The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-22 00:00:00

upon both sides have felt perfectly secure that
this time there would really and truly be " no mis-
take" in the matter, but that the session would not
come to an end before a most salubrious and
sweeping measure of reform had cleared away a
thousand anomalies and countless abuses from the
laws relating to Bankruptcy and Insolvency.
Parliament is now only in its third week, this
present Friday is only the seventeenth day since the
session of 1861 commenced, and already Sr R.
BETHELL'S new Bankruptcy Bill has advanced far
on its way to the moment when it shall be formally
enrolled upon the Statute Book as a substantial
enactment. Laid upon the table of the House by
its author and introducer, the Attorney-General—
read (pro forma and as a matter of course) a first
time--read (not simply as a matter of course, but
I really in consideration of its many great and ob-
vious merits) a second time—it has now already
made good the chief part of its way through Com-
mittee. As affording a token of how much in
1 earnest the Attorney-General is, the Cabinet is,
the House is, in advancing this great law reform in
regard to Bankruptcy and Insolvency, it is only neces -
nary to glance at the progress the measure made in
Committee last evening. Clause after clause from
the 51st to the 117th was passed—sixty•seven
clauses in all—sixty-seven clauses (every one of
them of more or less importance) in the course of
one sitting ! And amongst these sixty-seven clauses
—clause 81 !—that just and admirable clause which
secures the assimilation henceforth of traders and
non-traders, subjecting both to the provisions of
the new act of Bankruptcy. Vainly yesterday
did Sir GEORGE BOWYER propose the postpone-
ment of this clause upon the plea of its being one
involving as, in point of fact, almost
every individual clause in the whole of
the ATTORNEY-GENERAL'S Bill unquestionably
does involve to a greater or lesser degree " very
important principles of jurisprudence." Vainly
did Colonel DUNNE urge that this clause (so pecu-
liarly obnoxious to some overweening sticklers for
the maintenance of what is called the landed inte-
rest) should be set aside for the time until the Com-
mittee should have received an explanation from
those whose feelings towards the landed interest
they could trust. Clause 81 was passed inexorably
through Committee, nevertheless, notwithstand-
ing! And so too was the next one, clause 82, the one
relating more particularly to an act of bankruptcy
by a non-trader--Sir HUGH CAIRNS vainly opening
the artillery of his legal arguments upon it in
formidable opposition. One after another the
objections raised against this clause were dissipated
by the logic of the Attorney-General. How effec-
tually—one clause selected haphazard will suffice
to indicate. Take, for example, the specious and
ingenious objection raised by Mr. SEYMOUR FITZ-
GERALD, thus succinctly recapitulated, and after-
wards summarily disposed of by Sir RICHARD
BETHELL : who observed, " His right hon. friend
the member for Horsham had said that it would
be quite sufficient for a creditor to swear an affidavit
that he believed his creditor to be going or re-
maining abroad to defeat or:delay his creditors, and
that the bare expression of that belief would entitle
the creditor to an adjudication in bankruptcy. He
begged to assure his right hon. friend that he had
been misinformed, and that in truth there was no
instance of any tribunal having arrived at such a
conclusion from any such premises ; for every court
would require some proof, by an overt act, of the
malus animus of the individual in going abroad.
There was nothing in the English law so monstrous
as that of the bare belief of the creditor entitling
him to adopt such a proceeding." Henceforth,
therefore, traders and non-traders, being assimi-
lated, as they ought in reason long since to have
been assimilated, we may presume that the old,
delightful, but discreditable system of levant-
ing will go out of fashion as completely, let us
say, as duelling or hair-powder. The " Gentleman
of England who live at home at ease," and not only
at ease, but with honour to themselves, with advan-
tage to all around them—will not have, henceforth,
to be contrasted with the Gentlemen-Vagabonds of
England who live abroad in luxury to their own
infamy and to the ruin of the unfortunate creditors
from whom they have escaped. It goes well then,
obviously, with the new Bankruptcy Bill, every.
thing considered. Clause 81 and clause 82 having
been passed, the worst dangers also have been
passed by the growing enactment. And we shall
soon have, doubtless, the opportunity of witness-
ing it so powerfully borne up on that strong
wave of Public Opinion (wittily spoken of by Lord
JOHN RUSSELL when alluding to the only rea-
sonable prospect there can ever exist of a new
Reform Bill) that it may be safely carried over
the Bar of the House of Lords. However else this
session may be wasted, it is not likely to be wasted
(thanks to Sir RICHARD BETHELL) in respect to
the national hope of a comprehensive reform in
the law of Bankruptcy.

The reply of Lord JOHN RUSSELL to Lord E.
HOWARD last night, in reference to cruelties
said to have been perpetrated by the Sardinian
army, shows strongly the mischievous results of
French intervention both at Gaeta and at Rome.
Every one who sifted, as he best could, the accounts
which appeared in the papers from time to time,
had little doubt that bands of brigands—furnished
with the means of doing it from Gaeta while the
French fleet protected the place, and from Rome,
notwithstanding French troops occupied the city
and its territory—stole across the borders of the
Papal domains, and in larger or smaller bands per-
petrated all kinds of outrages in the name of
"Royalist reaction." The policy was much of a
piece with that which, when the country welcomed
GARIBALDI with oi en arms, turned loose upon it
all the scum of the prisons, as a parting blessing.
There can be no doubt of the correctness of our
Foreign Secretary's statements; in addition to the
sources of information open to every one, he has
the responsible servants of the country in Italy,
and the counter statement of the servants of the
ex-King of NAPLES and of the King of SARDINIA,
to compare, and we must, therefore, believe that
what had been previously accepted as fact, was
really so. As his Lordship observed, to preach
humanity to the Sardinian Government in dealing
with villains who could put out men's eyes and
roast them to death before their own fire, would be
to insult them. All trustworthy narratives shew
that the army of the King of SARDINIA has been
as moderate in victory as brave in conflict. But
these hired villains of Cardinal ANTONELLI and
FRANCIS 11. are infinitely worse wretches than the
Chinese murderers of their unfortunate priso-
ners ; since, apart from the treachery in which
ANTON ELLI'S Own would not suffer by comparison,
the Chinese after all did but treat our brave men
as they would have treated their own prisoners.
Lord JOHN RUSSELL says that encouragement
still continues to be given to these brigands. We
can believe anything of the butchers of Perugia ;
but the question is how long will Lours NAPOLEON
persist in making himself responsible for these dis-
gusting outrages ? While relieved from fear by
the presence of French soldiers, the POPE, or rather
ANTONELLI, to whom he seems to have sold him-
self, will,
in spite and malice against the King of
ITALY, encourage these wicked disturbances.