plying the means for
meeting past obligations in respect of which the debtor had already
committed default. The Deeds of Arrangement Act 1887 was therefore passed
to compel the disclosure of such arrangements, by declaring them void
unless registered within seven days after the first execution by the debtor
or by any creditor. Registration is effected by lodging with the registrar
of bills of sale at the central office of the Supreme Court a true copy of
the deed and of every inventory and schedule attached thereto, together
with an affidavit by the debtor, stating the total estimated amount of
property and liabilities, the total amount of composition, if any, and the
names and addresses of the creditors. Where the debtor's residence or place
of business is outside the London bankruptcy district, the registrar is
required to forward a copy of the deed to the registrar of the county court
of the district where the debtor's residence or place of business is
situated. Both the central and the local registers are open to public
inspection on payment of a small fee and general publicity is secured by
the action of various trade agencies, which make a practice of extracting
and publishing the information for the benefit of those interested. By
section 25 of the Bankruptcy Act 1890, every trustee under a deed of
arrangement is required to transmit to the Board of Trade within thirty
days of the 1st of January in each year an account of his receipts and
payments and such accounts are open to the inspection of any creditor on
payment of a small fee. They are not, however, subject to any kind of audit
or control by the department. The registrar is also required to make
periodical returns of the deeds thus registered to the Board of Trade, in
order that a report of proceedings under the Deeds of Arrangement Act may
be included in the annual report which the department is required to make
on proceedings under the Bankruptcy Acts. Full statistics of such
proceedings are accordingly included in these reports, from which it
appears that during the ten years ended 31st December 1905 the total number
of registered deeds of arrangement was 34,273, with estimated liabilities
amounting to L41,663,541, and estimated assets to L23,020,483.

_Summary of Bankruptcy Procedure._--Subject to certain special provisions
in the case of what are termed "small bankruptcies" (see below), the
following summary sets forth some of the more important provisi