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Leader (1850-1860), 30th January 1858, Edition 2 of 2, Page 12

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      Love Enthroned. Whebe Is The Real Greatn...

      cerns the whole country that such should be the case in the first family of the land . Where it is otherwise , embittered feelings , pontracted sympathies , warped ideas , prevail , and the very spirit of government is adulterated . " Where the natural affections are allowed full scope , a healthy spirit is brought to the business of the day , the sympathy with human feeling is complete , and the capacity to administer in harmony with the family out of doors is at its best . The fortunate circumstances under which our

      young Queen was enabled to crown the happiness of her own household , has no doubt had its influence on the generally beneficent character of her reign . We may have had occasion to criticize the actions ' ascribed to Prince Albert , but his share in aiding that good order in the first household of the country is unquestioned . In the results upon ourselves we may fairly contrast the present reign with the morbid , narrowminded , sour-tempered , ill-conditioned reign of Geobge IV .

      The new law is of importance in the social as well as political aspect . It is of no small moment that the first household should be an example of proper worship done to those things which should be sacred in the household . It should be an example of what is ordinarily understood under the word ' moral ;* and the example is rendered perfect if it is a

      success . Here again we may contrast the present time with that of Geoege IV . ; and if in charity we make all due allowances for that unlucky man and his more unlucky wife , we may be grateful that now we are not called upon to make allowances , but can point to the Palace for a model of the way in which the family should be managed .

      But the reform has even a loftier tendency . Strictly considered , ' morals' are but the science of manners , according to the convictions and usages of the time and country ; and their precepts vary according to time and country . Virtue is for all time—it is the intellectual health of mankind . Individuals of great strength and exalted faculties may counteract the benumbing influence of blighted or disappointed affection , and may rise the higher in the reaction against a depressing influence ; but for the true health of the average human , being , a free and

      complete development of the whole nature is essential , iSoi-disant philosophers or moralists m . ay " sneer at ' love , ' but it is the theme of half our written thought since man has written . The superficial romancist , whose work perishes , may confound ' love' with incUnatxon , a trifle with one of the laws of happy human existence , and may raise a smile of contempt at the puerility . Not the less is it the fact that the greatest of men in the council , in the field , and in the study , have given to the world the examples of the passion in its highest power and intensity ; and as they have shown that true love does not know itself or its life until it has

      survived the ' prentice stage of inclination , so they have avowed that the fullest knowledge and the wisest thoughts have shone forth under the light which one soul draws from another .

      108 T H E Leader. [No. 410, January 30,1...

      108 T H E LEADER . [ No . 410 , January 30 , 1858 .

      Js4k£Fiufflqy Reform. Having* In Our Pre...

      JS 4 K £ fiUfflQy REFORM . Having * in our previous papers shown somewhat in detail the gross annual coat of the Court of Bankruptcy , let us now see what we get for our absurdly liberal and enforced payment . „ The Commissioners are Judges who are paid 20002 . per annmm to sit in a court to examine into the recklessness or prudence of a trader ' s conduct ; to decide whether his failure has risen wholly , in part , or not at all ,

      from unavoidable loss and misfortune ; and to grant a certificate—first , second , or thirdclass as the case may be--professedly based upon an examination of the accounts which he has rendered . What preparation has a learned Commissioner had for such a duty ? He is a Barrister with a purely legal training ; he scarcely knows his right hand from his left ; day-books , stock-books , ledgers , and bill-books are impenetrable mysteries to him . He knows much about Blackstone , Sugdeit ,

      and the Reports ; but he knows nothing of the relations and intricate ramifications of debtor and creditor . He is ignorant of the course taken by an ordinary transaction in trade ; and he frequently confounds bills of exchange with accounts rendered . The ' balance-sheet' placed before him , to guide him in forming a judgment upon a trader ' s conduct , is a highly artificial production , manufactured from the bankrupts books by one of the numerous accountants practising in the

      court , and professing to give a concise view of the results of the trading from a certain period up to the date of the petition . Any mercantile man with a bitter experience of the court must know what an utterly unreliable , complicated document this ' balance-sheet' is . Men who have been familiar with the principles and practice of figures for years are unable to discover , in this piece of official routine , any clue to the true amount of the receipts and disposal of

      property , and the formation of profit and loss upon the part of the bankrupt . The men who prepare it very frequently know little of the principle of its structure beyond the mechanical fact that the debtor and creditor side of all the sheets ( and there are several ) shall be made to balance . We remember a recent case , in which a creditor in the court of more keenness than the accountant , discovered an error in the construction of the balance-sheet , which placed the bankrupt in the position of having to

      account for goods to the amount of five hundred pounds . The Commissioner ( Mr . Fane ) , upon a discussion that arose , very modestly admitted his entire inability to understand the question . His profession was law , not figures , and he must leave such a point to be settled by the accountants present . This , coming from a Judge whose function it is to deal with questions of pure account nineteen times where he has to deal with questions oi law once , is a fair specimen of the lax administration of the court . The five hundred

