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 A PLEA 
 
 FOR 
 
 POOR LABOURING MEN: 
 
 SHEWING THAT BY THE COUNTY COURT PRACTICE THEY ARE 
 LED INTO DEBT, AND COMPELLED TO PAY DEBTS BY 
 A PROCESS OF EXTORTION AND OPPRESSION MOST 
 PROLONGED AND HARMFUL, AND ALSO UNJUST BECAUSE 
 SUCH PROCESS IS USED AGAINST POOR MEN ONLY. 
 
 Written on the introduction into Parliament of the County 
 Courts Consolidation Bill, 1888, 
 
 BY 
 
 THEOPHILUS LOTT, 
 
 Registra7- of the Shipston-on-Stoiir County Court. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE HERALD PRESS, UNION STREET.
 
 
 stSZ^ U^. ?^ Ti'-J 

 
 A LETTER 
 
 AS TO 
 
 THE OPPRESSION OF POOR DEBTORS AND OTHER 
 COUNTY COURT PRACTICES. 
 
 IN these few pages it is my respectful desire to ask members of 
 the Legislature to consider the law of debt as it affects poor 
 people. This department of the law is administered by the 
 County Courts, which indeed were created by statute for the 
 more easy recovery of small debts and claims. 
 
 Being the Eegistrar of one of these Courts, I have for some 
 years been much employed in the details of the practice 
 necessary for the compulsory recovery of small debts. In this 
 Court, I know, and in all the other County Courts throughout 
 England and Wales, it will be found that a very large majority 
 of the debtors are poor labouring men, married, and with 
 families to support ; and, as regards this class of persons, it 
 seems to me that the law of debt is oppressive and unjust, and, 
 further, that the practices and rules of these Courts are a direct 
 encouragement to the increase of debts and debtors. 
 
 In these Courts it has long been the practice to order that 
 labourers and others who are not possessed of much substance 
 should pay their debts by instalments. No doubt, this practice 
 (which is authorised by Act of Parliament) was adopted by the 
 creditor and the officers of the Court out of pity and merciful 
 consideration to the poor debtor, in cases where it was seen and 
 known that he had not the means to realise at any one time 
 enough money to clear his debt at a single payment. 
 
 But permission to pay debts in this fashion, as soon as 
 inquiry is made into its actual results, appears (far from being 
 a benefit and real kindness) to be in fact most harmful and 
 prejudicial to the poorer classes. The shopkeeper (draper, 
 grocer, or baker) knows of this practice, and is encouraged to 
 allow men earning low wages to have large quantities of goods 
 on credit : while they, or their wives for them, are only too 
 ready to take any amount of goods with which the shopkeeper 
 will trust them. The shopkeeper's calculation or point of view
 
 is that, though the customer may be far too poor to quickly 
 discharge his account, yet that he can recover judgment in the 
 Court, and obtain an order for its payment by instalments — in 
 fact, he can obtain from the Court an order that a portion of the 
 future earnings and wages of the labourer shall be sec aside and 
 paid into Court for him till his judgment debt is satisfied, the 
 amount of liis ciaim often far exceeding the saleable value of the 
 property of the labourer at any one given time. On the other 
 side, the poor customer is tempted to take the goods, and does 
 not shrink from the amount of debt he incurs, for he knows that 
 at the worst the Court will allow him time to pay by small 
 instalments. The present enjoyment of the goods attracts him ; 
 the prospect of paying for them little by little during a long 
 period seems easy to him ; he can defer the day of reckoning 
 and of payment — that is enough. 
 
