The law of imprisonment for debt, which existed so long in
England, the land of freedom, whereby a creditor enforced
payment of debt by imprisoning his debtor for unlimited
periods, is perhaps the most irrational that ever existed. The
purposeless cruelty of imprisonment for debt was demonstrated in
1792, when a woman died in Devon jail, after forty-five years’
imprisonment, for a debt of £19. And when the Thatched House
Society set to work to ransom honest debtors by paying their
debts, they, in twenty years, released 12,590 at a cost of 45
shillings per head. (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities
of Law and Lawyers.”
(1679)
=Irresolution=--See HUMAN NATURE, INSECURITY OF.