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eeras the whole country that such should be the case in the first family of the land . Where it is otherwise , embittered feelings , contracted 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 ia 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 G-eobge 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 G-eobge 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 . Soi-disant philosophers or moralists may 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 in ~ clination , 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 doeB not know itself or its life until it has
survived the ' prentice stage of inclination , so they have avowed that the fullest knowledge ana the wisest thoughts have shone forth under the light which one soul draws from another .
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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 the mind as impossible . In poetry , ninety-nine out of every hundred illustrations of joy * drawn either directly or indirectly from Jignt ; a ^ d * Ttnrth ~ e ~ saW ^^ our every-day experience . All our p leasures and hopes tend hghtwards , and we commonly say of a face expressing joy fulness that it was lit with smiles , or that there is a brighter time coming for those who are in need ol cheer . The custom , then , of lighting ujp our houses on all occasions of festivity haa it fl origin in the very primary instincts of our nature . Monday last was a feata day , » dn-y
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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 , Stjgdek , 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 ' balauce-sheet' placed before him , to guide him in forming a judgment upon a trader ' s conduct , is a highly artificial production , manufactured from the bankrupt ' s 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 remembera 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 . Eaite ) , 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 of law once , is a fair specimen of the lax administration of the court . The five hundred pounds in the amended ' balance-sheet' ordered , was accounted for without comment , by increasing the very elastic item of ' unvouehed expenses . '
The Commissioner , in all such matters , is 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 it 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 > . aatopJjbjMPgJtept _ nQ ' cash-book . ' As a proof of careless , or studied dishonest trading , this may , in most oases , 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 bo ignorant of its ordinary operations and
arrangements . The Official Assignees , having no interest in anything but a per centage 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 wheu they go into such a place , and find a common loft full of the records of some hundred
estatesthe 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 inquiring 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 , briug 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 than 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 aunuin and a small guarantee , without the expensive checking machinery of an accountant and 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 800 / . per annum , is the officer supposed to take possession upon a fiat of the property of the bankrupt , is a man earning 14 tO 0 l . 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 honest , a man upon an uncertain pittance of a few shillings a day becomes for several weelu the uncontrolled guardian of all the property , stock-in-trade , and furniture of the bankrupt ?
Havin g in our previous papers shown somewhat in detail the gross annual cost of the Court of Bankruptcy , let us now see what we get for our absurdly liberal and enforced payment . jJThe Commissioners are Judges who are p&M 2000 ? . per annnrnv 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 ,
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108 . THE LEADEB . [ No . 410 , January 30 , 1858 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 30, 1858, page 108, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2228/page/12/
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