Disobedience of an order of the Court of Chancery--though that order may command you to pay more money than you ever had, or to hand over property which is not yours and was never in your possession--is contempt of court. No matter how great soever your natural reverence for the time-honored institutions of your native land--no matter, though you regard the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain as the most wonderful man upon earth, and his court as the purest fount of Justice, where she sits weighing out justice with a pair of Oertling's balances, you may yet be pronounced to have been guilty of "contempt." For this there is no pardon. You are in the catalogue of the doomed, and are doomed accordingly.
A popular fallacy spreads a notion that no one need "go into Chancery," unless he pleases. Nothing but an utter and happy innocence of the bitter irony of "Equity" proceedings keeps such an idea current. Men have been imprisoned for many years, some for a life-time, on account of Chancery proceedings, of the very existence of which they were almost in ignorance before they "somehow or other were found in contempt."
See yonder slatternly old man in threadbare garments, with pinched features telling of long years of anxiety and privation, and want. He has a weak, starved voice, that sounds as though years of privation have shrunk it as much as his cheeks. He always looks cold, and (God help him) feels so too; for Liebig tells us that no quantity of clothing will repel cold without the aid of plenty of food--and little of that passes his lips. His eye has an unquiet, timid, half-frightened look, as if he could not look you straight in the face for lack of energy. His step is a hurried shuffle, though he seldom leaves his room; and when he does, he stares at the racket-players as if they were beings of a different race from himself. No one ever sees his hands--they are plunged desperately into his pockets, which never contain anything else. He is like a dried fruit, exhausted, shrunken, and flung aside by the whole world. He is a man without hope--a Chancery prisoner! He has lived in a jail for twenty-eight weary years! His history has many parallels. It is this:--
It was his misfortune to have an uncle, who died leaving him his residuary legatee. The uncle, like most men who make their own wills, forgot an essential part of it--he named no executor. Our poor friend administered, and all parties interested received their dues--he, last of all, taking but a small sum. It was his only fortune, and having received it he looked about for an investment. There were no railways in those days, or he might have speculated in the Diddlesex Junction. But there were Brazilian Mining Companies, and South Sea Fishing Companies, and various other companies, comprehensively termed "Bubble." Our friend thought these companies were not safe, and he was quite right in his supposition. So he determined to intrust his money to no bubble speculation; but to invest it in Spanish Bonds. After all, our poor friend had better have tried the Brazilian Mines; for the Bonds proved worth very little more than the paper on which they were written. His most Catholic Majesty did not repudiate, (like certain transatlantic States,) but buttoned up his pockets and told his creditors he had "no money."