Imprisonment for Debt.
411
tion, but it is only where the elements of taken before the magistrate, who consigned criminality exist, and every unfortunate his body to the keeping and control of the creditor. The delinquent was thereupon taken debtor is not branded a felon. The history of imprisonment for debt to the house of his creditor, and there con forms an interesting but revolting chapter in fined in chains of not over fifteen pounds the book of the law which can hardly be weight for sixty days, during which time he employed to substantiate the eloquent was forced to live at his own cost, or accept whatever the generosity of the creditor saw Burke in his statement that law is "the col lected reason Of ages, combining the prin fit to allow him. ciple of eternal justice with the infinite "When the sixty days had passed, the variety of human concern." debtor was conveyed to the marketplace be The jurisprudence of Rome, of Greece, of fore the praetor, and his debts proclaimed England and even of America is blotted and for three consecutive days. If a vindex ap stained with the pollution of its touch. In peared for him, he was liberated. This in Greece, before the advent of Solon, arbitrary tervener was a third person, who came for and absolute dominion over the life and ward, attacked the claim and judgment as liberty of a debtor was vested in the creditor. invalid, and agreed to pay double the amount Refusal to pay meant condemnation to a life of the indebtedness if he should not prove of the basest slavery. The creditor could it so. take possession of his debtor's person, yoke "If no vindex presented himself, the per him to the oxen of the field or compel him son of the debtor was again placed in the to perform the most menial of household custody of the creditor, who could dispose duties. No account was ever asked of him. of him as a generous or cruel impulse might The food and raiment of the poor insolvent dictate. He could inflict on him the death was left to the discretion of the creditor, and penalty, or send him to a life of misery and many felt the scourge of hunger and the bondage beyond the Tiber. In the event two pains of exposure as well as the indignation or more creditors prosecuted their claim to aroused by insulting wealth and arrogance. judgment at the same time, like proceed In Rome, however, this debased practice ings were had in all the cases, and the two developed with the greatest rapidity, and as reprieves bringing no settlement of the de sumed the most alarming and cruel propor mands, the body of the debtor was divided tions. A Roman writer born about the first amongst them according to the amounts half of the second century of the Christian of their respective demands." Era, in a compilation of facts, conditions and If this account be true, the practice, for circumstances relating to the Roman Empire diabolicalness, finds no parallel in the history which he had observed or become familiar of the world. Men have, in the insanity with through his stay at Attica or in Rome, engendered by intense religious enthusiasm, gives the provision of the Twelve Tables in committed deeds of blood at which we shud reference to incarceration for debt, or, as he der, but the barbarity of their acts becomes terms it, " Legis actis per manus injec-; insignificant when compared to an officer tionem." He puts the following statements 1 of justice, calmly and in the performance of in the mouth of a character in one of his the duty imposed on him by the positive works : — law of the land, condemning a man to be "If a magistrate decree judgment against quartered, and the reeking parts to be dea party for admitted money, the judgment I livered to the Shylocks who stood ready to debtor had thirty days in which to settle. receive their portion in return for a few At the expiration of this time he was again pieces of silver.
