The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-31 00:00:00

ficially entitled to stock, Commissioner may order a
transfer. Suits are not to be abated by the death or
removal of assignees. Under clause 16, there
is this declaratory enactment which strikes us as
being very just and equitable in itself, and calculated
to get rid of a vast amount of pettifogging and vexa-
tious intermeddling by greedy attorneys of a particu-
lar class in their profession ; namely,—goods in pos-
session, order, or disposition of petitioner whereof he
was reputed owner, to be deemed his property. No
distress is to be available for more than
one year'§ rent; voluntary preference frau-
dulent and void as against assignees, to whom
this Act extends the provisions of 3 Geo. IV. c. 39.
Under subsequent clauses, warrant of attorney and
cognovit actionem are not to be acted upon against
property of insolvent petitioner, after filing his peti-
tion. Final order (as given under the third schedule)
to protect the person of petitioner from process in re-
spect of debts or sums, particularly mentioned in
clause 21, but specification of his debts shall not
be necessary in such final order. Of a prisoner
in execution at time of filing petition, if detained
for any debt or matter in respect of which his final
order protects him from process, the Commissioner
may order the discharge. Of the other clauses (in
all 49 in number) the effect of the most important is
—that petitioners, not being traders, or being traders,
but owing sums respectively not exceeding 3001., can
petition—if in custody—to be discharged by a Com-
missioner's order ; and, it may also be added, that
there is no remedy given under them for a
" vexatious defence," nor power to detain per-
sons under remands, or debts under 201. For
instance, under clause 37, the marginal note of its
effect runs thus :—" Persons in execution at the time
of passing this Act, on judgment on any Court, in
any action for any debt, where the sum recovered
shall not exceed 201. (exclusive of costs), shall be
discharged on application to a Judge in one of the
Superior Courts, or to the Court in which judg-
ment is obtained. The estate of the debtor dis-
charged to continue liable, as if he had not
been taken or charged in execution." On
the whole, it is clear that the decisions of
Judges and Commissioners in bankruptcy, as a Con-
temporary has well observed, must be much more
uniform in their bearing, and sound in principle, than
they have been in the conflicting decisions under the
existing Act, if they are adequately to protect the
equitable interests of creditors under this Bill. Too
much power seems to be given to the assignees; too
little security taken for, or penalties inflicted on, the
fraudulent misconduct in debtors.

By the Britannia, which arrived at Liverpool on
Monday morning, accounts were received from
Philadelphia to the sth instant of the extraordinary
outrages which had attended the renewal of the
" Hiberno-American" riots in that city. Our
readers will, no doubt, remember the mournful de-
scription which, about the month of May last, it
became our duty to publish of the sanguinary tumult
that had, just previously, disgraced the same locality,
in consequence of the hostile feelings that had
long subsisted between one section of the
citizens, called the " Native Americans," and
another composed of Irish Romanists, settled
or established there under the protection of the
Government of Philadelphia ; but not much iden-
tified, it should seem, with the regard and the respect
of a people, to live among whom so many of these
emigrants had voluntarily quitted their native land.
In the former instance, however, the resulting casu-
alties were by no means so serious in number or ex-
tent as to the sacrifice of human life, as those which
were destined to distinguish the sth instant, though
far greater with respect to the destruction of
public offices and private property.
Under an alarm, real or assumed, but natural
enough after the events of last May, and kept up by
anonymous intimations to that effect, received by the
priests, the Irish Romanist party assumed that
there was an intention to recommence the work
of destroying their chapels, &c. Among other
preparations which they had made for such an event,
it was soon discovered that they had collected more
than eighty stands of fire-arms, which, togetheriwith
a very large quantity of amunition and military stores
(such as gunpowder, bullets, bayonets, &c ), they had
placed in a magazine. This depository they formed
in one of their own churches, very secretly, as it
would appear ; but (which is the most extraordinary
part of the story) they had also organised a military
corps, and placed at its head a brother of the officiat-
ing priest of the chapel. Under what sanction
or authority, it will naturally be asked, had
this extreme step been not only attempted
but accomplished ? So far as the accounts
enable us, at present, to judge, we may answer
under the express authority (though covertly given to
Mr. D uris) of Governor PORTER, for the loan of
some of the arms from the State arsenal, and for the
drafting of some of the men for the protection of the
edifice which was said to be menaced. We will not
follow the conflicting speculations of the American
journalists as to the greater or less degree of neces-
sity which existed for these defensive precautions.
The consequences which ensued upon them were
dreadful. For the particulars of the popular move-
ment excited by the discovery that such precautions
had been taken—of the proceedings adopted by the
municipal authorities for repressing the furious tumult
thereby created—and of the sanguinary collision
which occurred after the seizure of the arms
and the evacuation of the chapel by the " Hiberno-
Greens," between the State volunteers and
the Philadelphia populace, we must refer the
reader to the narrative we have already given.
But we may state in general terms, that the "Native
Americans" were exasperated, in the first place, by
the evasive surrender, on the part of the Irish
Romanists, of twelve stands of arms. When the
native party detected this duplicity, on finding up-
wards of seventy additional stands, they obeyed their
fatal propensity to take the law into their own
hands. For upwards of three days they besieged, or
fought, or fired upon the other party. The other
party retaliated with great energy and resolution.
When the majesty of the law had at last vindi-
cated itself, after that feeble and tardy man-
ner which seems its inevitable characteristic
in the United States, from thirteen to
seventeen persons were found to be killed, and more
than fifty wounded, and of these some mortally. Old
men and young boys are among the victims. It
cannot be denied that the imprudent zealotry of such
publications as the New York Freeman's Journal had
done much to exasperate—or, at least, to afford rea

sonable grounds of apprehension to—the " Native
Americans." For that journal, on the occasion of
the disturbances, had significantly intimated " that
the Romanists, if thwarted, wanted neither the dis-
position nor the power to burn the city and massacre
the inhabitants." To this imprudence—if we should
not call it "atrocity"—the fatal discovery of the re-
served stands of arms was calculated to impart an im-

portance, and a meaning, which the mind of the
opposite party would not be slow to receive. Al-
though tranquillity, at the date of the last advices,

was restored, numerous arrests continued to be made

in the city (which swarmed with United States'
troops), and explanatory appeals from both parties.
This is one exhibition of that demoralising weak-
ness of the American Executive which, if it be not

in the mean time replaced by more vigorous institu.

. _
tions, such as shall give efficiency to law, and force
to authority, must, at no distant period--say in an-
other half century—overwhelm in its own decay and
toppling ruin the entire fabric of the Federal Go-

vernment of the United States. But here is yet
another.

Coincidently, almost, with the popular excesses we
have just described as having occurred in Philadel-

phia, a popular murder of the most brutal and san•
guinary character, has been perpetrated, in defiance of
the law, within the precincts of its own stronghold,
_ _

-
and in violation of the solemn pledge of the highest

constituted authorities of the State. A wretched en-

thusiast or impostor, proclaiming himself a prophet,

and announcing, with many absurd, and many more

blasphemous pretensions, a divine mission from Hea-
ven, had recently founded a credulous sect, who call

;hemselves " Mormonites." The people :of Illinois,

not content with the legitimate - arms of

discouragement (examination, argument, and ridicule),

have long anathematised their heresy as a subject fit,
not for trial, but for vengeance and punishment,

from whatever quarter administered—lay, secular, or

ecclesiastical. Though little eminent themselves,
we apprehend, for real common-place moral qualities,
_ _ . _ _

or fair dealing and neighbourly good faith in their