16. BOWEN: THE VICTORIAN PERIOD 543 simple and rapid ; but its details and the limits of the juris- diction to which it belongs, though matters of considerable practical importance, are beyond the range of this paper. If the population of the country are at last furnished at their very doors with justice, cheap, excellent, and expedi- tious, they have to thank the county court legislation of the last forty years, and the men who have carried out its provi- sions in the provinces. The progress of the general law relating to the enforce- ment of debts is a subject interwoven with the administra- tion of the law both in our supreme and in our provincial courts. Ancient and modern history are alike full of the record of hard codes pressing severely upon debtors. In England, down to within living memory, our law of debtor and creditor reposed upon the persistent notion that in- solvency was a crime. Paramount necessities of trade and commerce had taught us, indeed, the distinction between the case of the insolvent trader who was unable to fulfil his com- mercial engagements, and that of the ordinary debtor who had no such mercantile excuse. To the debtor who was not in trade, and who failed to liquidate his debt, the English law applied the sharp, stern corrective of imprisonment. It sent him to gaol — till he found security or paid — before the debt was even proved, and on a mere affidavit by an alleged creditor that it was owing. After verdict and judg- ment, the unsatisfied party had an absolute option of taking, in satisfaction, the body of his debtor. Traders to whom the bankrupt law applied might escape by making full dis- closure and complete surrender of their effects for distri- bution among their general creditors ; and, owing to the demands of the commercial world, the law of bankruptcy since the reign of Henry VIII had been the subject of con- stant amendment. But the general law of insolvency con- tinued in its barbarous condition, owing in part perhaps to the legal difficulty of enforcing money debts against landed property. Occasional Insolvent Acts from time to time were passed for the relief upon terms of insolvents who might apply for their discharge, and ultimately a perma- nent Insolvent Court was established to deal with their peti-
