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 BANJALTTEA

252

BANKKUPTCY

Kilkenny, at the early age of forty-four. His prin- cipal works are: the poems, "Soggarth Aroon", " Ail- leen", "The Celt's Paradise"; the dramas, "Damon and Pj-thias" and "The Prodigal"; and the novels, "John Doe", "The Fetches", "Peter of the Castle", "The Mayor of Windgap", and "The Boj-ne Water", the last a political novel.

Michael, novelist, and co-worker with his brother John, b. at Ivilkenny, Ireland, 5 August, 1796; d. 30 August, 1S74. At sixteen he began the study of law, but soon abandoned it because of business re- verses which befell his father. He took upon liimself his father's burden and re-establislied his parents in comfortable circumstances. The little leisure his business cares allowed liim he made the most of by gathering material for "The Tales of the O'Hara Family". At the urgent request of John, he contrib- uted several of the stories, his first, "Crohoore of the Billhook", being perhaps the most popular of all. But Michael generously kept himself in the back- ground in order to let his younger brother have all the honour of their joint production. Out of twenty- four volumes he wrote thirteen. Unlike Jolm, how- ever, he was a man of action, and threw liiniself earnestly into various movements for the uplifting of liis coimtrymen, educationally and economically. After ser\nng for many j'ears as postmaster of Kil- kenny, he died at the age of seventy-eight at Booters- town, not far from Dublin. The principal works of Michael Banim are: "Crohoore of the Billhook ". "The Ghost Hunter", "Father Connell", and "The Croppy", a tale of 1798.

The Banims may be justly called the first national novelists of Ireland. They knew their countrjTnen not as the strange, grotesque caricatures too often portrayed in fiction, but as members of the great human family with noble impulses and generous traits. Their work, how-ever, is notably free from patriotic bias. Their Irislimen have their faults. Though naturally sj-mpathetic, tender-hearted, and forgi\'ing, tliese ti.-pical Celts could become stern, bitter, and revengeful. Ignorance, poverty, and cruelty are shown to exist among the peasantry. But the reader cannot fail to see the cause of all this — the natural working out of religious persecution and political oppression. Criticism has been directed against some of their wTitings as "harrowing", and "impure". The latter criticism is unfortunatelj'' justified; John admitted and regretted it, and Michael acted on it by preventing one of the stories, "The Nowlans", from being reprinted. As to the "harrow- ing"' elements, which are certainly conspicuous, the brothers answered: "V\'e paint from a people of a land among whom, for the last six centuries, national provocations have never ceased to keep alive the strongest and often the worst passions of our nature". It may be added that, besides their desire to give a true picture of their country, stiU crippled and pros- trate from the effects of the Penal Laws, they were undoubtedly influenced by the Romantic movement, then at its heiglit. A recent edition of the works of the Banims. in ten volumes, which gives a Hfe of John Banim. appeared in New York, 1896.

MvRRAV, Lije of John Banim ^London, 1857); Read, Cabi- net of Irish Literature (London, 1S91); The Xalion and The Freeman's Journal, (.Dublin) files: Kraxs, Irish Life ami Irish Fiction {.New York, 1903); Diet, of Xat. Biogr.

M. J. Flaherty.

Banjaltlka, Diocese of, in 'Western Bosnia, in- cludes some of the most beautiful portions of the province. Banjaluka is the ancient Roman Ad Ladios. By the Bull "Ex hacaugustu'', 5 July, ISSl, restoring the Catholic hierarchy in Bosnia, Leo XIII created one archiepiscopal an(l three episcopal sees, Banjaluka being the first in precedence among the latter. It includes 4 deaneries. 32 parishes, and more than 80.000 faithful. Its first bishop, Marian Mar-

ko\-i(^, O. S. F., was consecrated -1 May, 1884, but only as Apostolic administrator. His first cathedral was a half-ruined shed, but he afterwards acquired a little church near his residence . At present (1907) most of the parishes are held by Franciscans. In the year 1869 was founded at Mariastern an abbey of Trappists which has already sent out two monastic colonies, to Josephsburg and to Marienburg in Bosnia, and an- other to Zara in Dalmatia. There are hospitals and schools conducted by Sisters of Charity and Sisters of the Precious Blood. In 1900 Banjaluka and Bi- hatch also became a diocese for the so-called Ortho- dox population, the Metropolitan residing at Banja- luka.

Leonis XIII. Ida (Rome, 1SS2), 2SS-312; Missiones Catholicm (Rome, 1S97), 92-103; Missiones Catfioticee (Propaganda, Rome, 1907), 109.

L. Petit.

Bankruptcy, Civil Aspect or. — Bankruptcy {La

banqueronte: earlier English terms, bankruptship, batik- rupture) in ci\-il jurisprudence as well as in popular sig- nification is the fact of becoming, or the state of being, a bankrupt. In the statute of 1705, 4 Anne, c. X'^'II, as printed in the Cambridge edition of the English Statutes, the word is spelled bankrupcy, but the statute of 1711, 10 Ann e, c. XV, as printed in the same edition, and in the London edition, adopts the present spelling. Being derived from bankrupt, as insolvency is derived from insolvent, the re- taining of the letter t has been suggested to be an instance of erroneous spelling {^lurray. Diet., s. v. "Bankruptcy"). EtjinologicaUy, bankTupt has been said to be made up of the Latin words bancus, "table"', and ruptus, "broken", denoting "the wreck or breakup of a trader's business" (Murray, Diet., loc. cit.), "whose shop or place of tra(ie is broken up or gone" (W'harton, Law Lexicon, s. v. "Bankrupt").

Statutory mention of the word bankrupt seems to be earlier than that of the word bankruftc;/, and is first to be found in the title of the Enghsh statute of 1542, " against such persons as do make bankrupt'", a translation, perhaps, of the French "qui jont banque route". (Blackstone, Commentaries, Bk. II, c. xxxi. p. 472, Xote e). "This statute recites that some "persons craftily obtaining into their hands great substance of other men's goods" either flee to parts unknown or keep their nouses, not paj-ing "their debts and duties'', but consuming "the substance obtained by credit of other men for their own pleasure and delicate li\"ing". For distribution rateably of such persons' assets among their creditors tills statute pro\'ides a sunimarj' method which, to quote Blackstone, is "extra judicial", "allowed merely for the benefit of commerce" (II Commenta- ries. 477). We learn, however, from the recitals of a statute of 1570 that, notmthstanding the law of 1542 "made against bankrupts", "those kind of persons have and do still increase". And there- fore a new definition is made of a debtor who "shall be reputed, deemed and taken for a bankrupt'', and subjected to an "extra-judicial" method. Such a debtor, it is enacted, must be a native-born subject or denizen who, being a "merchant or other person using or exercising the trade of merchandise", "or seeking his or her trade or UWng by buT,-ing and selling", shall have been guilty of certain specified fraud and concealment. The assets of such a debtor may, pursuant to this statute, be di\'ided rateably among those of the creditors who are native-born subjects. Thus the Umitation of meaning suggested by the explanation cited of its Latin et jTuologj' was placed upon the word bankrupt, and thereafter a trader only could be adjudged & bankrupt in England. Debtors who were not traders, and whose means were inadequate to pay- ment of their debts in ordinarj- course of business, were known as insolvents. But statutory defi-