The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-19 00:00:00

When the master shipwright of Portsmouth stated
that the bolts were short he did not mean they were
short in number, but that they were cut too short.
It was possible that the workmen might cut them
afterwards, and a piece of bolt was worth 6d. to ls.,
but he was more inclined to believe that the driving
ofthe short bolts resulted from carelessness. At the
same time he might say that men were constantly
stealing pieces of copper which were lying about.
Some of them were detected, and punished by im-
prisonment. He was employed for the sole purpose
of seeing that there was good workmanship and
good materials used in the construction of the boats;
but it was impossible for him to be present night
and day at every one of the boats inspecting every
bit of work as it was being done. Some men were
dismissed for bad work at his suggestion, but he
had to be very careful how he made too many ex-
amples, because there was great danger that if he
did 'all the men would leave. The shipbuilders
were obliged to humour them a great deal. He was
aware that the men in her Majesty's dockyards were
not allowed to use sappy timber. Maiden sap is the
sap next to the heart of the tree, and the whine part,
• the outer sap, was not so valuable. The two saps
were the outer case of the heart. He had time to see
the nature of the wood which was used when he was

there, and if he had found out that anything wrong
he would have directed more foremen to have
been put on the particular vessel ; but he• fancied
all was going on right. He was obliged several
times to be absent at Woolwich, and therefore could
not inspect the work as it went on. If he had seen
any sappy wood being used he should have ordered
it to have been taken off. (Apiece of wood was here
shown to witness with maiden sap on it, which, he
said, he should have ordered to be cut off.) He was
not aware that that wood formed part of a vessel
which had been 21 voyages to India ' . but he wos
not much surprised at it, for he had known such
wood to be in good condition after 30 or even 40
years.
The committee then adjourned.

TIER NEW 8.4 NKR UP TCY BILL-
TRADERS AND NON-TRADERS.

Perhaps we do outspend ourselves a little, but
we end by paying our just debts. It does seem .a
little hard, in a country where the system of deal-
ing upon credit prevails so extensively, that an y
man who owes another £2O should be liable to

be made a bankrupt unless he can satisfy some
judge or another that he is actually in a solvent
condition. No doubt the Attorney-General who
in his new Bankruptcy Bill obliterates the old
line which separated the trader from the non-
trader, simply considered _ the provision with

regard to the status of the trader. An enor-
mous proportion of the community, however,
is not engaged in trade at all. In this very

town of London, where the rule of half-yearly pay-
ments mainly prevails in the dealings between
private customers and tradesmen, it is to bedoubted
if there is any household of moderate position
which does not owe £2O in more than one quarter.

