§ MR. BOUVERIE moved the Second Reading, observing that, at this period of the Session, he could not expect to pass such a measure, and he should not therefore press it beyond the present stage. Not less than 18,000,000l. a year was lost by bad debts, and a great proportion of that loss was to be attributed to the defective state of the bankruptcy and insolvent law. The great and leading defect of that law was, that no real line of demarcation was drawn betwixt the honest and the dishonest bankrupt. When a bank-lupt had been fraudulent, and had lost that property which ought to have been divided amongst his creditors, and, often not till then, he came to the Bankruptcy Court to be relieved from his debts. For that evil this Bill professed to provide a remedy. The Bill contained a consolidation of no less than seventeen Acts of Parliament, which had passed in the course of the last twenty-three years. He hoped the Government would take this subject up next Session; and, if they did not, it would be his duty to bring it forward again at an early period of the Session.
§ Bill read a second time; to be committed that day three months.