to make out that he should not have been adjudged a
bankrupt: one portion of the litigation is still in Chancery.
The fiat was issued in 1847: from that time the
bankrupt fought his assignees inch by inch, availing
himself of every means of opposition and procrastination
which the forms of the courts permit. The case has
been before the Vice Chancellor in Bankruptcy, before
the Court of Chancery, before the Courts of Common
Pleas, Exchequer, and Queen's Bench. It has been
heard before juries in the Common-Law courts, and
before those courts sitting in Banco; all sorts of issues
have been tried, and all kinds of exceptions made,
argued, and over-ruled. It is still before the Court of
Chancery, and it is not very likely to be brought to a
close there for years to come. Lord Denman when
Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, Lord Truro when
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Mr. Justice
Patteson, and many other judges, had pronounced
judgment in the case in various forms; and the most
eminent counsel have been engaged in it, the present
Attorney-General and the present Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas having been Mr. Columbine's advocates.
At length it was decided, after years of litigation and
thousands of pounds being expended, that Columbine
was really a bankrupt, and the petition to annul the fiat
was dismissed. There is now nothing in the hands of
the official assignee. Columbine, before the fiat was
issued, assigned away a large amount of money—really
not his own property, but the property of his creditors.
In January, 1846, he settled £2520 on his mother; in
January, 1847, he settled £11,030 on a woman with
whom he had lived, marrying her directly after. In
March he was made a bankrupt—he had gone abroad
with £1600 in cash. The creditors allege that the
settlements were fraudulent: the Commissioner agrees
with them. Only about £100 has been realised by the
assignees for the creditors, whose claims are £29,000.
The bankrupt has rendered four successive accounts—
all varying, all "wilfully false," said the Commissioner;
the bankrupt's object being to endeavour to show that
he was in a position to make the settlements. He
showed such "art and contrivance" that Commissioner
Goulburn himself was at first misled—he thought the
man had been harshly dealt with. But now, on
the ground that he believed the accounts to be
wilfully untrue, he adjourned the final examination
sine die.

In the Court of Queen's Bench on the 31st ult., there
was a case which showed the absurd extent to which the
Expense of Pleading in Law Courts has been carried.
The question was about a bill of costs. Mr. Parker,
the carrier, sued the Great Western Railway, for
surcharges on parcels during four years; and he was
successful. The notice of particulars in the action referred
to twenty-one thousand distinct carrying transactions;
it was written on forty-one folio volumes, of which the
twenty-first part was exhibited to the court, and was
charged in the bill of costs at £1300; it had taken an
attorney and nine clerks three years (6666 hours) to
prepare it. Other items were somewhat in proportion to
this, but not quite so amazing. The Master had
disallowed the charge of £1300, and allowed only £300—
£100 for the draught, £175 for one copy, and £25 paper;
and the plaintiff now sought to get a better allowance.
The judges of the court were all extremely excited at the
affair: they thought the Master had allowed too much
—the proving of these matters need not have cost more
than £20; and they refused to help the plaintiff.

In the Dublin Court of Queen's Bench on the 31st
ult., sentence was pronounced on James Birch, proprietor
of the notorious newspaper, the World, for gross
libels which he had published and republished against
Mrs. French, a widow lady, the daughter of Mr. Brewster,
Q.C., who was leading counsel for Sir William Somerville,
in the trial of Birch v. Somerville. Birch, instead of
defending, acknowledged the utter falseness of his
atrocious aspersions, and threw himself on the mercy of
the Court. Mr. Justice Crampton so chastised him in
his address on pronouncing sentence, for the wicked
malignity of his attack on an innocent lady, that the
prisoner involuntarily interrupted the Judge with
exclamations several times, and at last was silenced by being
carried off to his place of punishment: to be imprisoned
for twelve months. The case excited great public
interest, and the court was crowded to excess.

