1827.] Holes for the Month. 217 



who are confined arc not worth considering at all ; but still it is inexpe- 

 dient to uphold and continue a system which sets even two rogues con- 

 stantly together by the ears ; and ends always in leaving one of them 

 rather more a useless, unproducing, burthensome, vicious, consuming 

 canker upon the community than it found him. 



If there were ten thousand prisoners confined in the various debtors' 

 prisons of England, the whole list would produce nothing, and must be 

 maintained by the labour and capital of somebody. A number of idle, 

 and probably depraved persons are brought together, in a state of living, 

 and. society, which perfectly well suits their inclinations ; to form an eye- 

 sore to good taste and judgment, and an ill example to all about them ; 

 and to be supported in idleness and merriment by the labour of some 

 of the more industrious members of the community more industrious than 

 themselves! Now this is wrong; and it is to get rid of this state of 

 arrangement, which is wrong and not atall to assist, or sympathise, with 

 the generality of rogues who happen to be shut up in prisons that 

 some legislators have been desirous to abolish the practice entirely of 

 imprisonment for debt. 



Except so far as it may go to induce persons to pay their obligations, 

 who would not otherwise be compelled to discharge them, although they 

 possess the means, the practice is one which cannot operate beneficially 

 for society. As a punishment for having contracted debts which the 

 party cannot discharge, it is objectionable not merely because it will 

 operate unequally, but because, if it does operate, it must operate unfairly. 

 It will press heavily upon the poor debtor, who has not money to pur- 

 chase the " Rules of the Bench," and the rest of the exemptions ; and 

 is a feather to the more fortunate rogue, who can levy contributions upon 

 his friends, or who has plundered sufficiently to be able to carry into 

 prison with him the means of alleviating its inconvenience. 



How far it may be possible to devise any method which shall secure 

 to the creditor meritorious or otherwise the same control over hia 

 debtor's property, under a new system, which he has now (slight as it is), 

 by being enabled to lock up his person, it would occupy us at present too 

 long to determine. But we have not a doubt that any act which at once 

 took away the power of imprisonment for debt altogether, would be viewed 

 with the most alarm by the least respectable part of society ; and least of 

 all, with satisfaction by the description of persons careless or dishonest 

 who now make three in four of the inhabitants of our gaols ; because 

 it would cut off, or abate most materially, their chance of obtaining credit. 

 In this view, therefore, we should be pleased to see an end to the system of 

 imprisonment ; but for any sympathy with the great mass of debtors, we 

 cannot justly lay claim to it. We have heard persons talk of " the hard- 

 ship of making a man suffer the same punishment for the misfortune of 

 being in debt, that we inflict upon a felon !"- but certainly never without 

 suspecting that the moral criminality of the debtor, is, at least ten times 

 in twenty, the greater of the two. A poor wretch who, pressed by want, 

 steals a piece of cloth from a mercer's counter this man is treated as a 

 felon, and (necessarily) transported for a term of years, or perhaps for life. 

 A rogue who is not suffering under privation, but has sufficient means to 

 command the outward semblance of wealth and respectability, lives in 

 luxury, for which he knows he has not the means of paying; and, having 

 used every description of fraud and misrepresentation, without the pale 



M.M. New Series VOL. IV. No. 20. 2 A 



