ADDENDA. DURING the progress of printing the work some statutes have passed, which it is necessary to notice here. The most important is the 6 Geo. 4. c. 16., the new bankrupt act, which repeals the 5 Geo. 4. c. 98., of which an account is given in the notes to the 31st chapter of Book II. The new act exempts from the operation of the bankrupt laws certain descriptions of persons enumerated in Vol. II. at p. 477. n. (1): that is to say, stage-coach proprietors, brewers, maltsters, scavengers, alum or kelp manufacturers, persons engaged in drawing and redrawing negotiable securities, brickmakers, and lime-burners; and includes scriveners and calenderers. In respect of the first class of acts of bankruptcy, enumerated at p. 479. n. (2), it adds the qualification of fraudulent to the grants or conveyances, which are there mentioned; and provides that no conveyance of a trader's whole property, for the benefit of all his creditors, executed and notified as mentioned in the statute, shall be deemed an act of bankruptcy, unless the commission shall issue within six months from the execution. As to the auxiliary commissions mentioned at p. 480. n. (3)., it provides specially, that all examinations of witnesses under them shall be taken down in writing, and be annexed to the original commission. The 22d section makes a slight alteration in the commissioners' fees, and prohibits, on pain of disability to act in that or any other commission, the receiving any other than the specified sums, or the eating and drinking at the charge of the creditors or of the estate. The 38th section imposes the same penalty on the gaoler in the case of an escape, which is noticed at p. 482. n. (8); but it is silent as to compelling the gaoler to produce the bankrupt to his creditors. The 48th and 49th sections empower the commissioners to pay to the servants and clerks of the bankrupt six months' wages in full, if so much be due, leaving them to prove, as ordinary creditors, for any further arrears; and to refund to any apprentice (whose indentures become completely discharged by the issuing of the commission) a proportionate part of the premium which has been paid for him. The 74th section limits the landlord's power of distress to one year's rent, which, by the 5 Geo. 4., was available for two.See p. 487. n. (19). The 82d section makes an alteration in the law as stated at p. 486. n. (16), relative to payments by and to bankrupts. In both cases these, when made at any time before the date and issuing of the commission, are protected, notwithstanding an act of bankruptcy, if bona fide, and not being, in the first case a fraudulent preference of the creditor, nor in both made with notice of any act of bankruptcy committed; the same rule is also extended to the delivery of goods to the bankrupt or his order. The 131st section provides that no certificated bankrupt shall be liable to satisfy any debt discharged by the certificate upon any contract or promise so to do, unless the same be in writing signed by the bankrupt, or some person lawfully authorized by him in writing. In the 4th volume, at p. 117, it is stated, that the bubble act, 6 Geo.1. c. 18., was enacted in the year after the South Sea project; this is an error for the year before; the repeal of the statute, or very essential alterations in it, are now under the consideration of the legislature. In the same volume, at p. 154., it should have been stated, that 28 Geo. 3. c.38., mentioned in n. (1), on the offence of owling, was repealed by the 5 Geo. 4. c. 47., and the offence itself thereby expunged from the statute book. It should also have been stated at p. 389. of the same volume, that, by the 53 Geo. 3. c. 145., corruption of blood is restrained to the offences of high and petit treason and murder. At p. 338. of the same volume, n. (3), reference is made to a pending case, in which, upon demurrer to a plea of autrefois acquit in misdemesnor, the judgment was for the crown. It has since been decided that such judgment is final.- R. v. Taylor, 3 B. & C. 509. TEMPLE, June 20. 1825. |