Felix qui potuit—happy is the man who does no
owe £2O to his wine-merchant, or his tailor, or his
corn dealer, or his butcher or baker, or to his wife's
milliner, or the last half-year's little account for
his son to the College tutor or schoolmaster. We
end by paying up at last ; but how many families
are there which could leave London to-morrow
simply by getting in and discharging their last
week's bills? Of course, it would be better if this
were otherwise, if families never anticipated income,
and if the dealings of the country could be reduced
to a ready-money system. But it is not so. The
system of dealing on credit is far too deeply rooted
in the habits of the people to admit of cure by the
introduction of a summary remedy for debt. Like
all laws which militate against the customs and
wishes of a nation such an enactment would either
be evaded or abused. If it is to be evaded, why
introduce it at all,—for to enact laws without
serious purpose is to bring laws into discredit? If
it is to be abused, why sacrifice one class of the
community to another ? Look at the laws
against smugglers,—what was the use of them ?
Look at the Maine Liquor Law, —is not
that constantly evaded in the country where
it nominally prevails ? So it. must always be.
There is no use in contending with the will of the
majority, who will in the long run trample
under their feet any legal enactment which has not
their full and hearty assent. There can be no
doubt in this case as to what the feelings and
opinions of the debtor class will be; but will the
class of creditors be at all more satisfied ? Through-
out the kingdom, and in London more especially,
the tradesmen are ever anxious to thrust credit
upon any family which is supposed to be in a sol-
vent condition. The difficulty is to get your bills
in. Every one who has triod it must know what
an amount of sternness and resolution it requires
to induce the ordinary tradesmen who serve a
household to send in monthly, and a fortiori, weekly
books. The thing can be done, and with a little
ready money and a great deal of firmness you may
succeed in eliminating the element of credit from
your life, but the tradesman will not be much
obliged to you for your pains. From the very
earliest moment when a young man enters upon
life he is pursued by the spectre of Credit. What
pleasant songs the softly-breathing syren whispers
into the ears of a youth who has just gone up to
one or other of the Universities ! When he marries
and furnishes his house, save in the case of the
happy individuals who begin the world upon a good
store of realised capital, he does it upon credit, and
is very fortunate if in the course of three or four
years he has discharged the debt. When you
die, all the undertaker's fondest hopes will be
crowned if he gets a good order out of your
representatives, and positively the poor dead
Briton runs in debt for his coffin. There
is, however, some comfort in the thought
that one will then be out of the jurisdic-
tion. Fiats, declarations, and summary remedies
will vex. the unfortunate no more.
It is well the Attorney-General has declared that
he does not consider the maintenance of this prin-
ciple in its integrity as essential to the bill which
he has introduced. The bill is in most respects an
excellent one as far as concerns the trading classes,
and, in point of fact, embodies most of the provi-
sions for which they have been struggling for years.
There is the more reason why it should be purged
of all blemishes and adapted in all respects to the
wants and habits of the community. If we come
to consider and count up the many attempts which
have been made within the last few years to bring
this subject of the bankruptcy Law into shape, we
must be thankless indeed if we do not recognise the
merits of the Attorney-General in this matter. We
acknowledge freely that if he endows the country
with a good Bankruptcy Code he will have rendered
no inconsiderable service to the public. The whole
system had got into such inextricable confusion
that the commercial classes in the long run had
made up their minds to settle their affairs in all
important cases without invoking the assistance of
the Court at all. Under these circumstances,
and when the commercial community had fairly
explained their views, it seemed a great thing that
the acutest lawyer in the country should take them
up and embody them into law. Sir Richard
Bethell will have done well, even when he has
availed himself of the friendly criticism of the
House of Commons. Certainly, neither Mr. Henley,
nor Sir H. Cairns, nor Sir F. Kelly attacked the
bill on Monday night in a hostile spirit, when they
urged upon Sir Richard Bethell the necessity of
still maintaining in certain respects the distinction
between the trader and the non trader. Let them
all pass under one Bankruptcy axe at last—at least,
those who have violated the law—but let there be
different forms of liability to the jurisdiction. Why,
if this measure had passed into law, any one of us
who was absent from the country on his summer
trip of six weeks might have been adjudged a bank-
rupt. This provision may apply well enough to
traders, who, by the very conditions of business, are
bound. to be always at their post, and always ready
to give satisfaction to their creditors. But as ap-
plied to private individuals not in trade the rule
would be preposterous. There is also another clause
which would be productive of monstrous injustice to
non-traders (Section 173), unless it were hedged
round with various conditions and safeguards ; and
that is the one which assigns limits of time within
which the debtor must appear and give answer. A
creditor by this section may file an affidavit in a
district Court against a debtor, and thereupon the
Court may issue a summons to the debtor to show
cause why he should not be adjudged a bankrupt.
This summons is to be returnable within four
days from the date of issue. The
upshot , of
the whole matter is, that if any man owes another
£2O he may be made a bankrupt in a sum-
mary way within four days. It is admissible
that a trader is at all times bound to be prepared
against his liabilities. A flaw of £2O in the case
of such an one is like the error of a farthing in his
as private
balance-sheet—it may show that he is all wrong-....
at least, it shows that he is bound to prove himself
we are
our dealing
hoenanlidngt
right. But with persons not in
dtrade it is net so.
eeeosmtp
eet
ceo
atiahl
ylel
for dWerbet , asis.'eh isc•ul
ilr•ildieiveiqduoiatlasbiles cnoontditthioant
usual leesel proceedings
Courts--are
our liabilities instantly. We
nheadlawrii
sstiiiiicleigtehnet
einnostnigtuht.ion of the County
It is only right to add that the landed proprietors
seems to have tsainikepnlyacsonnicuerc
people 11thastrath4smsnleiail'sl
bills. The :and is heavily ni t • "
er 'ean•ed indeed and
laden with charges of all kind sb bi
• hthe
holder of the land in a position which leave .
f immediate lia-
bility if the creditors or persons o •
beneficially inte-
rested choose to enforce their absolute rights. Is
it fair to put such a weapon as this 173 d section in