 In numberless cases (from some circumstance or other — 
 want of work, accident or illness, and the expense of a doctor), 
 the account of the shopkeeper is not paid, and then he recovers 
 a judgment for it in the Court, the Court ordering the debtor to 
 pay the amount of the account and the costs of the judgment by 
 instalments of from 3s. to 6s. a month: the Court, in fact, gives 
 the judgment on which the parties reckoned when the credit was 
 given and taken. Of course, a shopkeeper seldom allows 
 labourers' bills to run into double figures, but still accounts of as 
 much as £8 or £9 are often adjudged against labouring men, 
 and ordered to be paid by such instalments. Constantly the 
 labourer is in arrear with several accounts ; and it is often found 
 that two or three or more shopkeepers have at one and the same 
 time judgments against the same man. A debtor in this 
 position has to pay from 10s. to £1 a month into the Court to 
 satisfy the instalments ordered against him. His wages are all 
 too small to provide him and his family with ready money for 
 their living after the instalments are paid, and accordingly he 
 purchases his necessary goods on credit from other rival 
 shopkeepers ; and they in turn have afterwards to come to 
 Court, and also obtain against him a judgment for payment by 
 instalments. Thus it goes on: the labourer first gets into debt, 
 and while he is paying his first debt he incurs other debts ; he 
 simply passes his life in debt. Probably there is not a Court in 
 the agricultural districts wliich could not show a long list of 
 persons who have for years and years, without ceasing, paid 
 instalments on debts; whenever get free of them, but have fresh 
 accounts ordered against them every year. It is not uncommon 
 for a debtor to pay monthly instalments on a debt adjudged 
 against him five or six years ago ; there are instances where he 
 has paid them on the same old debt for a period of ten or even 
 twenty years. 

 
 If the debtor makes defaiilt in payment of the instalments, 
 the total amount of the mipaid portion of the debt becomes 
 due, and the bailiff of the Court seizes his furniture, his pig, 
 and the crop on his allotment. A sale does not happen so 
 often as one would suppose, for the employer of the debtor, 
 or liis neighbours, frequently lend him the money to pay out 
 the bailiff, or often a daughter in service pays her father's debts 
 out of her own wages or savings ; the usual consequence is that 
 in order to pay the debt claimed by the bailiff, who will not 
 wait, he incurs a debt with some one else who will wait, or who 
 will wait a little. Often the bailiff may be paid out with the 
 very money which has been set aside for payment of some other 
 shopkeeper'S'-account, who in his turn then must bring his 
 claim into Court. The debtor thus passes his life in an endless 
 chain of debts, always paying on account of them, and yet 
 never rising above or free of them, till at last, by reason of his 
 continual poverty and outgoings, he can no longer pay, and he 
 dares to discontinue his payments because his possession and 
 goods are become so utterly worthless that the bailiff sees they 
 are not worth selling. Then for a period the exaction of the 
 debt is respited ; but in two or three years, or in a less period, 
 the debtor gets up again in the world, becomes rather better 
 off, and again possesses a pig or some saleable fnrnitiire. The 
 shopkeeper, going his rounds, finds this out, makes a note of it, 
 and gives information to the Court. Down again comes the 
 bailiff with a new warrant, and sells everything off for the old 
 debt. 
 
 The continuous and endless pressure of debt on poor 
 labouring men, and the appropriation of their future earnings 
 for past debts, are modes of legal torment from which other 
 better-to-do persons, whose means enable them to pay for a 
 solicitor's assistance, are exempt. If a better-to-do person 
 cannot pay his debts, he resigns his property to be realised in 
 bankruptcy or by arrangement, for the rateable benefit of all his 
 creditors. It may be only Is. or 2s. 6d. in the pound is forth- 
 coming, but, however little is eventually paid, the debtor 
 from the moment of the resignation of all his property (except 
 part of his furniture, which is always allowed him) finds himself 
 free from all his old debts ; he can at once recommence his 
 profession or his trade, and enjoy, keep, and live on the profits 
 he can earn. His earnings will not be followed for his old 
 debts, the fact of his property having been once taken from him 
 entitling him to freedom from all old prior liabilities. 
 
 Now this summary release from debt is not within the 
 reach of, or it is withheld from, the poorer wage-earning 
 classes. Whatever may be the intent of Acts of Parliament, 
 these persons are forced to pay their debts to the uttermost
 
 6 
 
 farthing, paying also ten or twenty per cent, of added money for 
 County Court fees. The process of payment is prolonged for an 
 indefinite number of years, though as a fact the man is bank- 
 rupt all the time, and as much entitled to relief or discharge in 
 bankruptcy as his richer neighbour, who has failed, and started 
 again as a free man. But the poor man's estate, as also his 
 debts, is so very small, and the process of bankruptcy or of com- 
 position is so expensive as to be within the means of those 
 only who have some considerable estate. However smull 
 the estate is, skilled advice and other expenses have to be paid 
 for — in fine, bankruptcy and composition are luxuries or rights 
 within the means of the well-to-do only. 
 
