(_For the Mirror_.)
"Worry'd with debts, and past all hopes of _bail_,
The unpity'd wretch lies rotting in a jail."
_Roscommon_.
The system of _giving securities_, or _bail_, to answer an accusation, is
a custom (says Brewer) which appears to have been coeval with the Saxon
nation. This system was, indeed, subsequently carried by the Saxons to a
burthensome and degrading height--not being confined to those who were
accused of crime, but extending to the whole community, who thus gave
surety to answer anticipated criminality. This object was effected by the
division of England into counties, hundreds, and tithings, and by the
direction that every man should belong to some tithing or hundred; which
divisions were pledged to the preservation of the public peace, and were
answerable for the conduct of their inhabitants.
The system of placing all the people under _borh_, or bail, the origin of
which was attributed to Alfred, is first clearly enforced in the laws of
Edgar.