date

2 Aug 1812 Evidence Introd
2 Aug 1812

Evidence Introd

Introd

Ch. 26 Imprisonment for debt

' Errors of Abolitionists

Of such universal indistinctness of vision or rather of such blindness - the result of brow beating /awe-striking/ effrontery on their part /on the part of lawyers/, and awe struck ignorance and timidity on the other on the part of the [...?] [...?] among the non-lawyers the result has been that inconsistency which pervades the whole mass of the wretched piece of legislative patchwork which has bankruptcy for its subject.

The inconsistency though with so little point has found even lawyers more than [...?] to notice it.

By [...?] /[...?]/ every bankrupt is considered as a criminal: and out comes a law to squeeze /grind/ and punish him. By a

By [...?] [...?] every bankrupt is considered as the blameless child of misfortune: and out comes the law for his relief: In the eyes of Severin the interest of the Creditor is every thing: he is at all times as deserving /[...?]/ as he is injured what the wicked Debtor may suffer is not worth a thought. In the eyes of [...?] [...?] every creditor is on [...?] [...?] is the material of which his heart is made if it breaks where is the damage?
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  • Title: [2 Aug 1812 Evidence Introd]
    Description: 2 Aug 1812

    Evidence Introd

    Introd

    Ch. 26. Imprisonment for debt

    '.5. End Lawyers profit

    If within the same walls within which the blameless debtor finds a plan of his on the bed or stretched on the floor without so much as the bed of wretchedness, the fraudulent /[...?]/ debtor has a life of ease and plenty it is because it is the interest of Judges that he who comes thither has other mens money in his pocket should lead that life. Whether it be /operate/ in the shape of fees received by his own hand whether it be in the shape of patronage that is in other words fees received by the hands of a woman that it operates, the force and effect of sinister interest is still the same, with only this difference that received by the hands of a woman a hundred pounds worth of a mass of fees to a given amount the value is sometimes though not always less when received by the hand /by the patron through/ the hand of a woman than when received immediately into his own. Under the name of rent, or under some other name the comforts enjoyed in a Jail by a /the/ dishonest debtor, are bought with the money of the injured creditor, bought of the Jailer, and the Jailer is nominated by some Judge and it is by some Judge that the Jailer is placed /stationed/ in this his profitable post.
  • Title: [2 Aug. 1812 Evidence Introd]
    Description: 2 Aug. 1812

    Evidence Introd

    Introd

    Ch. 26. Imprisonment for debt

    ' Errors of Abolitionists

    cause [...?] interest

    In the pictures drawn /All along and on both sides/ of vice and misery there has all along been on both sides but too much truth. In the [...?] formed for the purpose /under the notion/ of accounting for these disastrous phenomena, the same error has prevailed /been taken up/ on both sides. In shutting their eyes against the only cause o this disasterous phenomena - in the successful exertion made /with which they have exerted//which has attended the exertions made/ on both sides to avoid suing the sole authors, the sole creators the sole preservers of all their vice and all their misery both sides have constantly been agreed.

    If misery has been produced it is because on this ground production of it is the sole object to which the exercise made of power has been directed. If vice has been produced, it is because while the matter of punishment has not been employed in the prevention of it, the matter of reward has by the hand or under the eye of power been employed or suffered to be employed in the production of it.

    If the Debtor /[...?]/ person whom whom, he knowing nothing, as human power can /could/ extract any thing has been consigned to useless, suffering, it is because the Judge got money by consigning him to it:

    If the blameless debtor in whose instance all punishment is /would have been/ undue is consigned to a course of suffering more severe because more protracted than any which the worst of criminals would have /is/ consigned to under the name of punishment, it is because it would [...?] /require/ to learn whether he were blameless or blameable and that trouble the Judges were /have/ one and all /been/ resolved not to take.
  • Title: [2 Aug 1812 Evidence Introd]
    Description: 2 Aug 1812

    Evidence Introd

    Note?

    Introd.

    Ch. 26. Imprisonment for debt

    ' Errors of Abolitionists

     Abridge [...?] [...?] this

    Of the falshood /Against the lie/, little or nothing. Written by lawyers these well meant and indeed really useful treatises are written of lawyers, and addressed though not to lawyers only,m yet principally, as being those on whom every thing [...?] of this sort will /is seen/ immediately[?] of real exclusivity is seen to depend, to lawyers. Talk to lawyers and in speaking of falshood, as practiced among lawyers speak of it as if there any thing wrong in it - as well condemn the slaughtering of cattle, in speaking to butchers talk to a butcher and speak to him against slaughtering of cattle /tell him it is a wrong thing to slaughter/.

    Of the final cases to which the practice and its existence, as little: of the misery put by this oppression and this [...?] into the pockets of the inventors of the case gained to them labour saved to them, by refusing to hear a man make known his [...?], which suffering was thus inflicted on him severer because longer /of greater a duration//in so far as what is longer is severer/ than what is ever inflicted under the name of punishment.