certainly not a week, beyond the time when their recovery is clear; and lastly, that their treatment, whether curable or incurable, shall be the best which the wisest and most benevolent legislation can secure. I point out these things because I wish the Committee, to which this matter is likely to be referred, not to embark in mere rambling inquiry, and, consequently I propose to lay on the table of the House a Bill with reference to private asylums which will, I hope, secure all four of these objects. With reference to confinement, in the first instance, I think the law is to a certain extent defective, and what I propose by my Bill as a proper guard and precaution is, that no person shall be put in confinement at all without notice of the fact being sent to the Commissioners within twenty-four hours. In the second place I propose that the justices in different counties shall appoint medical examiners for particular districts, and that when the Commissioners receive a notice that any person is put under restraint or into confinement, then within a week, not the medical officer of the house, not any person sent down from London, but the medical examiner on the spot shall inquire into the case, shall report specially upon it, and shall place the whole matter before the Commissioners. I then propose that after that is done the Commissioners shall have power either to make their report upon that case to the justices of the county, or to call upon the superintendent or proprietor of the House in which the person is confined to give further explanations. So much with regard to the reception of the patients in the first instance, and I think these checks will be sufficient. Then with regard to the houses to which they are sent, I think the present mode of forwarding the plans and estimates to the Commissioners fourteen days before the licence is granted, and then no action taken, is not sufficient. There are two modes in which the houses are licensed. The Commissioners have no jurisdiction beyond the metropolis. I propose that the Commissioners should have the power to report upon the plans of licensed houses, and to send them to the magistrates in the country, so that the latter may have the advantage of the central knowledge and experience of the Commissioners, and may apply it to their own local wants. I am anxious to read an extract from the last Report of the Commissioners, which shows

that some improvement in the law in regard to single patients is required. They say :—

"The condition of single patients has engaged much of our attention during the past year. The lists have been carefully revised; regular returns from the persons having charge of patients have been strictly enforced; and the country has been divided into districts, so as to insure the regular annual visitation of all cases returned to our office. On the whole, the condition of the patients so visited cannot be described as satisfactory. As a general rule, the accommodation provided is quite incommensurate with the payments, which, in many instances, are very large. The necessity for our continued and regular supervision has been clearly established, and, in some instances, we have found cases of marked neglect. In two or three we have discovered that, besides the patient who has been regularly certified and returned to this office, the proprietors of houses have also had under their charge other persons of unsound mind, relative to whom no return whatever had been made. In these cases, although from the presence of circumstances of an extenuating character we have not deemed it proper to institute prosecutions for the legal penalties incurred, we have insisted, by way of warning to others against commission of the same or any similar offence, that the offenders should insert apologies in the daily and medical papers." In order to insure greater vigilance of inspection, I propose that, in addition to four inspections in the year by the visitors on the spot, the Commissioners should, by themselves, or by some person authorized by them, make three visits to each licensed house. I also propose that they should have the power, which they do not now possess, of calling upon the proprietors to show the accounts relative to patients, in order that they may see that their allowance is properly applied to their maintenance. The fourth provision of the Bill has been framed to watch over all cases of lunacy, with the object of ascertaining that the patients are not confined a single day when they ought to be discharged. I trust that the provisions of the Bill will effect that object. In the first place, finding, on the authority of all those best informed on the subject, that the cures which are effected are generally accomplished at the earlier stages of the disease. I propose that a Commissioner should go down within three months after the confinement of a patient and report specifically upon that case, independently of all other visits that he may be required to make. I propose also that in the course of the year subsequent to the admission of each patient the Commissioner shall be required, when making one of his usual visits, to make a specific report upon the progress of that case, so

BANKRUPTCY AND INSOLVENCY.

LEAVE.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL: Sir, I rise to move for leave to introduce a Bill to amend and consolidate the laws relating to Bankruptcy and Insolvency. And I think it is due to the House that I should, in the first place, explain the reasons which have induced me to introduce to its notice a subject at once so difficult, so intricate, and so important. It happened to be my fortune, at a meeting two years ago at Birmingham for the purpose of considering questions of social science, to be placed in the chair of a section devoted to jurisprudence, and the amendment of the law. That section was attended by the present learned Attorney General, by several other gentlemen of the profession of the law, and also by many traders and persons en gaged in commerce. I found in that section a general complaint of the present state of the law in relation to Bankruptcy. I suggested that the various Chambers of Commerce and Trade Protection Societies should meet with certain gentlemen at Birmingham who had studied this sub ject, and that they should endeavour to come to some agreement before any proposal was submitted to Parliament. They adopted that suggestion. They met accordingly in the early part of last year. They agreed upon the heads of a Bill; at a later period they drew that Bill in a proper form, and requested me to undertake the introduction of it into Parliament. As I have the honour of representing the City of London-a great body of traders I thought I could not decline that task, and accordingly, last year-but at a period when the matter could not be sufficiently considered-I introduced the Bill which they had placed in my hands, and the provisions of which met with my full approval. In again bringing forward this subject I think it is necessary, as the matter will, I trust, receive full consideration in the course of the present year, whether by this House or by the Government, to state both what is the law which the Bill affects, and what are the changes which it proposes to introduce. The question of debt is one which, of course, has received the attention of the Legislatures of all countries. The law of England, as stated by Sir W. Blackstone, gives no less than five different writs or remedies for a creditor against his debtor. Some of these writs affect the person, others the chattels, others the land of the debtor, and some touch all these

