an ex-captain of heavy dragoons, who was
on the eve of passing through the Bankruptcy
Court for the fourth time. He was one of the
biggest men, and one of the most cheery
vagabonds, I ever came across. He told
numberless stories of his adventures and slips in
the monetary line, in which, even by his own
account, his conduct had been the reverse of
honest. According to his history, he had
commenced life with six thousand pounds a year
and a commission in a crack cavalry regiment.
"But," as he used to say with the
utmost gravity, " I made the running too early
in the race, and could not 'stay' with the other
horses. In six years I had sold every acre of
land, every pound of Consols, and had run on
the wrong side of the post to the tune of twelve
thousand pounds. I sold out, and the price of
my troop paid half my debts. I went through
the court for about six thousand pounds, and
then set to work as a private gentleman. I
lived a little by betting, a little by whist, a little
by billiards, a little by a few fivers and tenners
that I 'borrowed' from friends and relations
when I was very hard up. So long as I kept to
what I understood, I got on well enough; but
the devil tempted me to set up as a wine-
merchant, and in one year I lost that is, I owed,
for I had no losses in trade—fifteen hundred
pounds, and I then went through the court the
second time. How did I lose the money? I'll
tell you. I used to get, say, three hundred
pounds' or four hundred pounds' worth of wine,
giving three months' bills to the importer for
what I bought. When my customers paid me,
I spent the money, and did not meet my engagements.
The wholesale wine-merchants got
angry; one of them arrested me; and I had to
go through the court. I was sent back, and
had to remain six months in this hole. I then
set up as a coal-merchant, but made a mess of
that; for I found that I paid higher for the coals
I bought than I could retail them for, even if I
had sold them by the sack out of a hand cart.
So I had to go through the court as a coal-
merchant. Since then I have been a promoter
of companies, and that was the jolliest game by
far. Why, I had at one time a matter of nearly
four thousand pounds to my credit in one of the
City banks. But the times all went bad, and I
was sued right and left by those who had taken
shares in the concerns I had 'promoted,' and so
I was arrested, and here I am. The
Commissioner made some difficulty, the other day, about
my cash account; but I shall be all right soon,
and shall slip through the court very easily. If
you are inclined to do anything about any horse
for the Chester Cup, I am your man." I met
him the other day in the Dover train; he told me
he was going to Paris for a week, he had taken
again to his old business of betting, and had
"landed seven hundred pounds upon Hermit"
at the last Derby.

During the short time that I was an inmate
of the prison, seven persons who were prisoners
with me lost their situations, and entire means
of living, from being shut up. One was a curate
in a West-end parish, two were officers in the
army, a third was a clerk in a merchant's oifice, a
fourth was employed in some waterworks, a fifth
was a superintendent of insurance agencies, a
sixth and myself were travellers for wholesale
houses. All these persons had done no worse
than been careless about money matters. Not
that even this kind of indebtedness can be
defended; but it is a poor, a short-sighted, and
a cruel policy to punish a man by the loss of
his employment—which is certain to follow his
being locked up—and to punish all his creditors
at the same time. The whole system of debt-recovery
and imprisonment for debt is very
faulty indeed. It promotes rascality. The only
persons who profit by it are attorneys of a
certain class. To them its abolition would be
the depriving them of what they almost
consider as their "vested interests." Not but that
I consider these gentlemen do their best for
their clients, and are fairly entitled to whatever
they earn, or gain, or make in their business.
But it seems to me that the welfare of the
creditor ought to be the first consideration, and
if it be not, it would be as well to have no
bankruptcy laws. Take my own case. My
expenses at Bream's-buildings and Whitecross-
street, together with fees for legal advice,
expenses of the court, and other items, amounted
to rather more than double the amount of the
debt which I had been put into prison for.
Surely common sense was wanting when such a
code of bankruptcy laws was invented.

Whilst I was in Whitecross-street, a very
wealthy merchant was arrested and brought in
to the prison. When I say "very wealthy," I
mean that he had the reputation of being so,
although it turned out, when his affairs came
to be looked into, he had been insolvent for four
years. He was sued, and judgment being signed
for a very large amount, he was taken upon a
warrant, issued without any notice, on affidavit
that the debtor was about to leave the country.
He was no doubt going to France; but he had
no intention of remaining there. It seems that
it was the interest of certain people to make
him a bankrupt, and he was accordingly made
one. But when he appeared before the
Commissioner, the magnitude of his debts—something
like three hundred and eighty thousand pounds—
seemed to inspire respect, and he was treated
with the utmost consideration, even when he
went up for his last examination; and when it
was well known that his estate would not pay
more than two shillings in the pound. In Whitecross-street
he had many small indulgences
granted him that were denied to others. One
of the aldermen came to see him, another sent
him wine and game, a member of parliament
left a haunch of venison at the gate for
him. And yet it turned out—and must have
been well known to many of those who were
most civil to him—that this man had
commenced the most gigantic speculations with no
capital whatever, and that he had settled about
thirty thousand pounds upon his wife. He did
not remain more than a week in Whitecross-street