The Statesman.
London, England, 1814-04-30 00:00:00

TTIE STAI

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take that conrse which would serve to avert any of just and lawful debts, It would do more harm by
pr..inature discussion upon the subject. For he opening a door to fraudulent, clandestine, and etre-
felt nit difficulty in getting, that his Majesty's Go- culative claims. Upon the same principles they
verunwnt had, in concert with Sweden and our other I might go on to pass a Bill to make the whole of
plies, isseed an order for blockading the ports of ; Gentlemen's landed estates or money in the funds,
Nei way. 1 liable for theil debts. This might be proper in
The Corruption of Blood Bill was reported and fore conscientia, but the policy of our law bad ale
agreed to, and the Bill was ordered to be read a third ways been to protect landed property against &she.
time en Monday. ' ful and surreptitious claims, and to require the high.
The further considerationiof the Clergy Penalties est roomers and the strongest formalities of evidence
Bill was postponed until Moodily. before it could he affected.
CONTRACT DEBTS. Mr. STEPHEN argued that the same plea of the
On the motion of Sir SAMUEL ROMILLY long -continuagee of the evil, which his Hon. and
for the committal of the Bill for rendering Free- Learned Friend (Mr. Wetherell) made use of against
hold Estates subject to the payment of simple contract i the present amendment of the law, ought to have
debts, • I prevented him from assenting to the Bill, by which
Mr. Serjeant BEST argued against the measure as the property of tradesmen was made liable for their
inexpedient and unnecemiary, because it was owing debts after their death. There was no comparison
rather to the neglect of creditors-themselves that, to between the inconveniences resulting from the este.
the deficiency of the existing law, that their claims blished law, and the benefits which would accrue
were not put into a proper shape to enforce their from it.. It meet practically to exclude the most
payment, namely, by rendering their claims what meritorious class of creditors, honest and industrious
the law called " special." lie would not, therefore, tradesmen, from enforcing their just claims, often to
consent to alter a law of long establishment, in the their utter ruin, and was no protection whatever
existence of which the landed proprietors and the against gambling and usurious debts. The money-
aristocracy were so much interested, and the charac. fender always took care to have the best security the
ter of which was sustained by so many high legal ; law could' give hint; and what eztravagaet young heir
authorities. Besides, if the law were altered, by would hesitate-to set his hand to a bend to raise an
rendering freehold estates liable to simple contract immediate sum of Money ? The precaullikens taken by
debts, facilities would be afforded to young heirs to the law in other cases which had been alluded to by
contract Improvident debts, and to fraudulent claim. the last Speaker, were merely to prevent fraudulent
ants also to press demands after the death of land- ! and surreptitious claims ; not to annul (hoe of sub-
owners, for the payment of services which might be stantial and real justice. He concluded with repro-
probably gratuitous, but which, at all events, the bating the practice of the law, as it now stood, as
party being dead, it might be impossible for the intolerable in a commercial country, where the
heir to rebut by any satisfactory explanation.--On penalties Of the law were strict and severe to the last
these grounds, the Learned Gentleman concluded degree against that very class of persons, who were
with moving, that the Bill be committed this day six • often condemned to end their lives in a gaol, in mi-
months. sequence of the refusal of the herr to pay the debts
Mr. PRESTON supported the Bill, and asked # contracted by his predecessor.
abet was to become of the claims of creditors on Mr. LOCK HART said he had asked several of
siruple cantract'debts, where the debtor died prema- ; the most experienced and best-informed persons,
turely, before the debts could be made special ? lin' whether, in the case of persons devising their debts to
considered this measure as likely to produce great be paid out of their estates, there was any &neer of
benefit, and liable to no just objection.
the setting up of fraudulent claims ? and he had' been
Sir A. PIGGOT'Is professed himself unable to coin- answered in the negative. lie had also made the
prehend the proposition, that any man should con- same enquiry with respect to debts proved upon
tract debts, and that his property should not be 1 oath; and he had received the same answer. Now
liable for the payment of them. Yet that was the it appeared to him that the inference was precisely
proposition which these Gentlemen must maintain , the same, whether the testator charged his debts on
who opposed this Bill. Some Gentlemen affected to :4 his estate himself, or whether tha law ordered them
be surprised by the introduction of this Bill, but he ito be paid out of it. lie was therefore for the Mo-
.. .
coafebsed that his surprise was, Oat law,ehould
have been- so long allowed to remain sis defective; The SOLICITOR-GENERAL objeCted to the
and that a measure of this nature had not been measure, as likely to remove owe of the landmarks
brought forward before. Great defects hail, how.. :by which landed property descended from the an-
ever, been in ether cases allowed long to 4isotce cestor 'to the heir. The same objection did not
OUT law. By the statute of Wins, in 1540,a•tqtas apply to the alteration introduced into the law
for had Lein his power to will away his properly to prevent fraudulent devises, because that was not
from his eon relation to any stranger, and entirely in feet an innovation, but a restoration of .the an-
to do away the claims of his creditors ; !and . this' dent law of the land, before the Statute of Wills in
;Mute continued in force until- the enactment of the- the time of Henry VIII. by which the personal pro-
Matute against Fraudulent Decline. But stilt, if a perty of the deceased was shared among the creditors.
testator did not charge his freehold estate with the lie thought, on t.:io contrary, that the present meas.
payment of simple contractdebts, the creditor could inin was an innovation (he did not use the word In