 Bankruptcy and composition are not the remedies that can 
 be applied to the indebtedness of a poor man. The beginning 
 of indebtedness should be made impossible, or at the least 
 rendered less easy for him, for he cannot afford any after or 
 later remedies. The cause and the beginning of indebtedness is 
 the credit given by the shopkeepers, and the life of the credit 
 system is the payment by instalments out of future earnings 
 enforced by the County Court. If the law was that the value 
 of the present goods of the poor man was the extent of the 
 remedy of his creditors, and the only available asset for payment 
 of his debts, the shopkeeper would not trust him near so much ; 
 and the debtor, if he could not defer the day of payment by the 
 system of instalments, but found his goods forthwith seized for 
 the whole amount of his debt, would not dare to ask for or take 
 the shopkeeper's goods, unless he paid for them in ready money. 
 Both would be in their several interests intent on one object, 
 and that would be the diminution and discontinuance of debt, 
 credit, and large accounts, and the volume of indebtedness by 
 poor men would be infinitely less. 
 
 The only judgment for debt allowed to be recorded, should 
 be that the debt be immediately, or within one month, paid in 
 one sum. Neither the creditor, the debtor, nor the Court should 
 have power to obtain, give, or suffer a judgment for payment by 
 instalments, or for deferred payment ; nor should the Court be 
 allowed to receive any part or instalment of the debt, but only 
 the whole at one single payment. The poor man would thus be 
 brought to regard a County Court debt not as an evil to be 
 always with him, but as an impost or assessment, like a fine by 
 the magistrates, which he must discharge at once. 
 
 In case of non-payment, if the bailiff" of the Court cannot 
 within a month of the time allowed for payment raise the 
 money by sale of his goods, or if within one or two months the 
 creditor cannot prove to the Judge that the debtor can well pay 
 the debt and costs in one sum and will not, then the judgment 
 ought to remain unenforced, and be cancelled and satisfied, the
 
 creditor to receive nothing and the debtor to pay nothing, but 
 by reason of his poverty to stand excused and released from 
 his debt. Tlie Couit should have power to sell his present 
 goods, but not the power to mulct his future earnings, or to 
 seize his after- acquired property. If the debtor has the present 
 means and ability to pay, he must be made to pay ; if not, he 
 must be let go free. The remedies of the Court should be 
 prompt and summary, and the Court should not give a second 
 credit by allowing time for payment, but should make the 
 debtor pay at once or release him. By this little alteration, the 
 goods of the labourer, and not his future earnings, would alone 
 be liable for his debts ; this only makes his position equal to 
 that of the classes above him. It would be thought intolerable 
 that a banker, a doctor, a draper, or a miller should be made 
 for years, out of their professional and trade earnings, to pay 
 the liabilities they have once incurred, and that there should be 
 no release of their old debts. Yet this is the present position 
 of an innumerable number of labourers and other poor men, 
 this class being the only sufferers. Shopkeepers, traders, 
 clerks, and others go bankrupt or compound, and so get clear 
 of their debts ; they do not submit to the instalments and 
 deferred payments. 
 
 By the present instalment system, the Courts lend them- 
 selves to be the agents and special benefactors of shopkeepers 
 whose trade is with the poorer classes. A very great part of 
 the time of the officers of the Court is occupied in accountancy 
 in the collection of the shop accounts for which judgment has 
 been given, and the Court will every month, for several years, 
 receive instalments of a few shillings at a time on a single 
 judgment debt. This is very convenient for the shopkeeper, 
 who increases his trade, and the number of his customers by 
 selling on credit, and then, at the joint expense of the country 
 and of his debtors, obtains in the County Court the services of 
 a petty accountant and cash keeper, thus using the Court not 
 only as a tribunal from which to receive a judgment or 
 declaration of his rights, but also as an office through which 
 he can clear his books, and by the instalment system appro- 
 priate for himself the future earnings of the poor. Practically 
 it is only shopkeepers who obtain these prolonged judgments 
 and debt-collecting services, and most certainly it is only the 
 labouring classes who endure them. In other ranks of society 
 the judgments are for summary and prompt payment in a single 
 sum. The instalment system is an unjust burden on the poor 
 defendant, and also an unfair and peculiar advantage and 
 benefit conferred by the pubhc Court, at the public expense, 
 on those persons who keep shops.
 
