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806 THE LEADEB. [No. 438 iJ AxyTjsT .14,...
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IMPRISONMENT FOE, DEBT. Whjen" will the ...
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REGENERATION OJ LONDON. "TriE degeneracy...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Collegiate Reform At Cambridge. The Time...
"have in their earlier years shown intellectual energy is eminently desirable . But an arbitrary and indiscriminate rule like that suggested for terminating all fellowships on the expiry of ten years , seems to us about as stupid and indefensible as that'for which it is meant as a substitute . It savours to us too much of the doctrinaire spirit of bureaucracy , and to lack tie wisdom of adaptation to varying circumstances and conditions which we
should consider indispensable if the new system is seriously intended For permanency . Wily every able and studious man should be banished from his college at two or three-and-thirty , merely because he has spent the prime of his youth within its walls , without any regard to the loss or benefit his banishment may be to the institution , we cannot , for the life of us , perceive . Surely some plan might be devised for winnowing- the wheat from the chaff , and for getting rid only of the latter .
806 The Leadeb. [No. 438 Ij Axytjst .14,...
806 THE LEADEB . [ No . 438 AxyTjsT . 14 , 1858
Imprisonment Foe, Debt. Whjen" Will The ...
IMPRISONMENT FOE , DEBT . Whjen" will the commercial mind of this commercial country cease to demand that misfortune shall continue to be dealt -with as a crime ? Will the time ever come-when we shall be disposed to regard an honest debtor in any other light than that which is held to be the true light by a nation—shall we say , a clique—of shopkeepers ? When , in short , shall we be disposed to- look at the question of debtor and creditor in its correct point of view , and reform our legislation accordingly ? Why should we
continue to cage a man , possibly for the sole reason that he has not been able to do trade enough to get profit enough from his customers to pay his creditors in fall i We contend for the broad principle that no man ought to he deprived of his liberty on account of honest unavoidable debt . But then we shall be told by the hard-fisted creditor , if we abolish imprisonment , vre shall be opening a wide door to fraud and to the swindler . To this we answer , that where fraud or swindling is proved , or even suspected , let justice be strictly dealt out on the offender .
When a man is unable to pay his debts in full , we would not , as a preliminary step to releasing him from his liabilities , abstract his body from his business and his wife and children , and lock him up in Whitecross-street after having stripped him , wife , and family of money , movables , and the means of very existence . But such is the course taken alike with honest and fraudulent debtors . ^ Would it not be better , more conformable with right reason , humanity , common sense , and Christianity , first to ascertain the origin and cause of insolvency before sentencing a man perhaps to unmerited punishment ? Yet this sort of Jedburgh justice we do daily on our debtors .
No man , we think , will contend that , where debt is the result of circumstances "which have no taint within them of dishonesty , and which could neither have been foreseen or avoided , the debtor should be called upon to receive the preliminary punishment of a prison . First , we say , let an investigation show that a debtor has contracted debts and liabilities well knowing he had no present or prospective means of payment , never intending to pay , ox we -will go further and say , hoping only to he in a condition to pay at some future time , but not at the time stipulated for , and then let the weight of the law follow . But , in the case of the honest debtor , let there be no imprisonment or needless delay in granting protection . Our attention has been called
to this subject by a report from Captain Hicks , the Governor of Whitecross-street Prison , relative to the abuses of the system of imprisonment for debt and the hardships and injustice sustained by debtors . The petition sets forth the extortions of legal harpies who infest these prisons , and who undertake , for a stipulated sum , to get debtors through the Insolvent Court . Captain Hicks suggests certain changes as desirable . His report states : — A great change in matters is most desirable , and undor that conviction I offer certain suggeations the adoption of-which will inevitably be attended by—1 . The expeditious discharge of prisoners . 2 . Economy or charitable funds . 8 . Increase in the number of cases relieved .
