378 Court of Chancery. [Ocr. 
Commissioners and solicitor............+++ sijaustdadacer bes abt coo 
Messengers. «, <p sed ds enera que e+ pres nae sive dpe ativinn bai Ospasis 24,000 
Increase of litigation from the nature of the tribunal... 24,000 
Non-Seizure 
Losses from _..... parca dtidgt ba we Non-discovery 60,000 
Improvident sales 
Expences attendant upon assignees..........66-.eseeseeeee 21,700 
Interest of money at bankers. ............ssesceeeeeeeneeaee 24,000 
Losses from failure of assignees, unclaimed dividends, \ 14.400 
and undivided residues............00..sseeeeeeeeeeneeen ees 3 
He sets the whole down at the annual cost of ..............- £224,100 
With a court thus constituted for his assistance, it is in the nature of 
things impossible but that the jurisdiction in bankruptcy should make 
the tremendous inroads it does on the time of the Chancellor. That 
there are, however, materials in existence for the establishment of a court 
of bankruptcy, adequate to relieve him of the whole of this burthen, will 
be obvious to any one who does not believe all the legal learning and 
judicial competency of the country to be confined under the wig of each 
passing Chancellor. With respect to the cost, there is little doubt that it 
would be found a measure of economy, but if there were the slightest 
doubt of its exceeding the two hundred and twenty-four thousand odd 
pounds at which Mr. Montague estimates the annual expences of thepresent 
system, the deficiency might easily be made up by throwing in the seven 
to ten thousand per annum which is now paid in the sinecure office of 
patentee of bankrupts, and the five to ten thousand to which the Chan- 
cellor, ceasing to continue the labour, would cease to become entitled. 
What would be the precise construction of such a court—what the 
number of its judges—what the time of their sitting—it is without our 
urpose now to attempt to define. The Scotch law of debtor and creditor 
is on the whole very superior to our own, and even if we could not 
borrow a leaf out of their book of bankrupt administration, at all events 
we here take leave to recommend its perusal. With them, as with us, 
the ministerial administration is vested in a trustee chosen by the body 
of the creditors ; but, unlike that of the English assignee, his trust is a 
judicial trust ; and, in his character of distributor of the estate, he acts 
as a judge in the first instance, and in his management is assisted by 
three commissioners, elected by the creditors from their own body, as a 
committee of management. Their proceedings are subject to the constant 
superintendence of the creditors, and the whole to the review of the 
Court of Session.*, On this, however, we cannot enlarge. All we have 
to say is, that the fewer the judges, consistent with the purposes of 
promptitude, and the nearer the approximation of their sitting to per- 
manency, the nearer would be the approach of the court to perfection, 
Certain we are, that for London, half-a-dozen efficient judges would get 
through the business much better than the seventy who now enact the 
farce of administrating bankruptcy law at Basinghall-street. _Un- 
doubtedly to every inferior court there should. somewhere reside an 
appellate jurisdiction, and the court of appeal to the tribunal we propose, 
* Bell’s Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland, fifth edition, p. 17. 