 8 
 
 The facilities afforded by tlie Court for the collection of 
 debt iuduce customers to ask for credit, and prevent shopkeepers 
 from selling for cash. On occasionally remonstrating with a 
 country tradesman for the number and amounts of the debts in 
 his books, the tradesman has assured me that if he did not sell 
 on credit he could do no ti'ade at all. His customers would go 
 to some more accommodating shop, and he might as well put 
 up the shutters of his shop, and give notice of retirement from 
 business, as endeavour to sell goods for ready money only. The 
 County Court system appears to make a ready money trade an 
 impossibility. The poor will not save up money for their pur- 
 chases, but make their purchases first, intending to afterwards 
 save or earn the money for payment of the bill, many of them 
 so long deferring payment, that the shopkeeper must at last 
 proceed against them in the County Court. 
 
 The morale as to debt of the labourers of some villages 
 is very low indeed. A great percentage of them seem to 
 consider a summons to be no disgrace ; many of them actually 
 pay the larger number of their bills not to the trader direct, but 
 little by little into the County Court for him, and they wilfully 
 defer payment until their bills have been converted into judg- 
 ment debts, and can be levied by the power of the bailiff. 
 Another evil effect of the present credit system is that a 
 shopkeeper of capital will allow poor men to become indebted 
 to him to the amount of a few poimds, and so long as they will 
 keep spending most of their money at his shop, a balance of 
 account to this extent is allowed to remain unsatisfied. 
 Perhaps the continuance of their custom is sufficient recompense 
 to the shopkeeper for his idle money, or possibly he recoups 
 himself by charging the higher prices, or by supplying the 
 worse goods. If the debtor takes his custom elsewhere, the 
 shopkeeper at once demands payment of the old balance. 
 
 I have long thought that the County Court leads people 
 into debt, and then, if they are poor, oppresses them. Only 
 County Court officials know the hold, power, and oppression, 
 which debt and the County Court bailiff" exercise over innumer- 
 able poor families, especially over agricultural labourers, who, 
 dwelling in cottages and not often changing their abodes, 
 always have some little furniture and goods, to preserve which 
 from sale by the bailiff's, they will make the heaviest payments 
 out of their wages. The debtor does not publish his debts, the 
 very existence of which is probably known only to his own 
 family, his creditors, and the officers of the Court. 
 
 No doubt it is important that debts should be paid, but 
 perhaps it is equally important and politic that they should be 
 paid only according to the real ability to pay. The law now is 
 that the ability for payment by the poor man is not only what
 
 9 
 
 can be made of his present and future goods, but also what can 
 be appropriated or attached out of his future earnings — the law 
 makes the poor man a slave to his debts, binding him for years 
 to work them out in full. Would it not be a more merciful and 
 just law that his ability to pay should be determined solely by 
 the value of his present property ? A few pounds worth of 
 furniture should not be considered property for this purpose, 
 but as necessaries for his home, and not saleable for debt. 
 With such a law and such a privilege, it would be almost 
 impossible for men earning low wages to incur debts exceeding 
 a few shillings. 
 
 The existing system by which shopkeepers feed and clothe 
 the labouring classes on credit conceals their present poverty, 
 but in the following years the payment of the old debt keeps 
 them in a chronic state of poverty. It would be a sounder 
 system for people to pay as they go ; if they cannot pay, it is 
 better that they should not be able to conceal their poverty at 
 the expense of their future welfare. 
 
 The position and involvement in debt of the poorer class 
 has attracted the attention of Parliament, and in Mr. 
 Chamberlain's Bankruptcy Act there is a scheme of bankruptcy 
 proceedings for ascertaining the total debts of the poor man, and 
 then applying his estate and his future earnings in payment of 
 his consolidated debts or of a dividend on them, but, so far as poor 
 agricultural labourers and others of the very poorest class are 
 concerned, the Act is a dead letter. This Act privileges the 
 furniture of the debtor to the value of £20 from being 
 administered for his debts. Now it is the truth — as everyone 
 who has ever watched a furniture sale well knows — that £20 far 
 exceeds the value of all the goods of an ordinary workman or 
 labourer, consequently there is in the case of poor debtors no 
 estate for the Court to administer. 
 
