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518 THE LEADER, [No. 375, Saturday.
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TRUSTEES AND BANKRUPTS. Some time since,...
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EMPLOYMENT OF ClU MTNAlA. In his earnest...
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Liberal Bolters In The House
Abebdebit effected nothing when they were in office . The Pope is engaged in a progress throughout his dominions , and as he goes he ' blesses ' the people . The process is simple . "With the thumb of the hand he holds down the little and third fingers ; the middle and forefingers remain extended together ; and with the hand in that condition he is competent to cast blessings upon all who kneel to receive them . It is not to be denied , then , that
Italyis blessed ; but , in the meanwhile , what do those who have endeavoured to bring substantial benefits for Italy endure ? Take the prisoners in Fort TJrban , which is built on a marahy moat , entirely surrounded by ditches and stagnant water . It is a place of retreat for the worst convicts . In it at present there are 800 prisoners , of whom 200 are detained without trial ; they are , in fact , imprisoned —and many of theni have been many years imprisoned—for the crime of being suspected .
Some of these belong to the best families of Bologna . The picked prisoners are sent to the Collbmeta , in which the cells are only ventilated from a , long corridor . Here the suffocating temperature inclines the prisoners to sleep , but that tendency is checked by Germau sentinels , who patrol the corridor day and night . The prisoners cannot complain , except through the Governor . But there is one provision that one would little have expected in the Pope ' s
dominionsthey are not allowed to attend Divine Service j so little faith has the Pope in the efficacy of that ceremonial , that the prisoners are debarred from it , lest they should conspire in presence ! It may be said that the Italians should not endure these things . There is great reason to Relieve that the Italians would not , if it were not for the fact that , by intrigues and combinations of foreign courts , which can bring together enormous armies of alien
multitudes , the Italians would throw off their governments , which are > in fact , the worst criminals and malefactors of the country . We English assist in preventing them , by assisting to maintain the combinations against them . In diplomatic phrase , we call it ' the balance of power in Europe , ' ' a state of amity ; ' ana one recommendation of the Prussian marriage is , that it will assist in
maintaining that * peace . ' If it is disgraceful to the Italians to endure , it is disgraceful to every country which assists in maintaining the combination ; it is doubly disgraceful when the country knows what it is doing . We English show that we know it , by continually talking about it ; but who begins to alter the state of things ? Is there not a single man who can begin amendments ? Where is Lord John ?
518 The Leader, [No. 375, Saturday.
518 THE LEADER , [ No . 375 , Saturday .
Trustees And Bankrupts. Some Time Since,...
TRUSTEES AND BANKRUPTS . Some time since , with tho assistance of a pamphlet by Mr . Menzies , the original Secretary to the Royal British Bank , wo gave axu account of that striking project , * How we got it up , and how it went down . ' Our readers will remember the strange manner ia which appearances were kept up
betore the public , before shareholders , beiore directors , while the whole thing was a sham and . a conspiracy . Even the disclosures before the Court of Bankruptcy present nothing like the clear and consecutive story which there showed us the working of the plan behind the scenes ; and our readers will remember the solemn introduction of Mr .
Hyai * Injnes Cameron ; his own most pious adjurations when he accepted the responsibility ; his method of letting Mr . Mulxents know how Mjdnzies was to bo disposed of ; his plan of letting in the JSTewcaBtl © people ; and , indeed , the whole
method of making up the appearance of a bank , when the reality was nothing but an assemblage of gentlemen who supposed they were collecting capital , while Hugh Inttes Cameron was scheming away the money . ~ Not long before that , we had the case of Strahak , PATiii and Bates , bankers by whom the property which other persons entrusted to them was used for their own purposes , appropriating it tinder false pretences . It so happened that they came within the
cognizance of the criminal law by a species of illegal pawning and other mistakes of the kind ; but if , like the members of the Royal British Bank , or some bankers that have failed not long since about the country , they had taken in the money of their customers to use for their own pui-poses , they would have been covered by our present law of trusts , and would have been only debtors , not conspirators guilty of a criminal offence . Again , we had the extraordinary schemes of Joseph Wittdle
Cole , who cleverly manoeuvred more than one half million out of people ' s pockets , and still more cleverly obtained assistance in his schemes . Some of the assistants got , like himself , involved in the criminal law ; but there were others who were not so involved , yet nevertheless lent themselves to misrepresentations respecting the actual possession of property entrusted to their charge . Indeed , they were so lax upon the subject , that they scarcely knew to whom the
property really belonged . But again , these persons—and the more respectable they are the more injurious to society is their connivance—wholly escaped any danger from the criminal law , because the most ' that could be made of them was , that'they held the property in trust , or under the law of bailment . Now , it is a fiction of our law that when a
