or of the court of equity is as against that third person transferred to the Court of Bankruptcy; I apprehend that there is nothing whatever in the Acts relating to bankruptcy which, in an ordinary case not governed by the special clauses of the Acts, has any such effect.

That which is to be done in bankruptcy, is the administration in bankruptcy. The debtor and the creditors, as the parties to the administration in bankruptcy, are subject to that jurisdiction. The trustee or assignees, as the persons entrusted with that administration, are subject to that jurisdiction. The assets which come to their hands, and the mode of administering them, are subject to that jurisdiction; and there may be, and I believe are, some special classes of transactions which, under special clauses of the Acts of Parliament, may be specially dealt with as regards third parties. But the general proposition, that whenever the assignees or trustees in bankruptcy, or the trustees under such deeds as these, have a demand at law or in equity as against a stranger to the bankruptcy, then that demand is to be prosecuted in the Court of Bankruptcy, appears to me to be a proposition entirely without the warrant of anything in the Acts of Parliament, and wholly unsupported by any trace or vestige whatever of authority.

It was admitted very frankly by Sir R. Baggallay that the cases which he cited, with the exception of two of them, are as remote as possible from touching this question, being merely cases in which an attempt was made to transfer the proper administration from the Court of Bankruptcy into this Court, the subject of the suit relating to the bankrupt's estate. One of them is Ex p. Anderson, in which some pictures had been transferred by the debtor to his nephew, but that nephew had come in and made certain arrangements as to those pictures with creditors of the bankrupt; and therefore the matter was prima facie brought by his own submission and his own acts under the administration in bankruptcy.

The other case, Phillips v. Furber, appears to me, when examined, to have, if possible, even less reference to the matter than the preceding, because there was really no question at all with Furber, the third party, who was merely a stakeholder having assets in his bands; and the suit, which was very properly dismissed in principle, though for the convenience of administration it was not dismissed in form, was merely a suit of competition between the trustees under one of these deeds prior in date, and assignees under a later bankruptcy; and the question in the suit was, whether the assets were to be administered under the deed or in bankruptcy. That was properly considered to be a question for the Bankruptcy Court to decide: so that there is no authority whatever in favour of the proposition that if, in other respects, this be a suit fit to be entertained by the Court of Chancery, the jurisdiction is taken

away, or ought not to be exercised by reason of anything coming within the bankrupt laws.

[His lordship then stated and commented on the allegations in the bill, and came to the conclusion that as to the 4,7021. no case was made by the bill; but that as to the 3,4007., though the bill might be improved by amendment, he could not say that, if the suit came to a hearing, and the allegations in the bill were proved, no relief would be given, the demurrer must therefore be overruled. (Ellis v. Silber, L. R. 8 Ch. 83.)]

Composition-Default in payment of Instalment-Action

Injunction.

Where by resolution under the Bankruptcy Act, 1869, the creditors agree to accept a composition payable by instalments, and the debtor made default in payment of an instalment to a creditor :

:

Held (reversing the decision of the Registrar), that the creditor could maintain an action against the debtor for the balance of the whole debt remaining unpaid, and would not be restrained by the Court of Bankruptcy. (In re Hatton, L. R. 7 Ch. 723.)

Costs, Security for, in case of Action under a Liquidation Petition. An insolvent plaintiff, who has filed a petition for liquidation, under which a receiver has been appointed, is in the same position as a bankrupt who carries on an action for the benefit of the assignees, and will be compelled to give security for costs. (Malcolm v. Hodgkinson, 21 W. R. 360.)

Bankruptcy of Factor.

If it be a matter of notoriety that a man is acting in the capacity of factor to another, and the factor becomes bankrupt, the book debts owing to the factor on behalf of his principal will not pass to the trustee of the bankrupt's estate; nor will goods consigned by the principal to the factor for sale. (Ex p. Boden, re Wood, 28 L. T. N. S. 174.)

Feme Covert-Judgment by Default.

Married women are not exempted from the operation of the Debtors Act, 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. 62), and, therefore, where, in an action against a married woman, solely sued, she neither appears nor pleads her coverture, and judgment is signed against her by default, an order for payment of the judgment debt and costs, by instalments, may be made upon her by a judge at chambers, under sect. 4 of the Act; and it is not necessary that the judge, before making such order, should be satisfied that she has the means to pay the amount of such debt and costs. (Dillon V. Cunningham, 27 L. T. Rep. N. S. 830. Ex.)

Foreign Debtor-Jurisdiction of Court of Bankruptcy-Domicile in a Foreign Country.