 Where by Act of Parliament there are no assets, one would 
 think that the Court should lose its rights and leave the poor 
 man alone ; but, instead of accepting the position, the Act 
 attempts to raise some estate for the Court to administer 
 by providing that the debtor shall be compelled out of his future 
 earnings to pay his consolidated debts, or a proportion of them, 
 by instalments into Court. Now these payments can only be 
 made out of future earnings, for the Act admits there are no 
 present assets. The future earnings of the better-to-do 
 bankrupt are not confiscated in this way, and it is manifestly 
 unfair to extort those of the poorer debtor. 
 
 The principal and reason of our general Bankruptcy Law is 
 that the honest debtor shall be immediately made a free 
 man and released from his debts. An order for deferred 
 payments (to be realised not out of any property, but out of the
 
 10 
 
 debtor's future work and toil) is a violation of this principle. 
 There is also another argument against the justice of any order 
 for the deferred payment of debts by instalments: in every case 
 where the debtor does not own more than £20 of goods, the new 
 Act seems to consider that he has no estate available for tlie 
 payment of his debts, and so such future instalments can be paid 
 only out of his work and wages. Now the attachment of wages 
 (that is an order on an employer to deduct and pay into Court 
 part of his servant's wages for payment of that servant's debts) 
 is absolutely and directly prohibited by statute law, and yet the 
 County Courts compel the same poor servant himself to set aside 
 and pay part of the same wages for this purpose. The effect on 
 the wage earner is equal, whether he makes the payment himself, 
 or whether his employer detains part of his money and makes 
 the payment for him. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain's Act attempts to raise up the pauper 
 to the level of the bankrupt, and to introduce the system of 
 administering substantial estates to cases where there is no 
 estate to administer. To apply to monthly contributions out of 
 wages amounting to a very few shillings, the rules, the 
 procedures, the skilled and clerical labour, and accountancy (the 
 expense of which can only be borne by a competent estate), to 
 make a day labourer a bankrupt, to schedule every little score 
 against him, is conceivable only in these days when clerks' work 
 is common and cheap ; certainly it is a new departure in the 
 law, and not part of the ancient inheritance. It may take as 
 much time and trouble to ascertain the debts of a labourer 
 as those of a man who has a considerable estate, but the greater 
 difficulty is to collect his estate, which does not exist in esse but 
 is in futuro only; for, his furniture being privileged until his 
 future wages are paid into Court, there is none. The poorest 
 debtor does not know of the Act; solicitors cannot take up these 
 small matters, for there is nothing for their costs ; nor can the 
 Kegistrar make himself agent to manage the affairs of one poor 
 debtor, and it is not the interest of any creditor to initiate 
 the bankruptcy proceedings, for, on a rateable division of a 
 dividend on small debts among several creditors, the amount for 
 each is so minute that no individual creditor will take the 
 trouble to enforce any proceedings against the debtor. Certainly 
 some few of these small bankruptcy applications are made, and 
 it appears that the amounts paid by the bankrupts would not be 
 sufficient to pay the Government fees ; but these applications are 
 probably not hi/ labourers, but bij small, tradesmen. Any labourer 
 who has not £20 worth of goods, and against whom a judgment 
 is given for more than he can pay forthwith {£1 is about 
 the limit of his ready money), is a properly qualified person to 
 become bankrupt. In a circuit recording 6,400 judgments,
 
 11 
 
 only 23 of these administrations are ordered. It would be within 
 the mark to say that 3,000 of these judgments at the least are 
 against labourers for more than they can pay forthwith, and 
 thus a district now returning only 23 bankrupts should return 
 over 3.000. But really where there is no money, how can this 
 bankruptcy work be done ? As a fact, it is left undone. The 
 poorest debtor is too poor to be released in bankruptcy, and 
 continues to pay his instalments as in the days before the Act. 
 
 The Act does not take away a single facility for debt and 
 credit ; it merely sketches out a complicated procedure by which 
 small people may escape from paying for the necessary goods 
 that have been supplied for their maintenance; but I submit 
 that debt is as a disease, and that it is the higher wisdom in the 
 first instance to combat it by preventive rather than by remedial 
 or curative measures. 
 
