The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-24 00:00:00

1831, and a G.C.H. on the 9th December, 1834, and ad-
vanced to flag rank on the 23d November, 1841. He
filled a seat at the Board of Admiralty from September,
1841, until appointed, cn the 14th May, 1844, com-
mander-in-chief in tho Pacific. He sailed for that
station wits his flag in the Coiling wood, 80, and conti-
nued there until relieved in 1848 by Rear-Admiral
Phipps Hornby.
" Sir George married, in Mara, 1811, Georgina
Mary, second daughter of the late Admiral Hon. Sir
George Cranfield Berkeley, G.C.8., by whom he has
issue three sons and five daughtsrs."

LAW INTELLIGENCE.
COURT OF BANKRUPTCY, Dec. 23.
(Before Mr. Commissioner lioutoYD.)

THE DARTFORD SAYINGS BANK, IN RE J. JARDINE.
The case of this bankrupt has been repeatedly re-
ported in our journal. His Honour to-day gave
judgment on the question of certificate as follows :
This is an application by the bankrupt for his certifi-
cate. I deferred giving judgment in Order to make
inquiry as to the particulars of a case of "Ex parte
Wakefield" (not yet reported), decided by his Honour
Vice-Chancellor Sir J. L. Knight Bruce, on an ap-
peal from a decision of Mr. Commissioner Balguy.
The gentleman who reports the cases in bankruptcy
before the Vice-Chancellor informs me that the case
of ‘• Ex parte Wakefield" was decided solely upon
the construction of the words "conduct as a trader,"
in the 198th section of the Bankrupt Law Consolida-
tion Act (12th and 13th Viet., c. 106), and that the
Vice-Chancellor held that the misappropriation of trust
money by the bankrupt, by using it in his own trad-
ing speculations,was not such conduct as the Legislature
directed to be regarded by the words " conduct as a
trader." The 256th section of the Bankrupt Law Con-
solidation Act was not brought under the considera-
tion of the Vice-Chancellor in "Ex parte Wakefield."
The Court is required by that section of the Act to
refuse or suspend the certificate if it shall appear
that the bankrupt has committed any of the offences
therein enumerated ; one of these offences (the third)
is—" If the bankrupt shall have contracted any of his
debts by any manner of fraud." The bankrupt
(Jardine) is charged with having contracted a large
amount of debt by fraud ; he is further charged with
misconduct in having carried on trade and recklessly
contracted debts after a -series of defalcations and
offences which rendered him amenable to the criminal
law. The money in respect of which the bankrupt
was found to be a defaulter, or a large portion of it,
was improperly used by him in his trade; if he had
not resorted to those means, he must have stopped
much sooner, and the prospect of his ability to repay
the money taken by him depended upon his trade.
The criminality of the bankrupt's conduct, then, in
certain transactions of a pecuniary nature, cannot be
denied ; indeed, some debts originating in his mis-
conduct have been proved, and one to a large amount
claimed under the bankruptcy ; but it is urged that
such misconduct was not committed by the bank-
rupt in his trade, or as a trader, and that, upon
the authority of the case of "Ex parte Wake-
field," which I have before mentioned, and a pre-
vious case of " Ex parte Spicer," reported in the
Law Tinges of November 10, 1849, and decided
on the sth and 6th Victoria, cap. 122, sec. 39, such
misconduct is not cognisable by the Court. Thus, I
have to consider whether the bankrupt has committed
any offence under the 256th section, and, as we have
hell that this enactment does not apply to offences
committed before the 11th of October, 1849, from
which day the Act was to commence and take effect, I
must look to the time up to which the malpractices of
the bankrupt extended ; but I have also to determine
a point of very great and extensive importance—
whether the Court, in reviewing the conduct of the
bankrupt as a trader under the authority given by the
198th section, is confined to the consideration of con-
duct in the way of having contracted any particular
class of debts. This must be determined by the
language of the Bankrupt Law Consolidation Act,
taking the whole Act together, and considering it
with reference to the previous state of the law, and
no interpretation can be admitted which is inconsis -
tent with the language candidly understood, nor
any which, though consistent with the words used,
would not give them a reasonable operation.
After quoting various Acts of Parliament
and high legal authorities, his Honour proceeded
to make the following application of them to the
present case :—For the reasons, therefore, which
I have given, and, from the general importance of the
question, at greater length than I should otherwise
have done, lam of opinion that the construction of
the 198th section, in conjunction with the 256th sec-
tion (for, although the latter follows at some distance
in the Act, it may be considered as virtually incorpo-
porated with the power) is this : that the Court is to
regard the conduct of the bankrupt as one of a class of
persons liable to be so adjudged, before as well as after
his bankruptcy, and herein to regard his conduct in
any matter concerning which the Court is authorised
to call for information and discovery, always bearing
in mind that the statute contains provisions expressly
limiting the power of inquiry to such matters as re-
late to the person, trade, dealings, or estate of the
