449 



NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



BALIFF-BRUTALITIES. A case of assault by a Sheriff's Officer, tried 

 lately at the Westminster Sessions, will serve to call attention to the 

 character and practices of a class of men, who, in these debtor and 

 creditor days, are, we fear, in unprecedented requisition; and who, 

 notorious as they are for being quite destitute of everything like " con- 

 science and tender heart," are not very likely to be improved or human- 

 ized by the increased calls upon them for exertion, and a multiplication 

 of the misfortunes upon which they grow prosperous at the expense of 

 the impoverished. The case we alluded to is sufficiently aggravated ; 

 an officer named Levy having, on the strength of the writ wherewith he 

 was armed, burst into the dressing-room of a lady of respectability, an 

 invalid, and moreover at the moment nearly undressed and struck 

 both her and her female servant although not the slightest attempt 

 was made or intended, by the gentleman whom he was in quest of, to evade 

 the execution of the writ. This brutal and unprovoked assault has cost 

 the perpetrator of it a paltry fine of " 20/ to the KING ;" an amount for 

 which the defendant " immediately wrote a cheque," and then left the 

 Court amidst the condolements or congratulations of a numerous muster 

 of the baliff fraternity ; instead of being mulcted, as he should have 

 been, in five times the sum, and sent for six months, in a different 

 capacity to that of gaoler, to a different species of " lock-up-house" to 

 that over which he presides. 



It is to be feared that the assault, thus leniently dealt with, disgrace- 

 ful and barbarous as it is, is by no means a case of rare occurrence. It 

 may perhaps be taken as a specimen of the outrages that are daily hap- 

 pening, unheard of and unpunished, under the sheltering cloak of law, 

 in. every county in the kingdom. In the metropolis, it is assuredly not 

 an unfare example of the mode in which these ruffians too often riot in 

 the privileges which their warrant gives them, and insult and wound 

 those whom that warrant places at their mercy. The " insolence of 

 office" is, perhaps, manifested in these fellows more than in any other 

 class of official hirelings. They belong* by nature and habit to the 

 coarsest and most vulgar grade of society ; money is to them the great 

 distinguishing principle of life ; they recognize but two classes of men, 

 the creditors and the debtors those who, having no money, cannot pay 

 and those who are arbitrarily resolved to have their due, whether it is 

 to be had or not. Their interest teaches them to take part with the 

 exercise of power, qualifying them not only to discharge their functions 

 without delicacy or remorse without the slightest courtesy or respect 

 towards the misfortune of the unhappy debtor but also, as in the 

 instance we have adverted to, to break through the boundaries of com- 

 mon humanity and decency, and to violate the law by open assaults and 

 indignities upon any persons, gentle or simple, that they may encounter 

 in their search. 



The Law of Arrest the subject of Imprisonment for Debt, of which 

 such frighful and ruinous examples are hourly happening under the 

 eyes of persons of all conditions in life except the richest of all, who 

 choose to shut theirs to evils from which they are themselves exempt 

 this arbitrary law, and this destructive and dreadful syste 



M. M. No. 82. 2 H 