 A County Courts Consolidation Bill is one of the measures 
 which Governments introduce, but do not find time to pass. If 
 the Legislature had a practical knowledge or experience of 
 County Court proceedings, I think they would be thoroughly 
 dissatisfied with the present enforcement of the law of debt, and 
 perhaps also with other details of the County Court System, and 
 the Bill would then be made one of alteration and reform as 
 well as of consolidation. 
 
 Such a Bill would give an opportunity for inquiry into the 
 position, duties, payments, and services of the Eegistrar of the 
 Courts. Let us consider the Kegistrarship of the Court of a 
 small country town entering 500 to 800 cases in a year. The 
 Registrar's duties are continuous throughout the year. He, or a 
 clerk as competent as himself, must every day be in attendance 
 and keep open oflice ; and, one day with another, they will find 
 constant work in issuing summonses, judgment summonses, 
 executions, and notices — say, nearly 1,000 complete processes — 
 in the collection of the Government fees on all proceedings, and 
 in attendances on suitors and their solicitors, and in the receipt 
 and payment of money which, in a small Court, would comprise 
 over 500 accounts and several thousands of items of receipts and 
 payments in one year. Also, every poor man in the district who 
 thinks himself deprived of his legal rights comes to the 
 Registrar's Office to state his case, to receive the Registrar's 
 counsel, and to have the particulars of his claim drawn and fair 
 copied for him. All this is necessary before the case can be 
 entered. The little money value of his claim makes it impossible 
 for the claimant to aflbrd a solicitor's fees, and thus, without 
 expense, the poor litigant receives from the Registrar the 
 gratuitous services of a solicitor and the advice of an official who 
 knows how claims are generally decided. Every County Court 
 has the same jurisdiction as the High Court of Chancery in all
 
 12 
 
 matters not exceeding £500, and the conduct of these cases 
 which may be very complicated falls on the Registrar, The 
 accountancy and formal work can be done by a clerk of usual 
 ability. And, though there may not always be in the Court 
 subjects which require much legal knowledge or experience, yet 
 cases of this description may at any time be entered, and then 
 the services of a properly educated solicitor are necessary. With 
 this view, it is required by law that the Registrar of every Court 
 shall be a qualified solicitor. The salary allowed to the 
 Registrar for the continuous services, unlimited in point of 
 time, which he, or his clerk, or both of them must perform, 
 will be about £150 or £180 per annum. This is scarcely enough 
 for an officer who must have received an expensive education, 
 and, who, without favour and affection, has to attend to the 
 administration, and keep the books of civil justice of about fifty 
 parishes, two or three of which may each contain a population 
 of 2,000, the whole district perhaps containing a population of 
 not less than 30,000. The Grovernment seems to think that the 
 salary is not enough, or not enough without other means of 
 subsistence, to keep the Registrar honest and in a decent position, 
 so the Registrar is allowed on his own account to conduct the 
 private practice of a solicitor. By employing more assistance the 
 Registrar can find time both for private practice and for his 
 public duties. The result is rather curious, and the Registrar's 
 position is not readily justified. He acts as solicitor and receives 
 his costs from the very persons who are the plaintiff's in his 
 Court. The class of persons who are defendants are almost 
 always very poor, and, possessing no property, need no 
 solicitor ; and consequently the Registrar, in his character of a 
 practising solicitor, is hardly ever retained hj, or receives costs 
 from, a defendant ; thus the Registrar, an officer of a Court 
 which should be above all suspicion, is (or, worse still, hopes to 
 be) the private paid solicitor of the plaintiff. Perhaps no 
 absolute injustice — but there must be partiality — is thus caused. 
 It must be that the Registrar wishes that the plaintiff, who is, 
 or may be, his client, should be successful in his claims, as the 
 Registrar has something to hope for from plaintiff's, nothing to 
 expect from defendants. The public office of Registrar is made 
 the nucleus of a private practice, giving the Registrar an 
 introduction on money and business affairs to business men. It 
 constantly may occur that a plaintiff, out of gratitude for the 
 recovery of his claim (when the explanations and guidance of 
 the Registrar, in the technicalities of the Court practice in the 
 conduct and enforcement of the action, have been of more than 
 usual assistance to him), will reward the Registrar by employing 
 him to conduct his next sale, purchase, or mortgage, or to make 
 his will, or do some other coinmon legal work. The position of
 
