By statute 30 Geo. II. c. 24. § 1: "All persons who knowingly or designedly, by false pretence, or pretences, shall obtain from any person, or persons, money.... with intent to cheat or defraud any person, or persons of the same, shall be fined or imprisoned, or... be put in the pillory, or publicly whipped, or transported...for... seven years."

I

1. All persons, says the Act. If then a Master in Chancery, so comporting himself as above, is not a person, he is not a swindler: if he is a person, he is.

2. And so, in the case of a Commissioner of Bankrupts, if any one there be who has so comported himself.

3. So likewise in the case of any other functionary, holding an office under Lord Eldon.

4. So likewise in the case of every Barrister, practising in any of the Courts in or over which Lord Eldon is judge: in the case of every such Barrister, if so comporting himself.

5. Add every Solicitor.

If, however, it is true, as indicated in the samples given in § 2, that in the case of the Solicitor, in respect of what he does in this way, he is, by the subordinate Judge (the aforesaid Master) not only to a great extent allowed, but at the same time to a certain extent compelled,-here, in his case, is no inconsiderable alleviation in the guilt of the official, that of the non-official malefactors is eclipsed, and in a manner swallowed

drowned.

up and

So far as regards Masters in Chancery, to judge whether, among those same subordinate judges under Lord Eldon, there be any such person as a swindler, and if so, what number of such persons, see the sample given in § 2.

Same question as to Commissioners of Bankrupts, concerning whom, except as follows, it has not as yet been my fortune to meet with any indications. Lists of these Commissioners, 14: in each list, 5: all creatures, all removable creatures-accordingly, all so many virtual pensioners during pleasure-of Lord Eldon. Further subject of inquiry, whether these groupes likewise be, or be not, so many gangs of his learned swindlers.

Let it not be said, that to come within this Act it is necessary a man should have proposed to himself the pleasure of being, or of being called, a cheat: the man the Act means, if it means any man, is he who, on obtaining the money by any false pretence, intends to convert it to his own use. Instead of the words cheat and defraud, words which, and not the less for being so familiar-require a definition, better would it have been, if a definition such as the above had been employed. But logic is an utter stranger to the Statute-book, and without any such help from it as is here endeavored to be given, the Act has been constantly receiving the above interpretation in practice.

VOL. XXVI.

Pam.

NO. LI.

C

Indication from the Morning Chronicle, Friday, April 15, 1825:

At a Common Council, Thursday, April 14, Information given by Mr. Favel. Appointment made by list 2 of these Commissioners, for proof of debts in a certain case: hour appointed, that from 12 to 1: Commissioners named in the instrument of appointment, Messrs. Glynn, Whitmore, and Mr. M. P. Horace Twiss. Attendance by Mr. Glynn, none: by Mr. Whitmore, as little consequence, nothing done: by Mr. Horace Twiss, an hour and a half after the commencement of the appointed time, half an hour after the termination of it, a call made at the place. Had he even been in attendance from the commencement of the time, instead of stepping in half an hour after the termination of it, still, Commissioners more than one not being present, no business could (it seems) have been done. To what purpose, then, came he when he did, unless it was to make a title to the attendance fee? Moreover, for this non-attendance of theirs, Messrs. Glynn and Whitmore, have they received their attendance fees? If so, let them prove, if they can, that they are not swindlers. Mr. Horace Twiss, who does not attend any part of the time, but steps in half an hour after, when his coming cannot answer the purpose, has he received for that day any attendance fee? If so, then comes the same task for him to perform. Mr. Favel's candor supposes some excuse may be made for Mr. Twiss: if so, a very lame one it will be. An option he should have had to make, is, to do his duty as a Commissioner of Bankrupts, and not be a Member of Parliament, or do his duty as a Member of Parliament (oh, ridiculous!) and not be a Commissioner of Bankrupts :—a Commissioner of Bankrupts, and, as such, one of Lord Eldon's pensioners. Convinced by his commissionership of the immaculateness of his patron, Commissioner makes a speech for patron, much, no doubt, to the satisfaction of both. Should a Committee be appointed to inquire into Chancery practice, there Mr. Peel, there, in Mr. Twiss, you have a Chairman for it.

Meantime, suppose, for argument sake, Mr. Twiss comporting himself in any such manner as to give just cause of complaint against him-be the case ever so serious to what person, who had any command over his temper, would it appear worth while to make any such complaint? To judge whether it would, let him put the question to Mr. Lowe, as per § 10.

These men or some (and which ?) of them-being so many swindlers, he who, knowing them to be so, protects them in such their practices, and shares with them-with all of them in their profits, what is he? Is not he too either a swindler, or if distin

guishable, something still worse? If, with strict grammatical or legal propriety, he cannot be denominated a receiver of stolen goods, still, the relation borne by him to these swindlers, is it not exactly that which the receiver of stolen goods bears to the thief? Masters in Chancery, 10: Commissioners of Bankrupts, 90; together, 100; and, upon the booty made by every one of them, if any, who is a swindler, does this receiver of a portion of their respective gains make his profit: these same swindlers, every one of them, made by him what they are.-Stop! Between the two sorts of receivers, the thief-breeding and the swindler-breeding receivers, one difference, it is true, there is. The thief-breeder, though, in so far as in his power, he gives concealment to his confederates, he does not, because he cannot, give them impunity: whereas, the swindler-breeding receiver, seeing that he can, gives both.

