Imprison ment for debt. costly for a poor debtor, already deprived of his livelihood by imprisonment. No longer even a debtor,—he could not shake off his bonds. Slowly and with reluctance, did Parliament address itself to the correction of this monstrous abuse. In the reign of George I. arrests on mesne process, issuing out of the superior courts, were limited to sums exceeding 101. but it was not until 1779, that the same limit was imposed on the process of inferior jurisdic tions.2 This sum was afterwards raised to 157., and in 1827 to 20%. In that year 1,100 persons were confined, in the prisons of the metropolis alone, on mesne process.3 The total abolition of arrests on mesne process was frequently advocated, but it was not until 1838 that it was at length accomplished. Provision was made for securing absconding debtors: but the old process for the recovery of debt, in ordinary cases, which had wrought so many acts of oppression, was abolished. While this vindictive remedy was denied, the creditor's lands were, for the first time, allowed to be taken in satisfaction of a debt; and extended facilities were afterwards afforded for the recovery of small claims, by the establishment of county courts.5 The law of arrest was reckless of liberty: the law of execution for debt was one of savage barbarity. A creditor is entitled to every protection and remedy, which the law can reasonably give. All the debtor's property should be his; and frauds by which he has been wronged should be punished as criminal. But the remedies of English law against the property of a debtor were strangely inadequate,-its main security 1 12 Geo. I. c. 29. 2 19 Geo. III. c. 70. Hans. Deb., 2nd Ser., xvii. 386. to 3,662. 41 & 2 Vict. c. 110. being the body of the debtor. This became the property of the creditor, until the debt was paid. The ancients allowed a creditor to seize his debtor, and hold him in slavery. It was a cruel practice, condemned by the most enlightened lawgivers1: but it was more rational and humane than the law of England. By servitude a man might work out his debt: by imprisonment, restitution was made impossible. A man was torn from his trade and industry, and buried in a dungeon: the debtor perished, but the creditor was unpaid. The penalty of an unpaid debt, however small, was imprisonment for life. A trader within the operation of the bankrupt laws might obtain his discharge, on giving up all his property: but for an insolvent debtor, there was no possibility of relief, but charity or the rare indulgence of his creditor. His body being the property of his creditor, the law could not interfere. He might become insane, or dangerously sick but the court was unable to give him liberty. We read with horror of a woman dying in the Devon County Gaol, after an imprisonment of forty-five years, for a debt of 197.2 While the law thus trifled with the liberty of debtors, Debtors' it took no thought of their wretched fate, after the prisons. prison-door had closed upon them. The traditions of the debtors' prison are but too familiar to us all. The horrors of the Fleet and Marshalsea were laid bare in 1729. The poor debtors were found crowded together on the "common side,"common side,”-covered with filth 1 Solon renounced it, finding examples amongst the Egyptians.Plutarch's Life of Solon: Diod. Sic., lib. i. part 2, ch. 3; Montesquieu, livr. xii. ch. 21. It was abolished in Rome, A.D. 428, when the true principle was thus defined-"Bona 2 Rep. of 1792, Com. Journ., xlvii. 647. The Thatchedhouse Society, 1772. and vermin, and suffered to die, without pity, of hunger and gaol fever. Nor did they suffer from neglect alone. They had committed no crime: yet were they at the mercy of brutal gaolers, who loaded them with irons, and racked them with tortures.1 No attempt was made to distinguish the fraudulent from the unfortunate debtor. The rich rogue,-able, but unwilling to pay his debts,-might riot in luxury and debauchery, while his poor, unlucky fellow-prisoner was left to starve and rot on the "common side.”2 The worst iniquities of prison life were abated by the active benevolence of John Howard; and poor debtors found some protection, in common with felons, from the brutality of gaolers. But otherwise their sufferings were without mitigation. The law had made no provision for supplying indigent prisoners with necessary food, bed-clothes, or other covering3; and it was proved, in 1792, that many died of actual want, being without the commonest necessaries of life.4 The first systematic relief was given to insolvent debtors, by the benevolence of the Thatched House Society, in 1772. In twenty years this noble body released from prison 12,590 honest and unfortunate debtors; and so trifling were the debts for which these prisoners had suffered confinement, that their freedom was obtained at an expense of forty-five shillings a head. Many were discharged merely on pay 1 Com. Journ., xxi. 274, 376, 513. 