 13 
 
 the Eegistrar as solicitor for, and receiving his costs from, one 
 class of the suitors is most decidedly indefensible. It is directly 
 in conflict with that exact impartiality, indifference, and even 
 balance towards all parties, which is expected from an Officer of 
 a Court of Justice ; but unfortunately also, in another and far 
 more direct way, is the Eegistrar still more dependent on the 
 plaintiff. It is in this way the Registrar's salary is not a fixed 
 sum ; it fluctuates in every year according to the number of 
 cases entered by tlie plaintiffs — the more cases the more salary ; 
 and the more successful the plaintiffs are the more cases will 
 they enter. A simple and sure way by which the Registrar can 
 increase his salary is for him to help the plaintiffs, not only to 
 bring their actions, but also to enforce them and get their 
 money ; for plaintiffs, if they recover their claims without 
 trouble or loss, will enter more cases, and the more cases the 
 more salary, and for another year the Registrar may hope 
 to receive not £100 or so, but even J6150, or a little more. His 
 salary in a course of years depends on the number of cases 
 in which plaintiffs are successful. 
 
 As is the position of the Registrar, so is that of the bailiff 
 of the Court. He, too, is paid by the number of processes 
 delivered to him for execution, and that number will diminish, 
 unless the bailiff is generally successful in collecting in full the 
 monies found to be due to the plaintiffs. The bailiff, in distrain- 
 mg and seizing the goods of the debtor, is thinking not only of 
 his public duty, but of his future salary. If he does not make 
 the money the'plaintiffs are disappointed, the number of cases 
 entered by them will be far less, and, in consequence, the 
 bailiff's salary will be reduced. So, even though the goods of 
 tl>€ debtor are so few, mean, and old that they will scarcely 
 realise the expenses of sale, still the bailiff will press the 
 execution and continue in possession, for he knows that in 
 most cases the debtor, rather than have his few things sold, 
 and his home broken up, will borrow the money to satisfy the 
 execution. 
 
 An execution by the bailiff is not a light matter ; he will 
 seize and sell absolutely everything but tools, clothes, and 
 bedding to the value of £5. Now, if the debtor should also 
 become bankrupt, his general furniture and goods to the value 
 of £20 are allowed to him, and excepted from sale for debt ; 
 thus in bankruptcy, the total contents of a small house — the 
 whole furniture of his home — are allowed to the debtor, bur in 
 cases of debt only, unaccompanied by bankruptcy, the debtor is 
 allowed only his tools, clothes, and bed. This is inconsistency 
 that a bankrupt should be allowed so much and a debtor so 
 little ; the same amount of necessary goods, whether £5 or £20, 
 should be allowed to each of them.
 
 14 
 
 Possibly (apart from the uatiiral dislike of new and extra 
 work, aud apart from the intrinsic difficulty of administering 
 nothing — of making bricks without straw, so to say), one reason 
 why the small bankruptcies under Mr. Chamberlain's Act are 
 not generally adopted, is that they might hinder plaintiffs from 
 recovering their debts. Plaintiff's would then cease to give so 
 much credit, and to enter so many actions for debt; the number 
 of cases would decrease, and correspondingly, also, the 
 Registrar's alary. It is the interest of every Registrar to let 
 the Act and all its remedies remain untried. In this respect, 
 and I think in other matters also, the parting of the ways lies 
 clear before the Registrar ; he may take his choice either to 
 introduce, observe, and demand the strictest observance of the 
 letter of the law, and of the rules of proof and evidence, and. by 
 so doing, reduce his salary ; or he may not be so over-nice, but 
 let matters go on more loosely, taking no trouble to bring mter- 
 fering Acts of Parliament into operation, and so keep his normal 
 salary. 
 
 The position of the Registrar is not happy ; the remunera- 
 tion granted him by the Government is far less than the 
 monthly wages of a department clerk in a good law office. 
 In order to secure the reasonable competence which a qualified 
 professional man has a right to expect, the Registrar must carry 
 on a private practice as a solicitor, though his every day 
 experience teaches him that this is more or less irreconcileable 
 witli his duties as Registrar. If he is at all covetous, or in any 
 money difficulties, he may encourage litigation in order to 
 increase his salary. I have heard of Registrars who look up 
 their districts, or perhaps their own clients only in the district, 
 to find out if they have claims to enter. In this way some 
 hundreds of new cases for small debts may now and then be 
 secured, and an increase in the Registrar's salary is the direct 
 result. Some plaintiff's know that cases are profitable to tlie 
 Registrar, and I have been asked to contribute to the fees pay- 
 able by plaintiffs, and receivable by me on behalf of the Treasury. 
 