Francesco Jose Cortes Crispin had been adjudicated a bankrupt. Three objections were made to the order of adjudication: First, that the Court of Bankruptcy had no jurisdiction to adjudicate the appellant a bankrupt. Secondly, that there was no sufficient proof of an act of bankruptcy. Thirdly, that there was no sufficient proof of the petitioning creditor's debt. The appellant was a Portuguese subject, and had always been domiciled in Portugal. He had for several years had a suit in the Court of Chancery, in which he has sought to recover a sum of about 50,000l. Consols, and he had during those years come from time to time to England, and resided here for months at a time. He had borrowed large sums on the security of his expectations, partly in Portugal and partly in England, and among them a sum of 2367. 14s. 6d. from the petitioning creditor. Of this sum 1007. was advanced in Lisbon, in December, 1867, and the rest in various small sums in London, in the year 1868. For all these sums the appellant gave written acknowledgments, by which he promised to repay them as soon as he had obtained the fortune of his father. On the 29th November, 1871, the petitioning creditor sued out a writ against the debtor to recover the money he had lent to him, which writ was served upon the appellant on the 13th February, 1872, at an hotel at No 13, Glasshouse-street, where he was staying. On the next day the appellant left London for the Continent, and went via Madrid to Portugal, and had never since returned to England. The petition in bankruptcy was presented in 1872. Two acts of bankruptcy were relied on; first, that he departed out of England with intent to defeat and delay his creditors; the other, that being out of England he remained out of England with the like intent. The first question was, had the Court jurisdiction to adjudicate the appellant a bankrupt, and this depended upon the question whether a foreigner who is not a trader, and who comes to England for a temporary purpose, and who quits England before a petition in bankruptcy is presented against him, can be adjudicated a bankrupt, either upon an act of bankruptcy alleged to have been committed while he was in England, or upon an act of bankruptcy alleged to have been committed after he had left England. It was obvious that some limitation must be put on the general words "creditor" and "debtor" in the sixth section of the Bankruptcy Act, 1869. They cannot apply to every creditor and every debtor throughout the world. The word "debtor" must be construed to mean "debtor, properly subject to the laws of England," but it was the act of bankruptcy and not the petition which gave jurisdiction to the Court of Bankruptcy, and if a foreigner came to England and contracted debts in England, and commit an act of

bankruptcy in England, he thereby gave the Court of bankruptcy jurisdiction over him. But a foreigner, not domiciled in England, and not carrying on trade in England, who quits England without having committed an act of bankruptcy, cannot be made a bankrupt upon an alleged act of bankruptcy committed out of England. The words "that the debtor, with intent to defeat or delay his creditors, has, being out of England, remained out of England," imply that the person who remains out of England has his home or place of business in England, and cannot reasonably be held to apply to the case of a foreigner remaining in his own home. There seems no reason to doubt the statement of the debtor, that he was obliged to leave England because he had no funds left to enable him to live in England, and we do not think that the statement he is said to have made to the petitioning creditor's brother is necessarily inconsistent with it, because it may well be that the fact of being served with a writ by one of his creditors convinced him that it was impossible that he could go on living in England on borrowed money. The appellant, therefore, had a most justifiable cause for leaving England. If the appellant had gone away after he knew a writ was issued to avoid service the case might have been different. It was argued, however, that if the appellant had remained in England he might have been served with a debtor's summons and made a bankrupt, and it is necessary, therefore, to consider whether the appellant was bound to remain in England in order that the petitioning creditor or his other creditors might have an opportunity of making him a bankrupt. If a domiciled Englishman, who is being pressed by his creditors and has been served with a writ, were to leave England, and so escape being served with a debtor's summons, there would be strong evidence that he intended to defeat or delay his creditors, because England is the proper, if not the only, place for him to be made a bankrupt in, and if he cannot pay his debts he has no right to avoid being made a bankrupt there. But we do not think the

same reasoning applies to a foreigner who has come to England for a temporary purpose and leaves England to return to his own home. He can be followed to his own country, and his own country may be the most convenient place for the distribution of his property among his creditors. We must assume that there is a proper law in Portugal for distributing a debtor's property among his creditors, and we have no means of knowing whether it is more or less dilatory than the law of England. On the whole, we are of opinion that there is no sufficient evidence that the appellant has committed an act of bankruptcy in England, and that he cannot be made bankrupt for an act of bankruptcy committed out of England. Therefore the order of adjudication must be reversed, and the appellant must have his costs of resisting the adjudication iu the Court below from the petitioning creditor. (Judg

ment of the Lords Justices, Ex p. Crispin, in re Crispin, 54 L. Times, 380.)

Indictment under Debtors Act, 1869, s. 11, ss. 4—Indictment-Defects cured by Verdict at Common Law-Conspiracy to remove Goods in contemplation of Bankruptcy.

Blackburn, J., said, this was a writ of error, argued on behalf of the plaintiff in error on the last Crown paper day, before the Lord Chief Justice, my brothers Mellor, Quain, and myself; and at the conclusion of the argument we said we would consider whether it was necessary to hear counsel in support of the conviction, and we have come to the conclusion that there is no occasion to hear counsel.

The indictment was for conspiracy, and I need not cite any authority for the proposition, that a conspiracy is an offence that is complete as soon as there is an agreement to do a thing which would be, if done, thought not a crime, such a matter as would bring the agreement to do it within the definition of conspiracy. Here the defendant has been convicted upon an indictment containing several counts, but all the objections raised apply in effect to the first count. (The learned judge read the count.) On that there is a plea of not guilty, and a verdict of guilty.

The Debtors' Act, 1869, by s. 11, subsec. 5, enacts, that a person who has been adjudged a bankrupt, if he has within four months next before the presentation of the petition fraudulently removed his goods, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor. It is clear, that if the agreement, alleged in the count, to enable him to remove his goods, was come to in contemplation of an expected adjudication the offence would be at once complete, whether adjudication followed or not. The objection to the count, therefore is, that it does not state that the agreement or confederacy was in contemplation or expectation of an adjudication; and if the question had arisen upon demurrer, I am not quite prepared to say that that might not have been a good objection. But it is a general rule of pleading at common law, and I think it necessary to say, where there is a question of pleading at common law there is no distinction between the pleadings in civil cases and criminal cases, where an averment which is necessary for the support of the pleading is imperfectly stated, and the verdict on an issue involving that averment is found, if it appears to the Court after verdict that the verdict could not have been found on the issue without proof of this averment; there, after verdict, the defective averment, which might have been bad on demurrer, is cured by the verdict. The authorities upon that position, and the principles on which it proceeds, are to be found in 1, Williams's Saunders, at p. 288. In the present case, if this agreement was in contemplation or expectation of an

с