4 . The absolute freedom of tho prisoner on If s discharge . 6 . The prevention of extortion on tho part of tho soleitor . Those objects obtained , a death-blow to moat pernicious practices would be struck . To effect them , a " prison solicitor" should be appointed © conduct all charitable cases , at tuo some eum iot
each , calculated on the average of both the great and small ones . These changes may do some good , but they will not reach pur case , nor will they carry out the principle for which we contend . That principle is to punish fraudulent debtors as heavily as you please , feat to inflict no pimishment whatever ou the unfortunate debtor . Take the ordinary process of arrest for debt . The debtor is removed from his husiness , or home , to gaol . All his property , except a few articles oi clothing , is taken from him by the officers of the Insolvent . Court . A beggar before , bxit now reduced to absolute destitution , deprived of the
ineans of exerting himself in his business or vocation whereby alone money can honestly be earned , he is required to go through a legal process—comparatively speaking , to him an expensive processnecessitating the employment and payment of a lawyer before he can get his discharge . He must lie his petition , must wait in prison a certain time before lie cau . be discharged by an Insolvent Debtor Commissioner , who possibly has in his own person just before exemplified the process of getting whitewashed . Now how :, in the name of common sense , can a debtor , reduced by the action of the Insolvent Debtors' Court to the very lowest grade of positive beggary , obliged to take an oath that he las made a true return in his schedule and retained
nothing from his creditors , but given up . ' everything ' to the uttermost farthing , —how is he , without committing -perjury , to lind the means of satisfying lawyers , and , we believe , the fees of the court aiid the prison , ? It is true there are good Samaritans who may be appealed to-for hel p * but we contend that the honest debtor ought riot to be reduced to the necessity of soliciting his discharge from prison through the aid of charitable funds subscribed , by strangers—he ought not , having committed no moral offence , to be placed in a . condition in which either his personal Liberty or his feclingsare outraged . We are not among tliose who regard the mere fact of incarceration , or the regulations adopted in debtors' prisons , at least in those of the metropolis , as matters of any very , great hardship . From
what we have seen and heard , we "are satisfied prisons are frequently liavcns of peace and : material -comfort to many debtors—they arc not without their advantages , nay , they have their pleasures too . Some of the jolliest fellows we ever met with were men who had contrived to bring themselves within the four walls of one of her Majesty ' s suburban retreats , who found the place so . much to their liking that they voluntarily sought to have detainers lodged against them to prevent their release- But say what you . will , there is an indelible mark left upon a man who has once visited a prison , whether as debtor or criminal , innocent or guilty . It is because we would shield innocence from that reproach , not on the individual only , but on his family also , that vc would ask for a reconsideration of our laws as far as debtors are concerned .
Regeneration Oj London. "Trie Degeneracy...
REGENERATION OJ LONDON . " TriE degeneracy of the age" is a cry so often repeated by the shepherds of society , that it . has become a disregarded cant ; but the wolf has sometimes arrived at last , and at present he is devouring the flock rather voraciously . The Registrar-General reports that , during the past quarter , there were in England and Wales alone 27 , 000 deaths fromv preventable causes . " The arrangements of society , " therefore , are clearly convicted of homicide . The Times goes hevond the statistics of the
Kegistrar-fcreneral , and declares that they do not sufficiently measure the diminution of life which is taking place in the country , as exhibited in various forms . For instance , the recruiting officers have a greater difficulty in finding men of the requisite height and health . It is notorious that the merchant navy extends , as the population docs , at a mte . disproportionate to the supply of able seamen . The Times points to the condition of people inlmbitmg the poorer districts in towns , who show tho low
scale ot vitality in their outward aspect ; and it , draws a graphic picture of the pale , helpless , shrunken creatures that haunt the thickest neighbourhoods of the metropolis . Other writers have done tho same , years back ; tho difference now is ; that the number of these creatures is lnrgcly increasing , and that with tho expansion of our towns such xmhappy people arc more than ever cut oil from any reviving influences thai , they could formerly snatch . Tho proportion of town population and country population is