man holds the property in trust he is the owner thereof , and the owner cannot steal his own property ; so that the trustee who filches the property of the orphan is , in the eye of the criminal law , only disposing of his own property . If tho wicked uncle had stopped short of the murder , the Children in the Wood would have had no remedy at law ; and ancient as the tale is , it has its parallels
in modern times . But there is a great deal of 'fun' in our law , for it creates confusion as if for the very sport . When a plan for some g reat scheme turns out to have been a bubble , the object alike of shareholders and creditors must be to recover as much of the property as possible , to waste as little of it as possible
in law expenses , and to settle the matter as soon as possible . There is scarcely a man of business who would not admit that statement as a simple truism . But what happened in the case of the Royal British Bank ? Many of the contributors to that undertaking were persona of thorough respectability , and no small portion of them had sufficient means to meet all the liabilities . If they had been
allowed to make tho necessary arrangements , they would have got together the requisite amount of money ; and , if they could not pay every farthing in full , they could have paid enough to constitute something more than an ' honourable bankruptcy . ' Tho interest of tho creditors was clearly to stand by and allow this process to bo completed . Yet , what happened ? Some of the
shareholders saw that tho beat plan would bo to wind-up the affairs , and consequently they put tho bank into Chancery — tho right course . Bui ; tho croditors thought that Chancery would look more after the interests of the contributors than of tho claimants , and they invoked tho asaiatanco of tho Bankruptcy lawyers , who wore nothing loth . Lawyers in ' both courts immediately saw the advantage that might be obtained by making
law business . A few of the creditors thought that they should be able to recover their ow n peculiar claims , whatever the rest mio-ht fl 0 by snatching at the amount in a very summary and hurried manner ; and they brought separate " suits on their own account . 0 ne man brought twenty-five suits , another more than a hundred . Now , as there were nearly 300 shareholders , and about 6000 creditors it
would have been literally possible for nearly 1 , 800 , 000 suits to be going on at the same time . Such a possibility is like a Munchausen fiction , yet it was the actual result of recent legislation in the construction of the Winding-up Acts ; for those Acts failed alike to give the majority of shareholders and creditors the power of settling matters , and they failed to establish a simple process .
The Bills introduced last week by the Attoenet-General aimed to remedy- hoth these great defects . The minor Bill dictates a simple process for winding-up , and gives the requisite power to the majorities of shareholders and creditors . The larger Bill gives a list of persons who shall be accounted guilty of ' misdemeanour' if with intent to defraud they appropriate to their own use property placed in their hands as trustees , hankers , merchants , agents , and bailees . One clause of the Bill fastens the offence of
misdemeanour upon any conniving receiver of the property obtained under a violation of the Act . The Bill is exceedingly simple in its structure . It affords ample security against malevolent or unconsidercd propositions ; in the case of private trustees , particularly , by requiring that no prosecution should be instituted without the concurrence of a Judge who sees probable cause for the criminal proceeding . This Bill , therefore , will fasten a criminal responsibility upon trustees and agents of all kinds who filch property entrusted to their charge by fraudulent acts or
misrepresentations . Let us sec how it would have operated in the case of the Royal British Bank . Mr . Menzies appears , from tho account in his own pamphlet , to have been very uneasy at the turn aftliirs were taking , long before he was so unceremoniously ousted . He had had the courage to face Whitecross-street Prison and other perils , to which ingenious gentlebut with this
men in difficulties are exposed ; statute in the path , it is quite evident that , at a much earlier period , ho would nave brought his own relation with the bank to a stop . Wo may doubt whether any form of responsibility would have arrested tho senrelying and pious Hugh . Perhaps there wore one or two others wh oso confidence m their own integrity , no twithstanding the < peculiar circumstances' which induced them to Qualify tho strict rules of ordinary
conduct , would havo sustained them m ww belief that they could not become criminal , however ' unusual' thoir conduct might have boon . But undoubtedly most ot the directors would havo boon startled at ire rmlaritics that must have romindod thorn oi this law , and they would have stopped } thus tho crash of tho Royal British »»^ « ° ™ J ,, nvPP lmvo Imnnonod , because tho conspuncy
could never havo been coniplc cc Dy »» authors , for want of presentable help ™ if tho crash had happened , tho now "Windin ., up Law would have co . no in to sai o u Crocks for tho proper owneiy-tho doliulod Bharo-holdors , and tho denuded creditors .
Employment Of Clu Mtnala. In His Earnest...
EMPLOYMENT OF ClU MTNAlA . In his earnest letter on seconclary pun monts , Mr . Cuahlbs Picauson indicates im systems of convict troatmont : Tho hanging eyHtom of piiHt diiyHj nveflOnt ; Tho lock-up nml do-nothing system of tho picso Tho solf-Biinnortlng ™ ork system of the iun »
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 30, 1857, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30051857/page/14/
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