The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-29 00:00:00

LITLRATURE.

TILE PRACTICE OF IN SOLVENCY AND
SUJfMOZiSES FOR DEBT, as Transferred to the
County Courts and the ('curl for the Relit! (!f In •
soleeLt Debtors. By John Japoe, Esq., Barrister-
at- law.

In The Sun of the 28th of June last we noticed
the third edition of Jagoe's Practice of the County
Courts." The favourable manner in which that work
has been received proves that we did not over-estimate
the importance of the subject, or the ability with
which it was treated by Mr. Jagoe. 'We have now
belbre us, by the same author, " The Practice of In-
solvency and Debt." The subject of this work, under
my circumstances, is a difficult one to treat of, and
particularly so in the present instance. It must be
in the recollection of our readers, that a Bill was in-
troduced into the House of Lords during the last
session of Parliament by the Lord Chancellor and
Lord Brougham, to abolish the Court of Review and
to alter the jurisdiction of the Courts of Bankruptcy.
While this Bill was passing through Parliament it
met with much opposition, and both in and out of
the House was designated as a piece of patchwork
legislation that would turn out a decided failure.
[he judges of the County Courts, many of them
unlearned in the law, and the remainder occu-
pied in paying flying visits from the favourite
locality of their practice to the districts of their
judicial duties, had little time to spare for
construing Acts of Parliament which in this case
presented any but an easy or pleasing duty, and
we are warranted in asserting that the country,
so far as the practice under the Acts is con-
cerned, the subject of this work, has been in
a state of ignorance. Mr. Jagoe, in bringing out
this work, laboured under the disadvantage of
being the first writer on the subject, and to judge
from the number of rules and forms he had to draw
his materials from, the labour must have been consi-
derable in selecting from such resources. This com-
prehensive practice, which not only treats of how the
courts should be constituted, the duties of the officers,
and the manner of conducting the business, but fully
directs how the property of insolvents should be
managed, to secure the safety of those estates from
the first form of letter of payment to the dividend
warrant, is given, and many of those forms are pre-
pared to be signed in duplicate and triplicate, so that
creditors have little to apprehend that the estates
vested for their benefit will be wasted. In the entire
of the Acts Mr. Jagoe notices but one omission, that
of neglecting to supply an officer to perform the
duties of the accountant in bankruptcy, but even for
that he suggests a remedy, viz., "that the treasurer
of the county court should perform those duties,"
and he shows that the Lord Chancellor may make an
order to appoint him, or any other person to whose
credit the proceeds of insolvents' estates may he
lodged, without a new enactment. As a work of
practice, few books have come under our notice more
perfect; it is arranged in a manner that must afford
great facilities of reference to the profession in court.
It supplies the officers with all the forms which they
require; and it so completely simplifies those Acts,
that if the Government or Lord Brougham should be
again taunted with being the authors of patchwork
legislation, they would only have to reply, " Read
Mr. Jagoe's work." By these works Mr. Jagoe has
attained for himself the character of a first-rate legal
writer, an industrious collector of materials, and a
clear-headed and intelligent commentator. As they
say that a person who is once inoculated with the
mania .ccribendi never wholly gets rid of the passion,
or abandons the pursuit, we shall confidently look
forward for many other valuable results of Mr.
Jagoe's research and industry. It would be an in-
justice to pass without notice the copious and well-
arranged index, affording the greatest facility for re-
ference, the importance of which every lawyer is so
well aware of, as to consider it the most essential and
indispensable requisite of every legal publication.