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making, with half a gale blowing from the westward. They were both, however, confident as to their boatmanship, and determined to proceed. They had not got far before they were 2 in difficulties, | and, when some distance off the steamer for which they were making, the dinghey capsized. Happily the boat floated, and the two young men succeeded in getting hold of her. They shouted for assistance, and those on board the steamer evidently caught the 3 alarm, for the two castaways saw a | boat launched and manned. The strong wind, however, soon drowned their voices, and they drifted away to the southward with the flood tide before they were seen by the rescuing boat. The current set them towards the Garston side 4 of the river. Fortunately, both young men were strong swimmers, and | the weather and water being not very cold, they were able, by clinging to the capsized boat, to keep afloat, but they dared not attempt to clamber into her as she could not have sustained their joint weight. 5 Ultimately the two young fellows came within hail of several schooners lying [at anchor, but, being too exhausted for much shouting, they failed to attract notice. Dawson at length determined to leave his companion with the boat and strike out for the shore. This he did, and, after a desperate struggle, succeeded in landing on the beach at Grassendale. It was 6 now | some time after midnight. He saw lights in a large house close to the shore, knocked at the door, and reported his adventures. He was most kindly received by the owner, refreshed, and sent to bed, his clothes being also dried. The next morning he was natur--7 ally very anxious about j his companion and was early down on the shore. There he saw a boat approaching from a schooner some distance out. The boat made for the shore, and out jumped Dingwall, who waded ashore through the mud, bringing up the dinghey. It can be 8 well imagined that the meeting was | a relief to both, for Dingwall had. not expected that Dawson could reach the shore, and Dawson was equally uncertain as to Dingwall's fate. Dingwall's story was that shortly after Dawson left him he drifted against the anchor chain of 9 a schooner, when, summoning all his strength, he shouted for | help, and fortunately was heard. He was taken on board and made as comfortable as circumstances would permit. Both young men were considerably dilapidated in apparel after their adventure, and their losses in odds and ends of property were considerable, but they appeared to have suffered little or nothing in 10 health. | (b.) At the rate of 80 words per minute. Takes 10 minutes. The chief point you refer to against the abolition is the fact that a large number of debtors pay when committal orders are made against them, and from this you seem to infer that they must have the money by them, but are dishonestly withholding it. This is, I need hardly say, an entire fallacy. I hardly think it would occur in one out of 500 cases, and when it has 1 occurred in my experience the debtors have j not been of the artisan class, which comprises 90 percent, of those affected by this Act. In the first place, it must be recollected that committal orders are only applied for when the debtor has no goods or chattels to distrain upon ; and is it likely that such debtors could or would have money hidden in some secret place when they 2 had not even a chest of drawers in their possession to place it in, and would they | wilfully withhold it until they had gone through the disgrace of publicly having committal orders made against them ? Any one who sees the miserable wretches who appear, or more often the poor wives who represent them, must unhesitatingly come to the conclusion that this idea is a fallacy and has no foundation in fact. It is an easy matter to discover the place where the money comes from. The order of the 3 Court generally is, " Twenty-one or fourteen | days' imprisonment; keep it back for twenty-one or fourteen days." The plaintiff can select his time for enforcing the order, and those who are experienced in the art take care to do it just at or about the time when the poor debtor receives bis wages, and, having the money in his possession when arrested, he naturally parts with it rather than face the degradation of entering a prison-cell. But whose money is this ? 4 In reality it is | the money of another tradesman, who has trusted the debtor with the necessaries of life during the fourteen or twenty-one days, as the case may be, that he took to .earn the money, and the debtor, who himself had every desire to be honest towards such tradesman, is made to appear dishonest by this process of law, created by the British Parliament and enforced by Her Majesty's Courts of law. In other cases, friends, amongst whom is 5 frequently | the tradesman the debtor is then dealing with, come to the rescue and lend the money; but under these circumstances the debtor places himself under a new obligation, which he is often unable to discharge. It will be seen from this that the Act does not benefit even the tradesmen themselves, for the debts they allow are often contracted solely by reason of the existence of this Act of Parliament. <6 The very idea that when debts are sold—and this | practice is carried out to a very large extent —the body of the debtor is legally transferred to the assignee as the only security for the debt is repugnant to the feeling of every true Briton, who has always abhorred slavery or anything in the nature of it. With respect to the construction placed by County Court Judges upon the Act, I should hardly care to offer an opinion. They are competent and practical Judges, and generally dis--7 charge their duties | consistently with law and justice. If they err in construing the Act it is probably owing to the fact that by having so many thousands of applications for committal before them every year they have become hardened to a practice which was adopted when many of the present Judges were appointed, and possibly they have never considered that the Act is capable of a different construction. If, however, one reads the discussion in Parliament when 8 the Act of 1869 | was passed, it is quite evident that Parliament at that time never thought that the Act would be enforced unless the debtor, at the time the order for committal was made, had either in his possession or under his control the means to satisfy it. I believe it was never : intended that a man's future energy should be taxed in order to save him from gaol. The