338 Notes of the Month on [SEPT. 



age, and travelling for his education, he shall forfeit the advantages of 

 such bequest." We hope the proviso will not make his posterity pecu- 

 liarly anxious for office on any terms. 



There has been lately a prodigious outcry against the commissioners of 

 bankrupts. But by whom is it raised ? by the mob of bankrupts them- 

 selves ; and this is one of their statements : 



" It appears, that out of 62 persons committed to Newgate by the 

 commissioners of bankrupts, from the 15th of July, 1824, to the 16th of 

 February, 1830, 52 were committed by one list, that of which Mr. 

 Impey and Mr. Surtees are members. Well may it be called the New- 

 gate list. These gentlemen have lately had to pay a large sum for one 

 of their committals." 



Mr. Ainslie's name, we believe, should be added to the list. But what 

 is the truth ? The whole system of the bankrupt laws is framed with a 

 lenity which, contemplating only the honest bankrupt, is abused in the 

 most scandalous manner by the fraudulent. We believe it to be a fully 

 ascertained fact, that one half of the bankruptcies are fraudulent. There 

 are, of course, shades of fraud, from the wholesale robber of the public, 

 who makes himself a bankrupt for the direct purpose of conveying away 

 the property of his creditors, and enabling himself to start breast-high in 

 the world again ; down to the petty larceny bankrupt, who secretes but a 

 portion of the property of others, and, in the general wreck, makes a 

 privy purse for himself. But, if the sternest hand of the law grasped 

 the majority of bankrupts, it would do good national service. As the 

 matter now stands, the commissioners may have been harsh beyond the 

 general custom. But where is the tradesman who seems to be the worse 

 for his bankruptcy ? In a multitude of instances bankruptcy is clearly 

 the high road to fortune. The merchant whom we saw in the Gazette to- 

 day, we see to-morrow in a showy establishment, perhaps with a villa, 

 certainly with a tilbury, and probably a barouche, or a couple of them. 

 He has slipped through the fingers of the law, that ought to have been 

 round his neck ; and he has now nothing to do but to reinforce his servants' 

 hall, order in his pipe of claret, and throw open his doors in Portland- 

 place, or Belgrave-square, to his wife's select party of five hundred 

 friends. His next step is a borough ; or, if he feel popularly inclined, 

 a canvass for the county. We then find him flourishing for a year or two in 

 directorships, the management of companies, the proprietorship of canals, 

 and the projectorship of every new-fangled contrivance for the robbery 

 of every man who is silly enough to confide in him. Then comes the 

 crush again. The man of plums and prosperity again sinks into the 

 Gazette, again comes out of it clear as the new-born babe, again sets up the 

 counting-house, the curricle, the villa, and leads a life of impudent defi- 

 ance of the common honesty of mankind, and insolent indulgence in 

 every luxury that fraud can supply ; until the bloated feeder on public 

 credulity and legal weakness goes in pomp to a grave, to which he 

 ought to have been ushered by the gallows. 



We may rely on it, that if we want to perpetuate an abuse, we cannot 

 lay a better cement for it than eating and drinking. The select vestries 

 would not have held together a year but for their dinners, which they 

 etill give, to the discomfiture of all their enemies. 



" A curious scene lately occurred at Guildhall., between the select 



