The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-29 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

PALACE COURT, Westminster, Friday, Dec. 28.
(Before Mr. W. BRENT BRENT.)
The Court sat for the last time to-day for the
transaction of public business. There were forty
summonses under the Small Debts Act, in which
several commitments were made for non-appearance
and for non-payment. In one case a poor woman
attended for her husband, a stonemason, who was
unable to attend through illness. She stated that her
family were in a state of starvation, adding, that the
last article she had parted with to support her family
was her bed, and she had the duplicate in her pocket
for it.
On the part of the plaintiff, who was stated to be a
tallyman, an order was asked for, not so much with
the view of sending the defendant to prison as to
compel payment of the instalments ordered of 23. 6d.
a week.
The poor woman told the attorney's clerk that if
he gave her Is. it would be a great act of charity.
The Learned JUDGE declined to make an order
against the defendant, and the poxr woman seemed
pleased with the result.
There were no causes tried on the present occasion
—there was no jury summoned, and not one of the
Rltir Learned Counsel appeared. The Court will be
opened pro forma on Monday, and then finally close.

INSOLVENT DEBTORS' COURT, Dec. 28.
(Before Mr. Commissioner PHILLIPS.)
IN RE GEORGE WILLIAM DRUMMOND user.
This insolvent, a young man of twenty-two years
of age, had been a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery,
but was now a prisoner in Whitecross-street Prison.
Mr. Nichols and Mr. Sargood opposed on behalf
of several creditors, and Mr. Dowse supported.
Mr. Collier, a watchmaker, at Dover, complained
that on December 18, 1848, the insolvent had hired a
gold watch and chain of him at the rate of half-a-
crown a week, but had never returned it. At the
same time the insolvent asked the creditor to cash a
draught upon Cox and Greenwood for 101., but he
could only lend 71., which insolvent took, and had
not repaid.
The insolvent upon being examined by Mr.
Necuoes admitted that there were many creditors in
the schedule for dishonoured cheques, upon which they
had advanced money. He had accepted several bills
of exchange, which had been discounted, and in part
payment of one of these bills he had received a set of
shirt studs, valued et sixty-six guineas. His commis-
sion in the Royal Artillery had been forfeited in con-
sequence of his being absent without leave.
Mr. Harborough, hosier, of Cockspur-street, said
the insolvent owed him 211. 16s. for goods supplied
between August, 1847, and January, 1849. He
would not have trusted the insolvent had he known
at the time that he was so much in debt.
Mr. Cater, army-cap-manufacturer, of Pall-mall,
stated that on November 29, 1848, the insolvent
called upon aim, and after ordering an undress cap
asked him to cash an order upon his agents, which he
did not want presented until Dec. 1, as he was short
of money and wanted to leave town directly. Wit-
ness gave the insolvent 141, the amount of the order,
but the latter was never paid.
The insolvent was then examined by Mr. SARGOOD
—He said that when he gave the order upon Cox and
Co. to Mr. Cater his account was overdrawn. He
still owed his agents a balance of 15/. He supposed
that he might have twelve creditors in his schedule
for clothing supplied. (Mr. Sargood said they were
eighteen in number.) lie believed there might be
eighteen creditors for borrowed money, whose
debts altogether might amount to 2001. He
owed a dressing-case maker 42/. for a dressing-
case costing 201. ; a dispatch box, 101. 10s.,
and one or two other articles. Those articles were
now in the possession of Mr. Eustace Murray,
a graduate at Magdalen College, Oxford, to whom
he had handed them on account of 23/. which
that gentleman had lent him and paid for him.
Mr. Wilkinson, a creditor in the schedule, cashed
an order upon Cox and Co. for 101. in
April last. At that time his account with his agents
was overdrawn. He wanted that money to pay the
rent of a lady at Brompton. He owed one creditor
16/. for cigars, to whom he had previously paid 45/.
Mr. Commissioner PHILLIPS observed that it was
impossible to look at the schedule without being con-
vinced of the utter recklessness of the insol-
vent's condsact, which was only mitigated by the
excuse—a poor one—of hie youth.
Mr. SARGOOD said, the corps to which the insolvent
had belonged was the one in the British army which
presented itself most rarely to this court.
In reply to Mr. Dowse, the insolvent said he re-
ceived his commission in July, 1846, at which time
he was between 18 :and 19 years of age. Some few
of the debts in the schedule were contracted while he
was under age, but not many. At the time he gave
the cheque to Mr. Collier he had not received his
accounts from his agents. He knew he had over-
drawn his account, but did not know that he had
done so so largely as it appeared ; and he believed
that Messrs. Cox would have paid Mr. Collier's
cheque, as they had already allowed him to over-
draw. Soon after hiring the watch and chain from
Mr. Collier he came to London, and iu a scuffle in
the streets at one o'clock in the morning, the watch
was drawn out of his pocket, thrown down, trodden
on, and broken to pieces. The remains he gave away,
there and then, to a woman who was standing by. To
some of the creditors he had paid money, but to
many he had not. He did not remember ever being
questioned by any tradesman about his circumstances.
When he entered the Royal Artillery, in addition to
his pay of 124/. a year, he received presents from his
friends ; but these latter had been discontinued during
the last year and a half on account of his extrava-
gance. He had been in prison since May, and had
received very little assistance from his relatives. He
had received 8/. from his late brother officers at
Woolwich.
The insolvent's uncle was called to prove that the
insolvent had a reversionary interest in some property
under his father's marriage settlement. His father
was the late Mr. D. Hay, Consul at Morocco.
Mr. NICHOLS addressed the Court, and said the
insolvent's conduct had been in startling contrast to
that usually pursued by the officers of the gallant
corps to which he had recently belonged—a corps
whose members scarcely ever appeared in this court
—a fact which reflected as much honour upon them
as gentlemen as their efficiency in the art of war con-
ferred upon them as soldiers. The Learned Counsel
submitted that the insolvent had been guilty of the
grossest extravagance, and had contracted all his debts
without any expectation of paying them, the debt of
Mr. Collier in particular having been contracted with
fraud.