bankrupt, or any act of bankruptcy committed by
him ; and if it shall appear on the hearing for the
certificate that the bankrupt has committed any of the
offences mentioned in the 256th section, the Court
may refuse or suspend the certificate for such time as
it shall think fit. In other cases the Court (in the
words of the 198th section) is "to judge of any objec-
tion against allowing such certificate, and either
fini the bankrupt entitled thereto and allow the same,
or refuse or suspend the allowance thereof, or annex
such conditions thereto as the justice of the case may
require." This appears to me to be the fair,'l'sound,
legitimate construction of the Bankrupt Law Conso-
lidation Act with respect to the certificate of con-
formity. Having disposed of the legal objection, I
proceed to deal with the case upon its merits. Jardine,
the bankrupt, was a draper; he succeeded to the
business of his father, which had been carried on in
the town of Dartford for half a century. He was also
actuary of the savings bank at Dartford for a period
of about 30 years—that is, from the first establishment
of the bank in 1816. For the first two or three years
he acted as the assistant of his father, who was the
founder of the bank, and subsequently, the duties
becoming onerous he was appointed to act solely at a
fixed salary, and he continued to do so up to the time
of his bankruptcy. It may be concluded, then, that
the bankrupt previous to the discovery of his delin-
quency, had long enjoyed the respect and esteem of the
inhabitants of Dartford and its vicinity. Moreover, he
had at different times been selected to fill offices of
honour and trust in his native town; in fine, he was
regarded in every sense of the term, as an honest
trader. The sequel will show how far he abandoned
all title to the appellation. In the course of his
business the bankrupt had pecuniary difficulties to
contsnd with arising from a declining trade and re-
duced capital ; in this state of things, in his position
as actuary of the savings bank, being in the habit of
receiving money from depositors, he was tempted in
the year 1844, under a pressure which he says was
temporary, to apply the money of the bank to his own
uses. 1 ba7e no doubt that the bankrupt intended
and believed that he should be able to replace the
money, but one trick often needs a great many more
to make it good, and the bankrupt, unhappily for
others as well as himself, too readily yielded to this
evil suggestion. It is said that he did repay some of
the moneys which he had appropriated. I fear, how-
ever, this was done by the aid cf subsequent deposits ;
at all events, he goes on misapplying moneys intrusted
to him as actuary, and thus fradulently incurs fresh lia-
bilities. It is urged that he had to struggle against
misfortunes—losses by bad debts and stagnation of
trade, followed by contagious sickness in his family.
It might be hard in such distress to bear up against
the storms of fortune, but no change of cir-
cumstances can absolve a man when he re-
linquishes truth and faithfulness—" the band
that knits together and supports all compacts,"
and has recourse to a system of fraud, sup-
ported by artifice and falsehood. The course he pur-
sued was, when money was brought for investment in
the bank, to enter it in the depositors' books, in all
instances correctly, but in respect of the moneys
which he misapplied, be omitted his next important
duty, which was to enter the money so received in
the cash-book of the bank, which was kept by himself.
The bank ledger was kept by another clerk, and it
was the duty of this clerk to post the cash-book, but
the bankrupt having withheld entries of various sums
from the cash-book, was necessarily the cause of the
omission of those amounts in the ledger. The cash-
book purported to contain entries of all deposits re-
ceived by the, actuary. It appears, then, that the
bankrupt, a trader, who, from his long standing in
trade and the public offices he had filled, ought to have
been an example to others, as one " having a good
conscience—willing to live honestly in all things "
instead of avoiding a repetition of practices constantly
coming in competition with the first principles of com-
mercial life, shows a wretched regardlessness of what
is due to himself and society, and scruples not to prop
his credit by a scheme of treachery systematically sus-
tained for about 5 years. With this weight upon him, or
during the times of its accumulation, his present trade
debts were contracted ; and when be uas found to be
a defaulter to the savings bank, he made aa assign-
ment of all his property to the trustees of the bank.
This act, which was done to benefit the trustees
under an apprehension that they were entitled to be
pail in lull by virtue of the statute 2d and 4th Will.
IV., c. 14, has in truth been the means of securing
for the latter a rateable division of the bankrupt's
property. If this assignment could have been carried
out the general creditors would have got nothing.
Most fortunately, also, for the general creditors, the
trustees of the savings bank failed in their attempt to
bring their claim against the actuary within the pro-
vision of the 3d and 4th Will. IV., c. 14, sec. 28,
which gives to trustees of savings banks a right to
be paid in full (and in preference to other creditors,
however meritorious their claims may be) all
money which any officer of the bank may have
received by virtue of his office or employment. I