daily changing in England as well as FraMnT and there is a corresponding increase in fl , » , ' ben of the sickly oveJ-the healthy Mor-uiS 1 ^ 1 physiologists ask whether this is to go on ? Th ^ tical statesman sees that with the steady deelX vital energy in thisi country the materials of naW power decline . And if a comparativel y s ffi people can tend the machinery which is gradS supplanting hand labour , it is not that kind of 1 fl that can man our ships or our land forces wS statesmanship itself must grow sickly when USS upon a steadily degenerating nation . « SnmJi ?„_
must he done , " therefore , to arrest the decline 2 But what ? Every circle can . point to ' " ( he cause" of the decline , and has its own " rcmrX " at hand . "It is all the dreadful state of m 3 v i » cry some . " That arises , " others aver "fronnV norance , " as they prove by the better conduct of & better educated classes ; the remedy , therefore is more schools . "It is putting the enemy into his mouth that leads him astray , " cries a third circle-Ulic pubho-liouse is the true abyss of destruction ' ^ J i ^ ^ % Law the true salvation ! the Band of Hope the true pioneers of national redemption . ' A large number of gentlemen in black declare that the cause is " spiritual destitution- " " the public / ' they say , " are in the most frightful state of destitution , —that is , they have no adequate sup . ply of us . " There is not enough church ; there is only standing-roo-iti in the metropolis for thirty-seven per cent , of the population , and that is preoccup ied in the main "b y the well-to-do classes . Nor is there ¦
any money to pay for proper : ministration amongst the poor . A fund must be raised to the extent of 3 , 000 , 000 / . iiv order to pay the apostles . Mothercircle of gentlemen , with Lord Shaftesbury at their head , discover that the true source of immorality is th « ill construction of houses in town and country ,, and they proceed on a mission of amateur housebuilding on favourable terms ; but the movement is not upon , the whole in very profitable circumstances . It is not much better off in its exchequer than the Great Western Railway ; and if model lodging-houses languish upon a poor subscription , the lodging-houses that are the reverse of models , continue to draw immense rents from the
lowest classes of the population . Another circle takes a larger , view , and would purify the house from without . With these gentlemen the rescue of the Thames from its disagreeable condition with a , handsome drainage for London—upon which they caunot agree—is the true nostrum for the regeneration of the people . According to these several prcscriliers , we are to find the recovery either from a new system of drainage , from ragged schools or
mechanics' institutes , from churches transported out of the City , or newly built with a recruitment of one thousand clergymen from the Band of Hope —when it shall grow up and forget any kind of wine but the 2 <» fermented juice of the grape , which , according to the Band of Hope , is the orthodox , wine sanctioned by the Scriptures . Each of flicsc nostrums is tried , but , it must be confessed , not on a scale commensurate with the want .
There is a higher class of regencrationists who object to these systematic efforts . Aurora hnijh-, for example , inculcates the sublime doctrine that life must be developed from within . Having the sculpture entirely in her own hands , she is enabled to model the Lion or the Man as vanquishing at pleasure , and as She is the Lion she conquers ; licr cousin Koroncy being overthrown . Her talc has u " happy ending , " with her own doctrinal victory , and the admonition to the world that if vc begin by cultivating the life from withinwe shall , by a
, process slow nut sure , so regenerate , that life will become more and more beautiful , until it finally becomes jjguncthyst ! " An object no doubt most desirable to be attained , if one only had i \ clue to this ab i » . tra process of improvement . These grander teachers would make us base the regeneration of our people , perhaps not altogether unduly , upon our becoming " moral ; " but they have not been precisely agreed as to wliat Is " moral . ' They distmct us all with conflicting injunctions .
There is scarcely a brnnch of education , tectotalisnii spiritual-clcstitution-supply , model lodging-houses , or even drainage , that lias not its Papist and its Protestant dogmas . Mr . I \ O . Ward represents tlie High Church drainage , as Mr . Tliw-uit . es a church so low that it is almost Evangelical . Sluul we-, then , wuit to hope for the improvement of our population from more " morality , " when wo Iwivc not settled what is moral and what is aiol , ?—tlio moral of ono set of teachers being precisely the bin from ¦ which others warn us .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 14, 1858, page 806, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_14081858/page/14/
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