A correspondent has sent us a startling account of "
the progress of dishonesty among commercial men. Other causes than relaxation of the law might be pointed out for the laxity of morals ; and large ex- ceptions must no doubt be taken to the writer's classification of insol- vents as almost all "vicious," and creditors as almost all " virtuous "!—
a During the past month, vesting orders, (that is protection granted against arrest on the part of the injured creditor,) have been given to 342 'unfortu- nate ' insolvents. There have been 48 bankruptcies, 25 gazetted assignments, and three declarations of insolvency; making a grand total of 418 cases each of whose delinquency may be very moderately estimated at 200!.; 83,604/. has been in about four weeks consumed, wasted, or secreted, by the idle, extrava- gant, or dishonest ; for such are insolvent debtors with rarest exception, who are now almost entirely removed from punishment. It is fair to calculate that only one case of insolvency in ten appears in the Gazette: thus the monthly loss rises to 836,0001. ; • for usually, when a man is in difficulties, he offers a small dividend, and at the same time threatens his creditors with the Court' if they do not assent. How very odd foreigners must consider it, that the wronger should threaten—ay, and successfully too—the wronged! What would a Parliament of landowners say, if the farmers, their tenants, were to offer 2s. 6d. in the pound on the year's rent, and threaten them with the law it they did not alisnt ? Yet such is the position in which the insolvent debtor, almost always a vicious man, is enabled to place the creditor, almost always a virtuous man, by this same Parliament of landowners, who know nothing of commerce, with the connivance of equally ill-informed and superficial Law Lords."
• On these assumed data, the Ion during the year ending June 1843 was twelve millicas. There were six thousaud gentled insult encies.
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