An account of the rise, progress, and present state, of the Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts throughout England and Wales / By James Neild.

  • Neild, James, 1744-1814.
Date:
1802
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the rise, progress, and present state, of the Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts throughout England and Wales / By James Neild. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    and the committee always prefer the cases of those useful artificers and manufacturers, who are bur- dened with the largest families; men, who derive their subsistence from daily labour. However the law of an equal degree of punish- ment or of imprisonment at all for small debts, in comparison with large ones, where the circumstances and situation of men are equal, evidently appears unjust, because it suffers that debtor, whose insol- vency, perpaps, materially injures a very extensive circle of the community, to enjoy freedom and im- punity ; whilst it immures in a grievous and noisome prison the other, whose inconsiderable failure cannot much affect his creditors. % A poor fellow-creature, perhaps for the immediate support of life, amidst sickness, unavoidable losses and disappointments, contracts a small debt and has no other possible means to discharge it, than such as arise from his personal industry and manual em • ploy. The creditors will have no mercy: the wretched victim is seized, and thrown into prison ; the means for supporting his family, or for doing justice to his creditors, are taken away, and he is left to languish in confinement till death, or some fortunate accident, shall, bring him deliverance [ What end can possibly be answered by this ? What good can it produce ? Every feeling of humanity revolts at the proceeding, and condemns the act, and it will scarcely be credited, in this age and kingdom of philanthropy, that such cruelties have been