 In an old paper, dated 1770, there is some very plain 
 writing about the then generation of Justices" Clerks. The 
 tract brands them " as pests of society, a set of dirty wretches 
 who encourage litigation to increase their fees, and take 
 presents to obtani favour and stifle evidence — harpies detestable 
 to ever lover of his country." Now our modern Registrar does 
 not take presents or fees, but he is under temptation to increase 
 his salary by encouraging the increase of litigation. The 
 tempting reward is so decently cloaked : it is not a bribe or 
 present from the plaintiff' that now-a-days is far too rank, it is 
 only increased work and increased salary ; the Grovernment is 
 both tempter and paymaster, and so long as the Treasury pay
 
 15 
 
 the Kegistrars by commission on the number of the summonses, 
 so long does the Government tempt them to befriend plaintiffs 
 and increase and foster litigation. Surely the Registrar of any 
 Coin-t should be debarred from private practice, and should 
 receive a fixed salary, which could be fixed without counting 
 the number of cases, or making him in any way dependent on 
 the suitors. 
 
 Probably dread of increased expenditure is the only obstacle 
 to reform. The existing number of Courts must be maintained. 
 Now there is a Court in the market town or centre of business 
 of every district, and probably within the walking distance of 
 every man. To locate the Courts in the large towns only would 
 place justice out of the reach of the residents in the outlying 
 districts — it would be the denial of justice to poor people. 
 Undisputed shop debts, though by far the most numerous, are 
 by no means the only actions brought in the County Court. 
 Their jurisdiction, though limited in money value, is practicably 
 unlimited in subject. Claims by labourers and servants for 
 wages, or for payment for work, are frequently brought ; the 
 fear of the Court deters and prevents oppression, wrong, and 
 unfair dealings. The Court in every district is not only a debt 
 collecting machine, but also an actual and ready remedy, 
 protection, avenger, and safeguard for and to all, and near to 
 all. The deterrent and immediate effect would be much 
 diminished if the Courts were few and far away. The Court of 
 a small and sparely populated district has not much business, 
 and if the law of debt is amended its business may much 
 decrease ; certainly it would not justify the payment of a salary 
 sufficient for a professional Registrar, who is debarred from 
 other pursuits. But the Registrar might be permitted to hold 
 two Courts, or to have to perform also the duties of some other 
 public office ; even something of a sinecure would be preferable 
 to the continuation of double and conflicting vocations in one 
 person. 
 
 The Registrar has in one locality to follow so many 
 conflicting callings : With the approval of the Government — he 
 is solicitor in general for the neighbourhood, the Government 
 officials even going so far as to advise him to tie up County 
 Court papers as neatly as the papers of his private practice ; he 
 is a public officer paid by the number of cases brought by the 
 plaintiffs, and he very generally acts as bailiff to enforce the 
 plaintiffs' claim. Then, in spite of the fact that the plaintiff has 
 indirectly paid him to recover the debt, he is to seek out the 
 defendant, advise him that the debt is more than he can pay at 
 once, and that he ought to become bankrupt, the direct result 
 of the bankruptcy being that the plaintiff is deprived of his 
 money ; and then the Registrar is to act as solicitor for the
 
 16 
 
 bankrupt, and as Eeceiver in Bankruptcy for the benefit of the 
 estate, and of all the creditors. It would scarcely be allowed in 
 the Superior Courts that a single personage should act as 
 general agent for every one in turn — as Chief Clerk, as Taxing 
 Master, as Receiver in Bankruptcy, and as Sheriff; yet a County 
 Court Registrar is expected to fulfil all these duties. 
 
 The statistics show that, one year with another, one 
 million actions are yearly brought, and that more than half a 
 million judgments are yearly given in the County Courts. 
 This is a most astounding total, and is in itself a cause for 
 inquiry; it is prima facie proof that the Courts do not deter, 
 but actually encourage, debt and litigation.