In the county courts the total number of plaints in 1862 was 847,288; in 1861 it was 903,957; in 1860, it was 782,384; and in 1859, 714,623. The total amount for which plaints were entered, was £2,006,680. The total amount on judgments obtained by plaintiffs on original hearings was, for defendants, £1,000,223, and for costs, £40,037. The total amount of fees on all proceedings was £270,641, Although the average amount of each plaint does not exceed £2 78. 11d,, so that the whole amount of fees must consequently be considerable, yet so excessive an impost as the amount of fees mentioned cannot be justified. An increase appears in the returns of these courts under every head for 1861. In the total number of plaints entered, the increase amounted in that year to 121,573, or 1.55 per cent. on the number for 1860, In 1862 there was a decrease of 6.6 per cent. under this head. A remarkable proof of the growing popularity of these courts appeared in the increase of the number of judgments obtained in 1861 for debts above £50. This number, in 1861, was 204; in 1860, it was only 17; and in 1859, only 16. In 1862, we were sorry to perceive that it again had fallen to 11. Under the Charitable Trusts Act, only one matter was heard; although this return was 16 in 1861, it was 137 in 1860, and 140 in 1859. Of the causes brought into Court, 99.8 per cent. were determined without a jury, both in 1861 and in 1862. This, however, is but slight if any evidence whatever of the general unpopularity of trial by jury. For besides costing a few shillings, it virtually entails the employment of advocates-an expense

greater in most cases before these courts than the sum at issue.

In 5 of the 33 ancient Manorial Courts no proceedings took place in 1862. In several of this class, however, considerable business is transacted. In the Sheriffs' Court of London, 11,410 plaints were entered. The amount of costs and fees in this class of courts was 25 per cent. upon the amount of debt recovered. The ancient practice of approaching persons in authority only after the presentation of valuable gifts, would still appear to flourish in a modified form in this description of courts. The amalgamation of these courts, however, with the County Courts, would not, as we have seen, quite cure this evil. If there is any doctrine of political economy, the justice and expediency of realising which have been conclusively demonstrated, it is that law taxes ought to be abolished. This argument applies with especial force to courts that are resorted to chiefly by the less wealthy classes.

The Blue Book before us contains no returns from the Courts of Bankruptcy for the year 1862. The bankruptcy statistics for 1861, relate only to the proceedings that were transacted from the 1st of January to the 11th of October, 1861. In this period there were

366

Petitions for adjudications by traders against themselves
Number of such petitions prosecuted to adjudication...... 1,034
Petitions for private arrangement under the control of
the Court upon which adjudications in Bankruptcy
were made

49

Of the petitions presented in 1861, upwards of 5 per cent. were not prosecuted. The total number of bankrupts was 1,222. The total amount of the debts, was £3,894,322. In 1860, the amount was £4,478,037. The average for each case is £3,791. The expenses of administration, to lessen which so many remedies have been suggested, amounted to £310,722, or £32 9s. 11d. per cent. In 1860, the charges were £30 9s. 8d. per cent. on the amount administered. The amount ordered for dividend to the creditors, averaged £16 17s. 5d. per cent.

on the total debts in the balance sheets, and £68 14s. 5d. per cent. on the amount received by the official assignee for administration. These averages, in 1860, were respectively £16 11s. 5d. and £78 19s. 7d. In almost 30 per cent. of the cases the dividend was nil, while only in one in every 52 cases was the full amount of 20s. ordered. Under the new Bankruptcy Act the classification of certificates is abolished. We need not, therefore, give any averages respecting them. The abolition of their classification is of very questionable expediency. He who contemns small things errs quite as much as the stoic; nor is the confounding together of different degrees of culpability likely to have general good results. In 84.1 per cent. of the cases, the bankruptcies were attributable to the misconduct of the bankrupts. There were 33 appeals from the Commissioners; in 11 the judgments were affirmed, in 9 reversed, in 10 varied; 3 were left pending or abandoned. The proportion of the business transacted in each Court was as follows:

The number of petitions for private arrangement up to the 11th of October was much beyond the number in either of the complete preceding years. The total number of petitions was, in the period specified, 301; in 1860, it was 218; and in 1859, it was 123. The total amount of debts in the balance sheets, was £1,443,478.

Under the non-trader statutes 7 & 8 Vict. c. 70, and 23 & 24 Vict. c. 147, there were 31 petitions filed, 23 of which were by debtors not in custody. The expenses of administration were £18 11s. 2d. per cent. Under the Winding-up Acts, there were 17 petitions filed.

As to insolvents, the number of petitions filed in the cases of imprisoned debtors for the portion of the year 1861 specified was 3,129, of which 18 were filed by creditors. Of this number, 683 cases were within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court in London. The returns for nine months of 1861 exceed the total return for 1860 by 309, or 100 per cent. Of 3,101 schedules filed, 666 were within the jurisdiction of the Court in London. The large number of petitions filed in 1861 (as is observed in the statistics) indicates a desire on the part of insolvents that their affairs should be settled under the provisions of the old law. There appeared 708 insolvents before the Insolvent Court, and 2,503 before the County Courts. The expenses of administration averaged, in the London Jurisdiction, £35 14s. 6d. ; in the County Courts £23 14s. 3d. Whence this diversity of expenses?

Of the proceedings in the Court of Chancery in 1862, the following table gives the total in all the Courts, under the different heads :

originating in the chambers of the Master of the Rolls, and the three Vice-Chancellors for the three years.

There were 95 winding-up cases pending in 1862. The return of the examiners shows that the number of witnesses whose evidence was taken down was 338; and that the amount of fees (received by stamps) was £223 88. Od. In 1861 the number of witnesses was 347; the amount of fees, £723. In 1860 and 1859 the number of witnesses was 415 respectively, and the amount of fees £245 and £233. This progressive decrease shows that the system of taking down evidence by the examiners is not giving satisfaction.

The following table gives a detailed account of the number of the suits instituted in the Rolls Courts and the Courts of