The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-22 00:00:00

Pitontinff -7-11,1V+

LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1845.

In the case of Mr.' Glans, formerly an " eminent
bill-discounter and money broker"—in the parlance
of the day, an " attorney and scrivener," pro:es-
sionally speaking—we observe that Mr. Commis-
sioner HOLROYD has refused the bankrupt his eel.-
tifictee. To those who will not be at the trouble
of reading the report of this judgment, the decision a
his Honour may appear somewhat harsh. We confess,
with pain, that we think it a most righteous and salutary
decision. Without the slightest desire to bear hardly
upon the unfortunate individual, who has been thus re-
fused an indulgence which the law rarely withholds from
parties in his situation, we must say that Mr. GIBBS is
but one representative of a class of bill and money-
dealers, the whole of whom it would be well for the in-
terests of society to see removed and absolutely shut out
from any further pursuit of their calling. What can
be expected by the victims who advance moneys for
profitable investment to the custody or employment of a
man le ho raises other moneys fur his own use, at the
enormous arid most avaricious rate of 40, 50, and et) per
cent. interest ? Mr. C mmissioner HOLROY D declined to
enter into the consideration of the question, whether, in
these days, when bankers and brokers are as plentiful as
blackberries, there be a necessity for permitting the
business of a scrivener (the ancient substitute for both
the one and the other) to be any longer carried on. We
are sorry that his Honour did not go into this question.
If the "no necessity," which his observation thus
glanced at, were once made out, on such authority, to
the satisfaction of the Legislature, we should not have
another session of Parliament pass by, without getting
rid of a whole colony of legal vultures, who, at present,
less honest or more prudent than Mr. GIBBS. raise
fortunes for themselves on the ruined fortunes of other
men—their clients or their customers. Every hour in
the day one may see men reclining at their ease in their
carriages, with unabashed and insolent effrontery, who
have stepped into them only by means of the basest
chicanery, and the mutt profligate turpitude which
cunning bad men can commit, within the safe limits of
the law. Every day the public journals teem with re-
ports of cases, in which improvident young men, the
absolute possessors of property, or entitled to it in re-
version or expectancy, are feand to be irretrievably
ruined by their unhappy connexions with discounting
attorneys, or " accommodating" money brokers' agents.
The exigencies of the moment, relieved by consenting to
enormous and utterly unwarrantable sacrifices, is conti-
nued by a series of " accommodations" (as they are
termed in bitter irony), extended through some months,
or one, two, three years, as the case may be, but surely
terminating in the permanent ruin of the deluded bor-
rower. He is tempted by the offers of a " discount"—
he is played with, and his business is delayed until that
which was but an inconvenience, more or less grave, be•
comes an inexorable necessity. In proportion as his
wants assume this formidable and imperative shape, the
cost of relief, the amount of the sacrifices to be made,
are carefully and cruelly enhanced. Thus he is led on
till a knife may be said to be at last put into his hand
wherewith he is compelled to cut the throat of his own
fortunes, absolute or contingent, and not for his own re-
lief after all, but for the benefit of the callous usurers
who have brought him to this moral suicide. Look at
the case of the creditor of Germs, resident at Ostend.
Whether designedly or inadvertently, we know not—but
actually, it is evident, one of Mr. Geens's most
unfortunate victims—his embarrassments have been
extended, his anxieties accumulated, the penalties of his
misfortunes trebled and quadrupled by a species of tor-
ment greater and more exquisite (we hope for the
honour of the old Greek " Onytb.") than any which