TI1E LAW OF ARREST.
To THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
London, 22,1 March 18:16.
SIR—The strictures in your last Spectator on this important topic, do not appear to me to be made in your usual spirit of candour and fairness; as being rather addressed to the prejudices than to the judgment of your readers—I bad nearly written disciples. In the first place, you class all who may have the unhappiness of differing with you, under the detrimental category of " a plentiful crop of attornies, sheriff's officers, and gaolers." Making a liberal allowance for that obliquity of vision so characteristic in a part isau determined on carrying his point, it certainly does appear to me rather extraordinaiy, that you. should either have overleolced the eminent individuals (Mr. BA RI Nti inter altos) who opposed the former bill in its progress thrtaigh the House, or else have " lumped " them in the unpropitious catalogue I have already quoted. Surely your memory is at fault, or your candour ? The very general feeling against the abolition, which exists amongst these most vitally interested in the raimstion, and the best enabled to judge of its mei its, the commercial classes, seems altogether to have escaped you. The only argument that you have taken the trouble of examining, is, by another singular ciancidence, the weakest and most unsatisfactory of all that has been urged against your own views of the subject—that of certain property not being
amenable to legal process. No legislator wr uld stultify himself by attacking the person of the subject, on the pretence that be could not touch his pur!ie,
when purse and person are equally under control. Surely it did not require the sledge.haramer of the Spectator to demolish such a cobweb. The teal obvious neressity for the law of arrest you have completely over- looked—I will not say blinked. I do not say that it is charitable to tear a man from his wife and children, although it is about as charitable as tearing the bed from under them—one of the soft expedients of your favourite remedy : I do not say it is salutary, although nave no doubt it has punished much roguery and pi evented more : I do not say it is the best method of getting a debt paid, although I have no doubt it is frequently the only tie: but I do say it is !te- ccssary. . Abolish arrest, and von have no security against the insinuating swindler, whose occupation is solely to get into a tradesinaii's book, and who has neither house, lands, nor chattels to seize, nor aught but his own miser- able carcass: miserable as that may he, he rets too high a value on it to mor- tify it bv " rotting in gaol ;" the wholesome disripline of which, and the re- stiaint On his pursuits, will compel him to do that whieh nothing else can- " pay his debts." If you want a practical illustration of the advantages of the law of arrest, go to Dover, Portsmouth, or any other of our sea-ports, where every hotel-keeper can narrate to you instil teas of its marvellous ,ellicacy. Many a rascally debtor has been there seized, with the fruits of his spoils about him,' and bas paid his enterprising creditor's demand in full ; to get which, he might otherwise have followed ABER NET111 'S prescription for a wen- " whistled to it."
But you will say, admitting all this to be true, are you not prescribing the same punishment for the unfortunate as the guilty ?—Granted ; awl I make a large admission in your favour. If the man who would pay but can't pay breaks his engagement, he places himself on the same level with him who can pay but won't pay. The getting into debt is at least a voluntary act ; and our necessities are no better apology for doing so without the means of payment, than they would be for picking a pocket. If with my eyes open I incur a debt of twenty pounds, I have, in default of better security, pledged my person for that amount. If Shy/ock bad reserved what lawyers call a power of redemp- tion to _Bassani°, the bargain would by no means have been a Jew's one; and I have no doubt " a pound of flesh," with that stipulation, would, even at the present day, become an exceedingly fashionable security.
In nine cases out of ten our sympathy is misdirected : we feel for the poor devil within the walls ; never compassionating him without—his creditor—who has lost his debt. The debtor has little right to emnplain of, however he may have to lament, his fate : the creditor is generally the party injured.
In thus justifying the system of imprisonment, I do not mean to eulogize it. I admit it to be humiliating, degrading, if not anomalous, to the subject of a free country ; but although an evil, a necessary one : it is one of those penal- ties which the unfortunate has to pay for the depraved and unprincipled. Hall men were honest and just in their dealings, there would be no necessity for laws—certainly not for penal ones ; but, constituted as society is, we know and daily see the necessity of "the strong arm of the law." Abolish imprison- ment for debt, and you do away with the only security the fair and unsuspecting tradesman has against the attack of the crafty rogue. The evil, in short, must be endured, until you can find men place faith and confidence in each other, which you never will do, until you banish fraud and deception from the world. Do away with the creditor's right to detain the person of his debtor, until his demand is satisfied, and you will prevent the one giving credit and the other obtaining it. No distinction can be made between the poor man and the rogue : debts will cease to be legal liabilities, and become mere honorary engagements. The question is then simply, can our commercial transactions be continued without credit and confidence? pull down the pillar by which they are sup- ported, and away goes our national prosperity.
In this attempt to put the question in its fair light,! do not wish to be con-
sidered as the advocate of the oppression, extortion, and cruelty, which has been perpetrated by the present system, even by " attornies, (though among that depreciated class myself,) sheriff's officers, and gaolers." But it is by the abuses of the remedy, and not by its legitimate exercise, that these crimes have been committed. There are many ways of destroying a poisonous fungus without tearing up the healthy and useful tree by the roots. Do not, however, let your readers run away with the notion that the law of arrest may be used with impunity for vindictive or oppressive objects. The blow is heavy enough, God knows, wherever it may fall ; but the hand that deals it has a heavier one in store for him who inflicts it unjustifiably. The protection which the law affiirds from improper arrest seems to be overlooked entirely by the abolition ad- vocates. They may be thus briefly summed up. First, you have the security of your creditor's oath : what is that ?—why the same security on which your life might depend. If he imprison you without a valid debt, he is liable to "the pains and penalties" of perjury, as well as to make you ample pecuniary compensation. If the debt (and the nicety of the distinction is in itself a preventive against an abuse in this respect) is one not properly of a nature that will justify an arrest, or if the creditor exceed the amount, however small, that is due to him, the consequences are of the most serious nature. It may therefore be taken for granted, that arrests are seldom resorted to, but where the nature and amount of the debt are clear and unimpeachable, and it is beyond all doubt due to the party asserting the power.
In my own professional experience (although rarely, except in extreme cases, adopting the rigour of the law), I have seen all the fearful horrors of the sys- tem, from the first gripe of the officer-
" Light was his touch, but it thrilled to the bone ! "- to the horrid suspense of the spunging-house—waiting for bail—the sickness of heart attendant on the coldness and ingratitude of friends — the crucifying leave-taking of wife and children—to the last scene of the loathsome tragedy_ the ribaldry, the squalor, the self-abandonment of the GAOL. And yet, Mr. SPECTATOR, lain still an advocate for the law of arrest ! and, until our Legis- tore will substitute a beatr remedy to protect the fair trader from the profli- gate swindler, shall remain such. But an), nevertheless, Your constant reader and occasional admirer,
BUMPIIRY BLUNT.
[The article in last week's Spectator was not put forth as a statement of the whole case against Imprisonment for Debt ; a subject which has been re- putedly argu.ed in our columns. If, however, HUMPORY BLUNT thinks this Jetter a sufficient answer even to that imperfect statement, he is welcome to it; we shall not disturb his self-complacency. We particularized a attornies, sheriff's officers, and gaolers," as the only parties really profiting by the wicked Practice: we consider the commercial hostility to the abolition, so far as it prevails, as 2 mistaken selfishness.—Em]
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