Notes for (fie Monti. 2 1 5 



take It to b <juitc clear that the keeper of a prison subject, of course, 

 to responsibility if he errs so long as he continues in office, is enti- 

 tled to implicit obedience from the parties in his custody ; and it is equally 

 clear that the power of the marshal, in the present case, was resisted and 

 defied. There is no necessity for going at all into the merits or demerits of 

 the merry-making in question, it might be as it is said to have been- 

 perfectly decent, and sober, and harmless ; arid if it was so, it was very 

 unlike the revels which take place in prisons ingeneral, and those of the 

 K. ing's Bench in particular. But, at least, it appears to be agreed, that the 

 marshal did not exercise his authority to put a stop to it very pettishly o 

 hastily, for he did not interfere until the third clay; and it is scarcely two 

 months ago since the keeper of another debtors' gaol- Whitecross-street 

 prison was most severely and justly censured, for having failed to check 

 a filthy and disgraceful riot perfectly sober and regular, no doubt, in the 

 view of all the parties concerned in it but in which one prisoner, if our 

 memory does not deceive us an old and infirm man probably not given 

 to revel ling was so unfortunate as to lose his life. 



This affair -of the King's Bench, however, is over, and would scarcely 

 be worth noticing, if it were not that it has elicited a great number of very 

 pathetic protests and declaration from the inhabitants of various debtors' 

 prisons in the metropolis, who are pleased to treat themselves as an ex- 

 tremely ill-used set of persons, in being subjected to confinement, and to 

 supppse that the occasional condemnation which some writers and politi- 

 cians have given to the system of imprisonment for debt, proceeds out of 

 compassion for their sufferings, or at least, from a sympathy upon their 

 account. Now this is a great mistake, and the sooner it were set right the 

 better. Who the particular indebted gentlemen concerned, or damnified, in 

 this late proceeding of Mr. Marshal Jones's are, we don't at all know; and, 

 perhaps, it will leave us more at liberty, if we dismiss their personal claims 

 entirely, and forbear to inquire. But the fact is that there is, in the situation 

 of the great mass of persons who are imprisoned for debt as in that of the 

 majority of the parties to whom they are indebted very little ground for 

 sympathy on one side or the other; and the only object of those persons 

 who have advocated the getting rid of the system of confinement for debt, 

 has been to get rid of a system which produces evil, rather than advantage, 

 to the common welfare. 



The stock inhabitants of prisons, in general, however dignified by red 

 slippers and laced coats, or adorned by mustachios and expertness in play- 

 ing rackets, are with exceptions of course, but with exceptions which are 

 very few in number the locusts or caterpillars of the commonwealth- 

 people of idle and pilfering habits, and of depraved moral character. Miti- 

 gated as the law of imprisonment for debt now is in principle, and 

 still more in practice, the cases must be very few in which an honest 

 man can be compelled to remain in gaol. The Insolvent Court, and 

 the bankrupt laws, afford tho means of speedy and certain freedom to 

 every debtor who is disposed to satisfy his creditors by giving up his pro- 

 perty or shewing that he has no property to give up and whose course 

 has been anything short of that of a professional swindler. No honest man, 

 who has encountered misfortunes in trade, or whose carelessness out of 

 trade (although reprehensibly) has led him merely to out-run his income, can 

 be detained in prison. On the contrary, knaves who have incurred debts 

 iipon debt 6 ;, which they knew they had no moral prospect not the most 