Mr. SARGooD felt that the youth and inexperience
of the insolvent would be a great extenuation if the
debts had the simple character of extravagance, or if
there were any evidence of his simplicity having been
practised upon by clever knaves, but the history
disclosed by the schedule told a different tale—that
the insolvent had evinced great tact and actual fraud
in obtaining the means to pursue his reckless career.
Mr. DOWSE admitted the imprudence and the reck-
lessness of the insolvent, but urged that his extreme
youth must be taken as a great mitigation for his
indiscretions. When he joined his corps he was, be-
sides his pay, in the receipt of an allowance from his
friends, which he considered would be continued.
Those friends had paid his debts more than twice
before, and the insolvent hoped that they would do so
again. It was this expectation that had, perhaps,
induced him foolishly to incur the present debts. The
insolvent had been guilty of folly, but he had been
more than six months in prison, and he (the Learned
Counsel) hoped that that detention would be held a
sufficient punishment, and spare the Court the neces-
sity of pronouncing a remand.
Mr. Commissioner Primaps said the case was an
extremely painful one. It was quite impossible for
any one, himself a father, to look upon the young
man before the Court without feeling sorrow.
Such feelings, however, could not be allowed to
intercept the course of public justice, and although
he might regret the appearance in this court of a
young man at the outset of life in the station of
a gentleman, yet that sentiment was mitigated by
the circumstance that his appearance here was en-
tirely his own fault. He (Mr. Commissioner Phillips)
always considered in these cases whether the debt had
been incurred by the solicitation of the creditors, be•
cause where such was the case he would never for a
moment listen to the creditors' complaint, unless
the insolvent's conduct had been tainted with fraud.
Here, however, no such facts had been proved. It
was not averred by the insolvent that he had been
induced to incur these debts through the importuni-
ties of the creditors. The insolvent had arrived at a
period of life when the law declared him able to
manage his own affairs ; he had entered a respectable
corps, and was in possession of a sufficient in-
come to maintain himself respectably in society.
This was the case of a young man soliciting money
in every quarter, a young man utterly reckless in
his expenditure, perfectly indifferent as to his means
of repayment, and whose schedule presented
itself covered with the most frightful extrava-
gance, in debt to every species of tradesman. In
the oourse of eighteen months he bad incurred bon&
fide consideration debts to the extent of 1,0111. Ho,
was it possible such conduct could be excused ? He
(the Commissioner) would be altogether neglecting
his duty to society, and to the creditors, who appeared
to be in nowise to blame—he should be neglecting
the duty imposed upon him by the Act of Parliament,
were he to shut his eyes to such delinquency. The
insolvent not only had no expectation of being able to
pay the debts, but seemed to have been utterly care-
less about paying them at all. His friends had twice
before paid his debts, so that he had in fact been
twice before insolvent, and yet when the generosity
of his friends had been compelled to cease, he persisted
in continuing the same careless system of extrava-
gance. Taking all the circumstances of the case into
consideration, he felt bound
-to award to the insolvent