tot enforce his claims, and to cure this iajostice was , any invidious sense) which was not called for by the
the *eject of the present berWevori 'jointing state of the law.,
urgedtherira creditor truly - cam to attend tot • Mr. D. GIDDY spoke against the Bit, as o 4
certain solemnities' of the • by' rendering his . likely to augment the facilities of obtaining credit;
claims " special," he could suffer. But.was it and to excite, in tradesmen an increased avidity
to be endured,' that Creditors should be defrauded to grant it, when they knew that real property was
because they bad not the dexterity and diligence of rendered liable for debts.
lawyers—that they could not make their debtor's Sir S. ROMILLY replied, and quoted the Ituthe-
property liable for their just demands—because they cities of Lord Rossiya and Mr. Justice Blackstone,
had not all their transactions recorded in parchment , in favour of a measure similar to what he now pro-
.—because in all their dealings they had not an at- . posed. lie ridiculed the idea, that it the Bill passed
torney at their elbow ?--[Near, hear!)—The fact into a law, any increased facility to credit-would be
was, that the injustice of the existing law 'fell prin. created ; as it was not very probable that a staid,
elpally, if not-wholly, on industrious, probably ig- sober tradesinan, between fifty and sixty, a prudent
soviet tradesmen and artificers, who could ill en. time of life, would be inclined to graut large credit
dare it, and not upon large capitalists or money. to a young man of one-and-twenty, because,- at the
lenders, who always had their claims " special,' ; death of his debtor, his real property would become
by having bonds for their loans. Thus the evil be.. liable for the payment of his debts, supposing that
came more oppressive, often operating to ruin the in the interim that estate was in no manner liapaired
families of tradesmen, and to commit themselves to a or dilapidated. The anomaly of the law, asit now
JO. It was a libel upon the character of the ari- stood, also deserved to be considered, and would
stocracy that they could be solicitous for the exist- strike us as monstrous, if eletailed in a fictitious
once of such an ictirritous law ;. that any Gentle. book of travels, relating toethis or any other coon-
man could desire his property to be shielded from try. While it was declared On law, in one case
the payment of his honest debts, still less that any (that of a bankrupt), that /4. concealment of any
Nobleman could think it necessary to the sustenance part of his property subjected him•to the penalty of
of his high rank and order in society, that he should an ignominious death, io another case it secured the
be enabled to defraud those with whom he dealt. In property of a debtor, even to the of in of a creditor.
feet, the existing law had always been deemed so un. The moral obligation was the same upon both indi.
jest in a Court of Equity, that to his knowledge, it viduals; but the bankrupt might be 14 out ;to exe-
had uniformly been the utmost endeavour of the cution,. while-the heir of the deceased debtor was
Lord Chancellor and Master of Rolls, so to allowed to live in splendour and dignity oflon the
construe wills as to remedy the grievances of the law, value of those estates which ought to be disposed
by rendering Freehold Estates liable for simple con. of for the satisfaction of the' creditors.—Vicar,
tract debts, generally feeling regret where a will hear! •
'would bear no such construction. The Learned On a division there appeared—
Gentleman stongly deprecated such notions, and • Fir the Atitendment 37
concluded with an impressive exhortation to the Against it
House to redeem the caracter of the law, Majority 24
the'preposition of his Hon. Friend, and thus render.
stag that p,-eperty for the payment of honed The Bill then went through a Committee, the
debts, which, under the existing law, a testator who Re art of which was ordered to be received on Mon-
debts,
land lived in splendour by contracting debts, might de- i day*
vise to his bastard and mistresses, and laugh at his The Irish Foundling Hospital Bill went through a
Committee the report of which was ordered to be
creditors.
Mr. WETIIERELL began by complimenting the; received on Monday. •
•
learning, the judgment, and probity of the last COPYRIGHTS.
speaker, from-whom, however, he was compelled to I Sir EGERTON BRYDGES begged leave to
dissent. Whatever evils or inconveniences resulted withdraw his notice of a motion respecting CM'
from the present law on the subject, they had existed 1 rights, in order that the subject might be taken up
for three hundred years, and their not having been by abler hands.
remedied in that time was at least a presumption that Mr. D. GIDDY then gave notice, that on Thurs•
there were some strong reasons against the inflow'. day he would move for leave to bring in a Bill, em-
lion. 'He conceived that if this alteration in the law bodying the Reportmade by the Select Committee
were sti uctioned, it would be necessary not to stop here, I of last Session, on the subject of Copyrights.
but to introduce other essential alterations in the The Innkeeper's Allowance Bill was brought in,
law of property. Much stress had been laid on the read a first time, and ordered to be read a second
immorality of the present law • but he conceived that time on Monday.
morality alone, if not coupled with the principles of Adjourned to Monday.
civil policy, was not a sufficient test of the propriety
of a law. It was not the sole test resorted to in.,
other eases. For instance, if a debt were not proved
by some written document, the law did not enforce:
the payment of it, though in point of morality a
written and a verbal contract were equally binding.
There was an order observed in the payment of par-
ticular debts, as they were thought to be more on
less legally binding, though the masa' obligation
was the same. lie contended that though this ma-,
sun night do some good) by enforcing the -payment

Is.4;t:KPOCKSlls.—These constant attendants on 1111
fashionable assemblies have hitherto contented them-
selves with being outside ; but at Mrs. Beau-
mont's late assembly, one of them introduced him-
:elf into the irfside of the house ; and•on being stop-
ped by a servantiaaother of ,the gang rushed inotad
offered to take the offender into his ,austedy, ;as a
constabk : in 41► e scuffle that .envied, .the *Won
'constable contrived to carry off a watch) and get off
unmolested.