128 Debtors. ; [ Aue. 
or no impression, at least none that will furnish motive enough to stir 
an inch in working a change. But talk to them distinctly and forcibly 
of substantial, tangible, practical evils—evils that are revolting to 
natural humanity, that plunge men from respectability into miseries— 
visiting embarrassment and misfortune with penalties, disastrous expenses, 
and mental agonies,—that demoralize the victims and pauperize the 
families of the victims,—and you gain a listening ear, and perchance an 
active friend, who will shake off his lethargy, and aid you in removing 
them. 
If men would but take the pains to learn the real state of our pri- 
sons, if they would but themselves contemplate the actual condition of 
the prisoner, if they would but themselves visit those dens of infamy, 
the Fleet, the Bench, White-cross prison, or the Marshalsea, or any of 
the debtor-prisons in and about London, if they would but with their, 
own eyes look upon the misery within them, convinced we are that 
more reluctance would be felt in casting a debtor into them, and more 
alacrity would be shewn in removing the obstacles that stand in the way 
of closing them for ever. 
The broad fact stares us in the face, that the debtor-prisons are more 
miserable than our criminal-prisons. But why is this? Because, com- 
paratively, the wants of the criminal are provided for; some care is 
taken to employ him; some attempts are made to reform him; while 
the wants and wishes of the debtor, mental, moral and corporal, are left 
very much to chance. The debtors are less under the protection of the 
magistrate; they are left more to their own government, and that 
government, as may be supposed, is of the most despotic description. 
Miserable alike, nothing but tyranny and violence can extort fine and 
obedience from the miserable. The law oppresses them without, and 
their fellows within. The law and its administrators evidently always 
go on the cruel supposition, that the debtor is a wilful one, a sol- 
vent, a refractory one, and no shield is held over him. He can, if 
he will, and therefore he must be tortured till he consents to open 
his purse-strings, and satisfy all demands, lawful and /egal. If he 
will not pay a small sum, they will make him pay a larger. He shall 
not only acquit the debt, but shall pay the expense and trouble of 
enforcement. Every officer concerned shall be fed by him. If he will give 
trouble and cause expense, the rascal shall make satisfaction for it. The 
sheriff, the under-sheriff, the bailiff, his follower, the spunging-house, the 
gaoler, the turnkey, all shall conspire to plunder him. When he enters 
within the walls, he shall pay weekly for the space he stands or sleeps 
upon, and gain shall be wrung from him by the very bread he eats, though 
his wife and children stand round, suffering at the very moment from the 
extortion. The unhappy wretch is indeed the miserable object of extor- 
tion from beginning to end—we may say from the highest officer of the 
law to the very lowest. Why are lawyers so eager, in town and country, 
to get the appointment of under-sheriff? For the gain that is made by 
the office. Out of whose pockets? The debtors. Under-sheriffs of 
Middlesex, for instance, are said to have given £1,500 or £2,000 for 
the office. To whom? The sheriff, of course. And how do they in- 
demnify themselves ? Out of the pockets of the debtors. The office of 
secondary was, not many years ago, sold by public auction for £10,200. 
Then comes the sheriff’s officer, who, in like manner, pays for his office, 
and must be repaid out of the pockets of the debtor. So of the inferior 
“+ 
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