2 Rep. 1792, Com. Journ., xlvii. 652; Vicar of Wakefield, ch. xxv. -xxviii. 3 Report, 1792, Com. Journ., xlvii. 641. The only exception was under the act 32 Geo. II. c. 28, of very partial operation, under which the detaining creditor was forced to allow the debtor 4d. a day; and such was the cold cruelty of creditors, that many a debtor confined for sums under 20s., was detained at their expense, which soon exceeded the amount of the debt.— Ibid., 644, 650. This allowance was raised to 3s. 6d. a week by 37 Geo. III. c. 85. 4 Ibid., 651. ment of the gaol fees, for which alone they were detained in prison: others on payment of costs, the original debts having long since been discharged.1 of abuses, The monstrous evils and abuses of imprisonment Exposure for debt, and the sufferings of prisoners were fully 1792 and exposed, in an able report to the House of Commons, 1815. drawn by Mr. Grey in 1792.2 But for several years, these evils received little correction. In 1815 the prisons were still over-crowded, and their wretched inmates left without allowance of food, fuel, bedding, or medical attendance. Complaints were still heard of their perishing of cold and hunger. 3 Debtors' Special acts had been passed, from time to time, since Insolvent the reign of Anne, for the relief of insolvents: but Act, 1813. they were of temporary and partial operation. Overcrowded prisons had been sometimes thinned but the rigours and abuses of the laws affecting debtors were unchanged; and thousands of insolvents still languished in prison. In 1760, a remedial measure of more general operation, was passed: but was soon afterwards repealed.5 Provision was also made for the release of poor debtors in certain cases: but it was not until 1813 that insolvents were placed under the jurisdiction of a court, and entitled to seek their discharge on rendering a true account of all their debts and property. A distinction was at length recognised between poverty and crime. This great remedial law restored liberty to crowds of wretched debtors. In the next thirteen years upwards 1 Report, 1792, Com. Journ., xlvii. 648. 2 Com. Journ., xlvii. 640. 3 7th March, 1815, Hans. Deb.,1st Ser., xxx. 39; Commons' Report on King's Bench, Fleet, and Marshalsea Prisons, 1815. The King's Bench, calculated to hold 220 prisoners, had 600; the Fleet, estimated to 1 Anne, st. i. c. 25. 51 Geo. III. c. 17; Adolph. Hist., i. 17, n. 632 Geo. II. c. 28; 33 Geo.III.c.5. 753 Geo. III. c. 102; Hans. Deb., 1st. Ser., xxvi. 301, &c. Later measures of relief to debtors. The negro of 50,000 were set free.1 Thirty years later, its beneficent principles were further extended, when debtors: were not only released from confinement, but able to claim protection to their liberty, on giving up all their goods. And at length, in 1861, the law attained its fullest development, in the liberal measure of Sir R. Bethell when fraudulent debt was dealt with as a crime, and imprisonment of common debtors was repudiated. Nor did the enlightened charity of the legislature rest here. Debtors already in confinement were not left to seek their liberation: but were set free 5 by the officers of the Court of Bankruptcy.* Some had grown familiar with their prison walls, and having lost all fellowship with the outer world, clung to their miserable cells, as to a home. They were led forth gently, and restored to a life that had become strange to them; and their untenanted dungeons were demned to destruction. The free soil of England has, for ages, been relieved case, 1771. from the reproach of slavery. The ancient condition. of villenage expired about the commencement of the seventeenth century; and no other form of slavery was recognised by our laws. In the colonies, however, it was legalised by statute; and it was long before the rights of a colonial slave, in the mother country, were ascertained. Lord Holt, indeed, had pronounced an opinion that," as soon as a negro comes into England, he becomes free;" and Mr. Justice Powell had 'Mr. Hume's Return, 1827(430). c. 96; 7 & 8 Vict. c. 96. Noy, 27. Hargrave's Argument 3 Bankruptcy Act, 24 & 25 Vict. in Negro Case, St. Tr., xx. 40: c. 134, § 221. 4 Ibid., § 98-105. 5 In January, 1862, John Miller was removed from the Queen's Bench Prison, having been there Smith's Commonwealth, book 2, ch. 10; Barrington on the Statutes, 2nd ed. p. 232. 710 Will. III. c. 26; 5 Geo. II. c. 7; 32 Geo. II. c. 31. |