Masters in Chancery-creatures of this same creator, almost all, if not all of them-is there so much as one of them who is not a swindler? an habitual swindler? Say no, if you can, Lord Eldon! Say no, if you can, Mr. Secretary Peel! Deny, if you can, that your Mentor is in partnership with all these swindlers. Deny it, if you can, that, out of those who have accepted from him the appointment of reporting him blameless, two are of the number of these same swindlers !

"Oh! but," by one of his hundred mouth-pieces, cries Lord Eldon, "nothing has he ever known of all this: nothing, except in those instances in which his just displeasure at it has well been manifested. Whatever there be that is amiss, never has been wanting the desire to rectify it-the anxious desire. . . . But the task! think what a task! think too of the leisure, the quantity of leisure necessary! necessary, and to a man who knows not what it is to have leisure! Then the wisdom! the consummate wisdom! the recondite, the boundless learning! Alas! what more easy than for the malevolent and the foolish to besputter with their slaver the virtuous and the wise !"

Not know of it indeed? Oh hypocrisy! hypocrisy! The keeper of a house of ill fame... to support an indictment against him, is it necessary that everything done in his house should have been done in his actual presence? Ask any barrister, or rather ask any solicitor, whom retirement has saved from the Chancellor's prospect-destroying power-ask him, whether it be in the nature of the case, that of all the modes in which depredation has been practising in any of his courts, there should have been so much as one, that can ever have been a secret to him?

No time for it, indeed! Of the particular time and words, employed by him in talking backwards and forwards, in addition

to the already so elaborately-organised general mass, as if to make delay and pretences for it, a thousandth-a ten thousandth partwould have served an honest man anywhere for a reform: a reform, which, how far soever from complete, would suffice for striking off two-thirds of the existing mass, and who can say how much more?

Have you any doubt of this, Mr. Peel?-accept then a few samples.

1. Reform the first. (Directed to the proper person.) Order in these words. Charge for no more days than you attend. Number of words, eight. At the Master's office off go two-thirds of the whole delay, and with it of the expense.

2. Reform the second. Text. On every attendance-day attend ten hours. Paraphrase. Attend these ten, instead of the five, four, or three, on which you attend now. For your emolument, with the vast power attached to it, give the attendance which so many thousand other official persons would rejoice to give for a twentieth part of it.

3. A third reform. In the year there are twelve months: serve in every one of them. Months excepted for vacation, those in which no wrong that requires redress is practised anywhere.

4. A fourth reform. You are one person: any clerk of your's, another. The business of any clerk of yours is to serve with you, not for you. Serving by another is not serving, but swindling.

Small as is the number of words in the above proposed Orders, any body may see how many more of them there are than are strictly needful to the purpose of directing what it is desired shall be done.

Numerous are the reforms that might be added: all of them thus simple; many of them still more concisely expressible.

Oh, but the learning necessary! the recondite lore! fruit of mother Blackstone's twice twenty years' lucubrations! Learning indeed! Of all the reforms that have been seen, is there a single one that would require more learning than is possessed by his lordship's housekeeper, if he has one, or any one of his housemaids?

Wisdom necessary for anything of all this? Oh hypocrites! nothing but the most common of all common honesty.

:

Of those whom, because unsuccessful, poor, and powerless, men are in the habit of calling swindlers, the seat-that of many of them at least is in the hulks of those hereby supposed swindlers, whom, because rich and powerful, no man till now has ever called swindlers-the seat-the seat of ten of them at leastis in the House of Lords. As between the one class and the other, would you know in which, when the principle of legitimacy

has given way to the greatest happiness principle, public indignation will press with severest weight? Set them against one another in the balance.

1. Quantity of mischief produced? is that among the articles to be put into the scale?

Nothing, in comparison, the mischief of the second order :— nothing the alarm produced by the offence of him whose seat is in the hulks. Against all such offences, each man bears what, in his own estimation, is little less than an adequate security-his own prudence: a circumstance by which the swindler is distinguished, to his advantage, from the thief. No man can, for a moment, so much as fancy himself secure against the hand of the swindler, if any such there be, whose seat is in the House of Lords. United in that irresistible hand, are the powers of fraud and force. Force is the power applied to the victim; fraud, the power applied to the mind of the public; applied as, with but too much success, it has been hitherto, to the purpose of engaging it to look on unmoved, while depredation, in one of its most shameless shapes, is exercised under the name of justice.

2. Premeditatedness-is it not in possession of being regarded as operating in extenuation of moral guilt? deliberateness, as an aggravation? deliberateness, does it not, in case of homicide, make to the offender the difference between death and life, under the laws of blood so dear to Honorable Gentlemen-Noble Lords, and Learned Judges? Of those swindlers, whose seat is in the hulks, how many may there not be, whose delinquency may have been the result of a hasty thought begotten by the craving of the moment? Answer and then say-of the swindler, if any such there be, whose seat is in the House of Lords, the offence is it not the deliberate, the regularly repeated, the daily repeated, the authentically recorded practice?

3. Quantity of profit made—is that among the circumstances that influence the magnitude of the crime? For every penny made by the swindler whose seat is in the hulks, the swindler, if any, whose seat is in the House of Lords, makes 6s. 8d. six-and-eightpence? aye, six-and-eight-pences in multitudes.

4. Indigence-is it not in possession of being regarded as operating in extenuation of moral guilt? all have it of those whose seat is in the hulks. No such extenuation, but on the contrary, the opposite aggravation have they, if any, whose seat is in the House of Lords.

5. Uneducatedness-is it not in possession of being regarded as operating in extenuation of moral guilt? Goodness of education, or, at least, the means of it, as an aggravation? The extenuation, you have in the case of those whose seat is in the hulks the