NEWS OF THE WEEK..
sensation of the week has been the publication of the report and the evidence of the Leeds Bankruptcy Committee. The evidence is as dramatic as if it were fictitious, which a good deal of it must be, as most of the witnesses contradict each other on all important points. The Chief Registrar in Bankruptcy, Mr. Miller, examined through more than forty-seven pages of the blue-book, contradicts himself and everybody else with delightful consistency. Mr. Wilde, the first Leeds Registrar, whose malpractices, retire- ment, and pension are the immediate matters at issue, succeeded in convincing the Committee that the Lord Chancellor had been quite right in insisting on his resignation, but not in granting his pension. Mr. Welch, his successor, convinced everybody that his systematic preference for buying public men's aid, though it may arise from a noble pride in him, is incompatible with disinterested judgment in them. The Rev. George Rogers Harding convinced the Com- mittee that he had either been guilty of a corrupt bargain, or of a gross falsehood and grosser attempt at extortion. The Hon. Richard Bethell was scarcely more fortunate. Only Mr. Skirrow, taxing-master in Chancery, and trustee for Mrs. Richard Bethell, came out of the examination with anything like credit. As for the Lord Chancellor, we have explained elsewhere that the charge against him, so far as it involved nepotism, broke down com- pletely; but on all other points he was, as he says, "painfully struck with the great inconsistency of having directed Mr. Wilde to be served with a notice to show cause why he should not be dismissed, and then permitting him to resign on a pension." And we can only say that the public are likely to share very vividly the impression of the Lord Chancellor.
