:00:00

(From the Morning Post.)

The increasing unpopularity of the Courts of
Bankruptcy is notorious. Each succeeding Gazette
bears testimony to it. As for the district courts,
they will Wad have a holiday the whole year round.
So far from being all work and no play with their
rustic honours, it will be soon all play and no work.
Nor are matters in Basinghall-street much more
promising. Punch's lively representation of the
judges playing at shuttlecock may, so far as leisure
is concerned, be speedily realised there. But the
interests of commissioners, and of official assignees
and messengers, are far from being identical.
" What's sport to you is death to us." The com-
missioners, secure of their quarter's salary, may
smile at the diminishing bankruptcy column of the
Gazette. In their eyes it may be growing " beau-
tifully less ;" but with official assignees, messen-
gers, and those subordinates who live upon the
wrecks of ruined traders, and who are paid by per
tentage—whose perquisites, like those who strip
the slain on the battle field, are in proportion to the
havoc—with these functionaries things are assum-
ing a serious aspect.

In turning over the pages of one of those pon-
derous blue-books in which so many useful facts are
entombed, we happened to light upon a piece of
evidence given by Mr. Miller, the gentleman who
drew up the Bankruptcy Consolidation Act, and
whose testimony may be relied upon. Having
been asked by the chairman of the Commons' Com-
mittee on Bankruptcy, if official assignees would
not prefer a fixed salary, with some additional per
tentage, to the existing mode of remuneration, he
replied, " No; they have been questioned on the
subject, and all refused; they preferred the present
lottery system." That, no doubt, was the case in
1848 ; but that was just after the panic, which was
as beneficial to official assignees as an epidemic to
physicians. They would now, probably, in the
hackneyed language of the poet, exclaim, " Tem-
pera mutantur nos et mutamur in illis !" By way
of making things better for them, their charges have,
by the New Rules and Orders, been aggravated.
The public complained of the monstrous expenses
of bankruptcy, and their complaints were met by
an increased scale of fees. The authorities else-
where acted very differently. Look at the new
scale of fees in the common law courts, and see the
reductions which have taken place in Chancery.
But bankruptcies decline ; therefore, let the credi-
tors under those which come in be more heavily
mulcted—about as good policy as the landlord who
would raise the rents of his farms because his
tenants were leaving them.

" My lords," said the late Lord Chancellor, in
his speech on law reform on the 16th of November
last, " I have been anxiously inquiring what can
be the reason why the business in the Court of
Bankruptcy has fallen off, especially when I find
that the fees received in respect of business
in that court are insufficient to meet the ex-
pense,." The unfortunate creditors who find
the assets of their debtor absorbed by official
assignees, messengers, brokers, accountants, de-
cayed or decaying commissioners, &c.,
could answer the question with great force and
simplicity. They complain of a scanty dividend,
and they are comforted with the assurance that the
bankrupt's books were very voluminous, that it
was necessary to raise a " supplemental ledger,"
and that the accountant's charge alone was 601. or
801.
Let us not be understood as saying one word
against official assignees personally. They are a
respectable, clever, painstaking, and at present,
we believe, a very ill-paid body. The truth is,
the present system is radically bad. We have fre-
quently pointed out its gross anomalies, and the
grievous injustice it inflicts ; the only remedy is its
entire remodelling, or its complete destruction„and
the transfer of its jurisdiction to a tribunal whose
constitution is more in accordance with the require-
ments of a commercial nation—a tribunal whose
machinery would be less complicated and expen-
sive, which would deserve and obtain the confi-
dence of the mercantile public.
Vf eot a.
there g
al ando
ittoi
np eorfc et ihveep t
t satr Lord Brougham's
gha '
bill c t Courts o
order-book erb
to be able
Bank-
ruptcy, and the transfer of their jurisdictionroo otfo the
county courts, stands upon the
pleased
House of Lords • and still more
to announce that it is the intention
In reply to
law reformer to persevere with it. of the veteran
, one of the county
in-
quiries addressed by that noble and learned lord
to Mr. Arthur James Johnes
court judges, that gentlemaLtom a letter published
in the last number of the Review,
states his
reasons why it_ is expedient to transfer to the