The Dyvours Habit. was one who never failed in doing honor to everything in the line of eating and drinking, he was in rather a confused state of mind. Nevertheless he stood up, glared ferociously at the unlucky witness, and, turning to the judge, observed : "My lord, it is my profound belief that this man is drunk." "It is a remarkable coincidence, Mr. Ry-
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land," said the Judge, " that is precisely the idea that has been in my mind for the last ten minutes. It is disgraceful that witnesses should come into a sacred court of justice like this in such a state of intoxication. Mr. Clerk, don't allow this witness one farthing of expenses. I 'll put a stop to this scandal if I can."
THE DYVOUR'S HABIT. A CURIOUS feature of the old bank ruptcy law of Scotland is recalled by Mr. H. G. Graham, in his recently issued work, Social Life in Scotland in the Eight eenth Century, when he mentions the sin gular costume worn by insolvent debtors, who, he says, went about " clad in strange piebald attire—bonnet and hose half yellow, half brown." This fantastic garb, which stamped the wearer as a kind of social pariah, was known as " the dyvour's habit "—the term "dyvour," whose derivation is not quite clear, being given to a person who, in the expressive language of the law, was "drowned in debt." Its history is not without interest as exhibit ing the slow growth in Scotland as elsewhere of the humaner treatment of insolvent per sons, which only in our own day has been fully exemplified. The beneficent process of cessio bonontm, which did so much for the amelioration of the Roman debtor, was early imported into the law of Scotland. On making a full sur render of his goods for the benefit of his cred itors, a debtor was entitled, under certain conditions, to liberation from prison and to protection from re-arrest. Various enact ments dealt with the conditions under which this privilege was granted, but these may be shortly stated thus : The debtor must first have suffered a month's imprisonment before he was entitled to present his petition craving the benefit of the cessio; he was obliged to
state the misfortune or accident to which he attributed his insolvency, and to make a full disclosure on oath of his estate; he was fur ther bound to declare that since his impris onment he had made no conveyance of his property to the prejudice of his creditors, and if he had made any such prior to his in carceration he was required to give full de tails; and, lastly, he had of course to make a complete cession of all his property. As suming he could comply with these require ments, he was entitled to be set at liberty, but he might be called upon to wear " the dyvour's habit " as a punishment for the of fence of not being able to pay his debts! The idea of thus humiliating and disgracing the insolvent seems to have been borrowed from France, between which country and Scotland there subsisted, as is well known, a close intimacy for several centuries—an alliance which has in many ways left dura ble traces in Scotland even to the present day. In 1592, a law was passed in France compelling the cessionaire to wear a bonnet vert, and in 1605, we find that an Act of Sederunt or Rule of Court was issued by the Court of Session requiring the magis trates of Edinburgh to erect a pillar near the market cross with a seat upon it, "quhairupon, in time coming, sail be sett all dyvoris, and sail sittthairon ane mercatt day from ten hours in the morning till ane hour after din ner; and the saidis dyvoris, before thair lib
