Imprisonment for debt in England, besides the rule authorizing imprisonment for debt, being a depraved and deformed offspring of and therefore passed an act extending this the English law, at the same time offers a method of enforcing satisfaction of claims to striking example of judicial usurpation; of all obligations of debt ( in its narrow common the courts taking unto themselves authority law meaning) and detinue. It was again the unwarranted by law, and asserting a power courts' time for action and, emboldened by neither vested by statute nor sanctioned by the success of their former encroachment, policy. The power exercised was the result they proceeded to apply the practice to all of the gradual encroachment upon the rights cases and controversies in which the remedy was sought. The various legal tribunals of the people by the judges of the past act ing through the medium of misconstruction adopted different means of accomplishing and misinterpretation of the law and aided the result. The King's Hench, exercising by thatmost efficacious of processes — a legal criminal jurisdiction, held that a debtor re fiction. It represents the power of precedent, fusing to satisfy an obligation was a dis good or bad, and of pernicious principles turber of the peace and a violator of the in established by the judiciary, being finally tendment of the statute, and hence ordered his confinement. sanctioned by legislative enactment. Until the reign of Henry II, imprison-! The Court of Common Pleas came to the ment for debt had no being in the English conclusion that the ordinary process of the law. During the reign of that monarch the court was insufficient to meet the exigencies of certain cases, and invented the bill of Mid power of the barons asserted itself, and Par liament passed an act authorizing the feudal dlesex and Latitat under which the debtor lords to imprison tenants for duties unper was first taken into custody, and the court, formed or taxes unpaid. Insulted by this through this medium, secured the appear display of Parliamentary favoritism, the mer ance and, subsequently, jurisdiction over the chants demanded that a like privilege be person of the party. The Court of Excheq vested in them, under pain of deserting the uer worked out the problem by resorting government if their request was not granted. to sophistry of this character. The creditor Such a claim so potently urged could not be was debtor to the king, and one refusing to disregarded, and the rights of the masses meet liabilities accruing to the creditor ren dered him less able to perform his obliga were again ignored to appease this compar tions to the crown, and, as the dignity of the atively small portion of the community. The courts acting on these special grants treasury had above all things to be upheld, the process of imprisonment was granted the of power, every case presented was con strued with an intellect perverted by a desire creditor in order to coerce the payment of of self aggrandizement and a conscience demands due him. The courts having thus stunted by servile dependency. Any case developed the system in all its completeness and entirety, the legislature, during the reign prosecuted by a plaintiff of influence or pres tige was held to come within the scope of of Henry VIII, feeling itself in a position to pass a general law providing for impris the statute, which was given an interpreta tion liberal at times to the extent of being onment for debt without incurring the right eous indignation and just condemnation of entirely ignored. Parliament had not the temerity to so the people, gave to the action of the judi trample upon the rights of the individual, ciary the sanction of parliamentary enact but the judiciary having blazed the way, the ment. Since then public opinion in Eng legislative function progressed another step land has greatly modified the harshness of in the direction of universal application of this remedy, but it still prevails in that coun