A melancholy case of what must be called Innate
Depravity was presented at the Mansion-house on the
5th inst. A blind negro beggar, and a young girl, his
companion, were brought before the Lord Mayor by an
officer of the Mendicity Society. The male prisoner
was a most revolting object, his head being covered with
long matted hair, and the covering upon his limbs
tattered and filthy in the extreme. The female was a
small-sized, pretty girl, presenting a remarkable
contrast to the wretched creature who accompanied her.
The officer said that he saw the two prisoners together
in Bishopsgate-street. They had come from Halifax-street,
where they lived together, and the girl fastened
a petition to the man's breast, and placed him and his
dog in an attitude of supplication. As soon as she had
deposited him to her satisfaction against the wall, she
retired from him. He saw him receive a penny, and
then apprehended them both. He had traced them to
their very bed, and had been particularly informed of
their habits. The girl, he said, was the daughter of a
respectable gentleman resident in London, and it was in
consequence of the following letter from the unfortunate
parent that the matter had been inquired into:—

"I beg to submit the following distressing case to your
sympathies, and to solicit from you the advice and assistance
which I am led to understand is kindly afforded by your society
in extraordinary cases out of the pale of parental authority. By
birth and education a gentleman, I married in the year 1829
a lady in the same sphere of society, by whom I had issue two
daughters, the eldest of whom (the unfortunate subject of this
application), not twenty-three years of age, was from the age of
three months brought up and educated in the first style by her
maternal grandfather and grandmother. At their decease,
about seven or eight years since, she became an unwilling
inmate of her parents' dwelling, from which she contrived to get
away with a married man, and was not heard of (having eluded
the efforts of the police to trace her for many months) until the
receipt of a letter in the 'Times' newspaper, from Mr. D'Arcy,
our solicitor, at Newton Abbott, in Devonshire, in which paper
a detailed and humane account of the distressing condition of a
young lady then lying at St. Luke's workhouse appeared, under
the assumed name of Elizabeth Allen. This account, as
regarded my daughter, abounded with the most atrocious falsehoods,
as detailed by herself to the board of guardians of St.
Luke's. My wife (having a cousin of the name, to whom the
solicitor suggested it might apply), went to St. Luke's, and
found our daughter to be the person whose case had been
detailed in the 'Times', and on her being brought before them
and her mother, was then and there convicted of deliberate
falsehood and fraud, and handed over to her mother. Exertions
were then successfully made to get her cured of a complication
of loathsome disorders at Bartholomew's Hospital, from whence,
after being brought to a state of convalescence, and robbing
some of the nurses of small sums of money, she escaped, and
again was lost sight of for many months, when a gentleman,
a friend of the family, saw and gave her into custody of the
police, who restored her once more to her afflicted parents. Her
conduct from this period was infamous in the extreme, and
on her coming of age she threw off all restraint, and having a
small house property in Devonshire, subject to her parents'
interest, but which was waived in her favour, she left us, nor
did we know of her whereabouts until, about ten months since,
I met her in the streets of Whitechapel, in the last stage of
destitution, filth, and rags, singing ballads. My humanity once
again led me to speak with her and to remonstrate, the result
of which was that we took her home, cleansed, clothed, and cared
for her. This lasted but a short time, and her recurrence to her
former habits again precluded all knowledge respecting her, until,
a few days since, we received a letter from our solicitor, saying he
had heard from our daughter, as the wife of a Mr. Abraham,
desiring the sale of her property, and requesting him to take
the necessary steps—one of these, and the preliminary step,
being our signatures and consent. My first impulse was to
visit the locality specified in the solicitor's letter, '7, Little
Halifax-street, Whitechapel,' and there, in one miserable room,
cohabiting with a black blind beggar who perambulates the
streets with a brown dog, this wretched girl is to be found.
The parties who live in the same house say that she has been
cohabiting with this monstrous loathsome being for two months,
and that they live most luxuriously. Her mother, who had an
interview with her, states that she boasts of this man's bringing
her home from the West-end frequently 15s. per day, and on an
average 7s. or 8s. per diem. She stated herself to have been
married to him seven months since at Whitechapel Church,
which, on careful inquiry, I find to be false, having examined
the church books, and seen the officials on the subject. These
latter circumstances induce me to think that the humanity and
exertions of your society may be made available for the
suppression of so much vice, and the salvation of this unfortunate
child."