se of defeating
the severe intention of the laws relating to bankruptcy. The effect of
all laws which touch private interests is to develop, enormously, the
knavery of men's minds. The object of a bankrupt, like that of other
persons whose interests are thwarted by any law, is to make void the law
in his particular case.

The status of civil death in which the bankrupt remains a chrysalis
lasts for about three months,--a period required by formalities which
precede a conference at which the creditors and their debtor sign a
treaty of peace, by which the bankrupt is allowed the ability to make
payments, and receives a bankrupt's certificate. This transaction is
called the _concordat_,--a word implying, perhaps, that peace reigns
after the storm and stress of interests violently in opposition.

As soon as the insolvent's schedule is filed, the Court of commerce
appoints a judge-commissioner, whose duty it is to look after the
interests of the still unknown body of creditors, and also to protect
the insolvent against the vexatious measures of angry creditors,--a
double office, which might be nobly magnified if the judges had time
to attend to it. The commissioner, however, delegates an agent to take
possession of the property, the securities, and the merchandise, and to
verify the schedule; when this is done, the court appoints a day for
a meeting of the creditors, notice of which is trumpeted forth in the
newspapers. The creditors, real or pretended, are expected to be present
and choose the provisional assignees, who are to supersede the agent,
step into the insolvent's shoes, became by a fiction of law the
insolvent himself, and are authorized to liquidate the business,
negotiate all transactions, sell the property,--in short, recast
everything in the interest of the creditors, provided the bankrupt makes
no opposition. The majority of Parisian failures stop short at this
point, and the reason is as follows:

The appointment of one or more permanent assignees is an act which gives
opportunity for the bitterest action on the part of creditors who
are thirsting for vengeance, who have been tricked, baffled, cozened,
trapped, duped, robbed, and cheated. Although, as a general thing, all
creditors are cheated, robbed, duped, trapped, cozened, tricked, and
baffled, yet there is not in all Paris a commercial passion able to keep
itself alive for ninety days. The paper of commerce alone maintains its
vitality, and rises, at