different objects. It seems, whatever these provisions may be, whether merciful or harsh, that there can be nothing more just, nothing more due by society towards its members, than to give a remedy for those to whom any property is owing by others. But when the Legislature of England began to consider the relations of traders to their creditors, there arose other questions upon which our Bankruptcy laws are founded. There was not merely the question of whether a debtor was able to pay his creditors, whether he might at any future time have property sufficient for that purpose, but there were other questions relating to his future course and position. On the one hand it was found that traders, by collusion, by fraud, by combination with certain of their creditors, concealed or did away with their property, thereby injuring the great body of their creditors and it was discovered on the other that the trader, who, by unavoidable misfortune was unable to satisfy the claims of his creditors, remaining liable to those debts during the whole of the rest of his life, was unable ever to regain his position and to carry on his trade in a creditable and industrious manner as he might otherwise have done. The Roman law had provided for such cases. In a similar spirit laws passed in the reign of Henry VIII., in the reign of Elizabeth, and in the reign of James I. provided for the same class of cases. The mode of providing for them was in principle that after a certain period, either by the act of the creditors demanding payment, and thereby forcing the debtor into bankruptcy, or by the act of the debtor himself, placing himself in a position of bankruptcy, all his property was at once given over to certain persons-call them as you please, and that those persons assumed from that time the power of distributing his effects among the creditors. But then, when that operation was performed, when the whole property had been fairly distributed, there came the second part of the process in favour of the debtor. If it was found that the debtor was not guilty of fraud, if his debts were owing to unavoidable misfortunes, if he had made a clean breast in regard to all his affairs, and stated unreservedly the entire amount of his property and his obligations, the law then stepped in to declare that he was free from the debts which he had incurred previous to his bankruptcy. Although he might have paid only 10s., only 5s., or even only 2s.

in the pound, the law declared he was thereafter free, able to undertake any other matter of trade or of commerce, and could not be made liable for the debts which he had formerly contracted. This provision is, I believe, greatly to the benefit of commerce, greatly to the benefit of the creditor, greatly also to the advantage of the honest debtor, and tends very much to the promotion of the best interests of society. The mode in which the law in this respect was carried out may be described in few words. When either the creditors or the debtor wished to constitute an act of bankruptcy, application was made to the Lord Chancellor, who issued a Commission to certain Commissioners. These Commissioners appointed an assignee or trustee, in whom the whole of the property was vested, and who made, after full inquiry, a distribution of the effects, the lands, the chattels, and property of every kind belonging to the debtor, and granted a certificate by which certificate the bankrupt was set free, whether from imprisonment or from the liability to imprisonment, and thereby enabled to regain his former position and re-enter the commercial world. The laws which were made in the reigns I have mentioned, afterwards altered by an act of George II., continued in operation in the same spirit and without any great difference till the time of Lord Chancellor Brougham. Their defects were brought under the notice of that eminent man. The chief defect was that the Commissioners appointed in the way I have described were not a fixed Court; were not persons by whom the whole of so difficult a branch of law could safely be administered. They consisted of some seventy gentlemen, who were paid at first at the rate of 20s. a-day while employed on the duties of their office, but afterwards by fixed salaries, though very small ones. Many of them were persons just come to the Bar, who had very little experience, and the whole of whose proceedings, therefore, were irregular and unsatisfactory. Lord Chancellor Brougham, with that spirit for the improvement of the law for which he will ever be memorable, and which has placed his name with those of Romilly and Mackintosh among the great legal reformers of our country, constituted by Act a new Court of Bankruptcy, and prescribed its mode of proceeding. In 1849 a general Act was passed for the amendment and consolidation of the law with respect to

bankruptcy. But this law occasioned very great complaints, and in 1852, I think, a Commission was appointed, which made its report in 1853. That Commission of which the present Home Secretary was a distinguished member, made a most elaborate Report pointing out the defects of the law, and offering many suggestions of the highest value and importance, with a view to its amendment. Many of these suggestions may have been introduced into Bills, but I do not think that the greater part of them have yet been productive of the benefit they might effect. They are, most of them, contained in the Bill which I hope to have the honour to introduce to-night; and they will, I trust, if Parliament agrees to the measures, make a very great amendment in the law. I will now state what are the general complaints respecting the present state of the Bankruptcy Law. The first complaint is the very great expense of the Court. The matter is gone into in great detail by the Commissioners to whom I have referred. I have stated that under the law before it was amended there were very great defects, very irregular modes of proceeding, and abuses, which were inseparable from the then state of the law; but the number of officers, and the delay and difficulty in the mode of proceeding have been such as greatly to destroy the remedy which the Legislature meant to give. The House, no doubt, will agree with me in the statement I have made as to the principle of these laws - namely, that the object is to obtain as quickly and as cheaply as possible a full explanation and revelation of the affairs of a bankrupt, and, having ascertained what is the amount of property he possesses, to divide that property among his creditors. This has been done in such a way under the existing state of the law that on an average no less than 30 per cent, and sometimes much more, are consumed in the expenses of the court. Therefore, for every £100 of actual assets that may come into the possession of the assignee, the creditors received no more than £70 net for the payment of their debts. I have here a statement which I copied from one of the tables given in the appendix of the Report of the Commissioners; it is the statement of Mr. Edwards, an Official Assignee, with respect to a certain sum that came into his possession in 1847. The net amount of the assets received by him was £23,029. On that amount the Court Fees were 9 per cent; the broker's and auctioneer's charge