      Sounds in the amended ' balance-sheet orered , was accounted for without comment , by increasing the very elastic item of ' unvouched expenses . ' The Commissioner , in all such matters , ia governed very much by the report of the official assignee , who , having no judicial character to sustain , looks very naturally to two main things—the capability of the estate to pay the heavy court and other charges , and to realize by giving him the least possible trouble . His feeling is , that ifc ia useless making a stir about property that is

      gone j and the bankrupt who fulfils his very slender requirements , may rely on no opposition on his part . Much stress is occasionally laid , both by Commissioner and Official Assignee , upon the not uncommon fact of a bankrupt having kept no ' cash-book . ' Ah a proof of careless , or studied dishonest troain ^ this may , in most cases , be taken for what it is worth ; but a book of far greater importance , a stock-book or ledger , showing the amount of goods bought , and the amount sold , may be omitted or tampered with without exciting any observation or inquiry from persons appointed to adjudicate upon the crimes and errors of trade , but who are so ignorant of its ordinary operations and

      arrangements . The Official Assignees , having no interest in anything but a per cenfcage upon the bare assets placed in their hands or given to them for collection , are at liberty to suit their individual tastes and notions of personal economy in the choice of an office and are therefore found in gloomy garrets ' difficult of access , and badly provided with accommodation either for debtors , creditors or books of account . Creditors stare when , they go into such a place , and find a common loft full of the records of some hundred estates

      the precious books which the bankrupt , if honest , has carefully kept in an iron safe for so many years—huddled in sacks like potatoes unprotected from loss or robbery , and liable to be destroyed by fire at any moment . The attention accorded in these offices to inquii-iug creditors , or their solicitors , is not granted as a right which may be demanded at any time , but is dependent in a great measure upon the temper and urbanity of the clerks employed . Why should they be bored by persons who are only bent upon investigation , and who , unlike the bankrupt debtor , bring no grist to the mill which has to pay their wages ?

      The Official Assignees , it has been assumed , must be men of education and proved , "probity , who will not work reliably under an average income of less ^ bhan two thousand per annum . Has fair competition ever been tried ? Was an Official Assigneeship ever advertized like an ordinary situation ¦? If honesty and fair ability are so rare , how comes it that bankers are well served by men who have as much value passing through their hands . in a day as these officers have each in a year , and who are , nevertheless , trustworthy upon three hundred per annum and a small guarantee , without the expensive checking machinery of an accountant aud clerks at seven thousand a vear ?

      The [ Registrars , who cost with staff upwards of eight thousand per annum , exist to perform legal functions that ought to fall to the Commissioner , and mercantile details that are properly in the province of the Official Assignee . The Messenger , who , backed by a Broker at 8001 . per annum , is the officer supposed to take possession upon a fiat of the property of the bankrupt , is a man earning 1400 / . per annum , for paying another man from three to four shillings a day to take his responsible position . Apart from the gross jobbery

      shown in the fact of a man receiving this enormous income for doing comparatively little or nothing , how comes it that while it requires fifteen hundred or two thousand a year , with all the supposed checks and contrivances of the court , mainly for the purpose of keeping an Official Assignee houest , a man upon an uncertain pittance of » tew shillings a day becomes for several weelts the uncontrolled guardian of all the pronerty , stock-in-trade , and furniture of the bankrupt P

      The Illuminations. It Is Not Possible To...

      THE ILLUMINATIONS . It is not possible to disassociate the ideas of joy and light ; we may think of light without joy , but joy without light at once strikes tne mind as impossible . In poetry , nine ^ - mne out of every hundred illustrations of joy are drawn either directly or indirectly from ngj ™ 5 anditns ^ the-same-in-prose ^ even ^ iivtJiaL ! our every-day experience . All our p leasures and hopes tend rightwards , and we commonly say of a face expressing joyfulness that ifc ww lit with smiles , or that there is .. a brig hter time coming for those who are in n « ed oi cheer . The custom , then , of lighting up o ™ houses on all occasions of festivity h « a »» origin in the very primary inBtincts ot our nature . Monday last was a festa day , a «» y

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 30, 1858, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30011858/page/12/