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ABOLITION OF IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT. 







ON Tuesday, March 6th, the Lord Chancellor moved an humble 

 address to his Majesty, requesting that he would cause that there be laid 

 before the House, the last report of the Common Law Commissioners. 



His lordship observed, a more important document than that to which 

 he alluded had seldom been laid upon the table of that House, and in this 

 opinion we most heartily and wholly concur. Upon no subject did we 

 ever feel more deeply interested than that respecting the rights and 

 interests of debtor and creditor ; and it is a great gratification to us to 

 find the commissioners recommending the abolition of punishment for 

 misfortune. During several years we have wagged our tongue till our 

 mouths' moisture was absorbed, and used our pen till the inkhorn was 

 dry, in aiding the accomplishment of this legal improvement ; we hope 

 that even our humble efforts have at length been of some avail. In the 

 outset we found many opposed to us : we found that the poet of nature 

 was oracular, when he said that " pleasure and revenge (and we will 

 add, interest) have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true 

 decision." This is not surprising, for we learn from the speech of his 

 lordship, that some of the commissioners who had none of these feelings 

 to gratify, and who had commenced the investigation of this important 

 subject with a contrary opinion, were not till now convinced of the futility 

 as well as injustice of imprisonment for debt. 



The trading portion of the community the honest traders, who, in 

 most matters, understand their interests better, have, we believe, been 

 advocates for, though in truth they are the greatest sufferers by, the 

 existence of this power to imprison. Dearly do they pay for the plea- 

 sure they enjoy in that most delusive protection ; and however averse 

 they may be to lose the opportunity of thus gratifying their spleen, we 

 conceive they will soon find their account in a pecuniary compensation, 

 by the abolition of what in fact is a mere dilatoriness in the execution of 

 the law. Happy should we have been could we have convinced men by 

 the voice of reason or humanity ; but passions, if not governable, must 

 have restrictions imposed upon them individual gratification must be 

 sacrificed for the general good. It is no easy task to convince men to 

 forego even a seeming advantage ; but many tradesmen with whom we 

 have conversed are of opinion with us ; they aver, that independently 

 of the injury of imprisonment for debt to the community, and its cruelty 

 to the individual, it is also ineffectual. How cheering to find that 

 throughout the laws of civilized society, humanity and true policy go 

 hand in hand. We will venture to assert, that wherever laws are cruel, 

 they are not merely unnecessary but inefficacious. 



Interest and power blind men for a season, but the impotency of cruel 

 laws will effect their downfall, although mercy or enlightened humanity 

 fail. To illustrate our position, we now find the bankers, the origi T 

 nators and upholders of death for forgery, petitioning for its abolition, 

 and their reason assigned is, not the cruelty nor the injustice, but the 

 inefficacy of the punishment. 



We should think it requires no stretch of reasoning to convince those 

 who will reflect upon the subject, that even creditors themselves (scarcely 

 excepting creditors for law-costs) would benefit most by the alteration. 

 But to all honest persons these laws work an evident injury. All who 



