Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/562

 548 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY insolvent estates, amounted to between 34,000^ and 35,000Z. But the paucity of provincial fiats was no indication of pro- vincial prosperity. London creditors found the difficulty of proceeding against debtors in the country nearly insuperable, and hesitated to throw good money after bad. Finally, the giving or withholding of the bankrupt's certificate depended on his being able to procure the necessary number of creditors to sign his certificate of discharge. Secretion of traders' effects, bribery of creditors, manufacture of fictitious claims, were the natural consequence of such a system. Several distinct endeavours have been made by Parlia- ment since those days to create an ideal plan for the adminis- tration of bankruptcy and for the distribution of a bankrupt's property. The legislative pendulum has oscillated from one theory to another, as the imperfections of each were experi- enced in succession ; and the pendulum will yet go on swing- ing. But the whole of the intolerable abuses above set forth have been swept away. Imprisonment for debt is gone, except in particular cases, where the non-payment of money is accom- panied with fraud, misconduct, breach of trust or of duty, or disobedience to the order of a court, or where it is shown that the debtor can but will not pay. Courts of bankruptcy have been created, with a machinery the details of which require still to be watched with care, as they still belong to the category of legislative experiment ; but traders and non-traders alike have been brought under a system which is as complete as the ingenuity of Parliament has hitherto been able to render it. Meanwhile, the country had not stood idle in reference to the administration of the law for the repression of crime. As early as 1826, the late Sir Robert Peel initiated a course of legislation intended to consohdate and amend the criminal law, which till then had been scattered in fragments over the statute book, uncollected and unarranged. A commission had issued shortly before 1837 with the view of digesting the written and unwritten law into two monster Acts of Parlia- ment, and the earlier portion of the reign produced a series of valuable reports of successive commissions upon the subject. But although a digest was prepared in 1848, it never became law. In 1852, Lord St. Leonards determined to attempt codi-