Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/561

 16. BOWEN: THE VICTORIAN PERIOD 547 Its validity might be challenged in an action of trespass or of false imprisonment brought against the commissioners of bankruptcy, or against their messenger who had done nothing except execute his warrant, or against the assignee who had innocently dealt with the estate. The mere inti- mation on the part of the bankrupt that he disputed the propriety of the adjudication, and denied the alleged act of bankruptcy on which it was founded, was enough to paralyse the perplexed assignee, who thenceforward, if he distributed the assets, did so at his own risk. In the year 1825 a trader of the name of Campbell had been declared bankrupt on testimony that he had denied himself to a creditor. Campbell disputed the adjudication and the alle- gation upon which it was based. Thirteen years afterwards, in 1838, the question whether he had really denied himself to the creditor who called on him was still in controversy, and remained unsolved even after Campbell's imprisonment and death. During the interval 170,000^ of his property had been received by his assignees, but not one farthing of the amount in 1838 had yet reached the hands of his general creditors, while 50,000Z. had been expended in costs. The commissioners under whose directions an adjudication took effect were gentlemen appointed to perform this func- tion, who lived at a distance perhaps from one another, who had to be convened on each occasion and to travel (in the days of the infancy of railways ) perhaps thirty or forty miles to attend the rendezvous. Shortly before 1837, the metropolis had been relieved from this incubus, and the seventy commis- sioners of London replaced by a London Court of Bank- ruptcy, consisting of a chief judge and two colleagues (form- ing a court of review) and six commissioners. But the country districts still groaned under a judicial army of 700 commissioners divided into 140 courts. Each tribunal, as a rule, had five members (generally a couple of local barristers and three local solicitors), who taxed among other things the local practitioners' costs. During the years 1837-39 the nimiber of fiats opened before the 700 country commissioners was, on an average, 780 per annum — nearly a judge to every fiat — while the fees paid for this process, and wrung out of