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Show THE BANKRUPT LAW. The petition now in circulation in tliia city for tho repeal of the bankrupt bank-rupt law is aimed at an abuse of the most alarming dimensions. Trade in this city, and throughout the country generally, is suffering to an almost incredible extent from fraudulent or unnccrssary bankruptcies. The bankrupt law ivas originally designed to protect unfortunate debtors from the severity of treatment permitted under the old comniun law. It has come to he u 'td in a larger number of cases th.':-. ur,:nf-rnfd persona would sup".'-- as an agency f r downright down-right swindling. It is an everyday sight in Chicago to see bankrupts driving their own carriages and living with :is much style and comfort as f they had not by perjury escaped paying pay-ing iheirdebts. Men get rich by hecum ing bankrupts. Public opinion has become so tolerant of this wrong that your bankrupt will a.-k for credits with as much assurance as if he had paid his obligations iu full. Men go through bankruptcy f-ever.I times in succc.-'sion without losing tln-ir poeinl or bu?im-,-s tdatns. Honest and legitimate legiti-mate business is hurt in many ways by this latter-day elevation fit bankruptcy bank-ruptcy to a pinft-rsion. Merchant? cannot live on 80 per cent dividends from tho?c to whom they have sold goods. When ono man iu a trudc makes a profitable failure, and pus perhaps 70 per cent of his debts into his own pockets, competitors aresien following the example. They cannot maintain a succe-sful competition unless un-less they have the same advantage. There ought to be some remedy for such a atate of affairs. It may not be advisable fo repeal the bankrupt law entirely; the law ought certainly to be strengthened and the courts awakened so that fraudulent fraudu-lent bankruptcies, which now go scott-frce iu almost every cmo, should bo detected and severely punched. Public opinion, too, should tiet such cases with tho liardliness they deserve. Chicago Tribune. |