IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—The Editor of the Spectator— guum tot sustineat et tanta negotia —may well be pardoned if he lets some error creep into
those sparkling paragraphs which give a zest to the Sunday breakfast-table of so many rustics. None the less, however, should his errors pass uncorrected, and I trust you will allow me to set right the inaccuracy in your notice of Mr. Bass's Imprison- ment for Debt Bill.
The actual number of persons, not adult males, imprisoned was stated by Mr. Bass in his speech to be 183,000 in 22 years (Daily News' report), or an average of between 8,000 and 9,000. I have not the judicial statistics at hand, but I know enough of the subject to be sure that, of the persons committed, very few indeed stay in prison for the whole period of their sentence. In many cases, the order of committal, in many more, the sight of the prison, is enough to produce the money.
It is, you will forgive my saying so, a vulgar error that a person can by law be imprisoned for debt. Under the present law, which is contained in the Debtors' Act, 1869, committal can only take place on default of payment of any debt or instalment of debt due in pursuance of a judgment of a competent Court, and then only " where it is proved to the satisfaction of the Court that the person making default either has, or has had since the date of the order or judgment, the means to pay the sum in respect of which he has made default, and has refused or neglected, or refuses or neglects, to pay the same." No doubt the final cause of Courts of Justice is the repression of litigation, but surely you would not wish to attain that end by preventing them from enforcing their decrees,—it would be simpler and cheaper to have no Courts at all.—I am, Sir, &c., A. C. Hunenanys. Garilunyl, Montgomeryshire, April 22.
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