The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Our readers would see, from the speecheS at
the Surrey Sessions on Tuesday, that most of
the Magistrates consider the ordinary prison
allowance (which the surgeon deems himself
constantly obliged to cause to be exceeded, to
prevent disease), as a temptation to common
labourers, too powerful for any remains they may
have of virtue. This we can easily believe.
The accounts with which the country papers
abound satisfy us that there is a regular struggle
for existence going on in many places at this
moment ; that the overseers vet the orders of the
Magistrates fairly at defiance, determining that
if there be not enough for both themselves and
the poor, that the poor, as the weakest, shall go
to the wall. In the Essex Herald of Tuesday,
we observe a letter from Mr. Saumarez, a Ma-
gistrate, dated Rectory, Great Easton, Jan. 6,
1830, in which he distinctly accuses the over,
seers of Broxted of a determination to get rid oF,
no matter how, some of their burthent, and seems
to intimate that the gentry connive at this. After
describing the condition of the inmates in a parish
house, he says :—" i have, on two occasions,been
over this parish house, and this statement is sub-
stantially true; but no one can know the miser-
able condition of these families, without being
eye-witnesses of it, t could not measure three
square feet, solid measure, in any one part of
the apartment or loft of the Monks family, ex-
cept that part above the bedding ; therefore
some estilsilate of its size may be made. The
.."ho% area of Childe's bed was 20 feet, but the
cloaks of the occupants cannot be less than 40,
which is allowing them to be five feet each in
length and two feet in breadth, and I take no
account of the infants in arms : they must there-
fore be placed en masse, and the bedding was
altogether two sheets, some sacking, and a rag-
ged coverlid." He concludes his letter in the
following manner :—" And now allow me, as
an Ex. Magistrate of the district for the time
being, to ask the gentlemen of the county whether
eighteen people in four beds is what our Magis-
trates are to uphold—is what in open Court
they are to refuse to alter? This may be the
opinion of the county, as they seem to say ;
but this leap-in-well' and gee drive to mora-
lity' I am not bound to believe, and I will not
believe it. Let me ask, if a brother and sister—
not that case of the Monks referred to, but one that
happened here at Easton—if a brother and sister
are to be laid down in a parish-house, upon the
loose straw, without any clothes at all, except
their coat and frock ; if, finding all remedy from
overseers past my ability, I take the straw and
show it to the Magistrates in open Court—let •
me ask if this is what the county would think
nothing of, and that to omit and pass over such
a case is right. I will not believe it of the •
county, neither if I could would. I consent to it.
But they who affect to have so much knowledge
of the county, so little knowledge of what the
poor suffer:--let them, under these circumstances,
act as usual ; and I, for my part, most gladly and
willingly will leave them, for the more congenial
pursuits of humanity among my parishioners, of
whom I will undertake to say, that their misery
and misfortunes, their vices and degradation, are •
the work more of others than themselves." It
seems to us that, in many parts of the country at
this moment, there- is something like a dissolu-
tion of all law and order, and that there is next
to a scramble between rich and poor. The rich
are becoming too cunning to commit raen to
prison—but fight for what they hold as well as
they can.—Morning Chronicle.
We have been much interested by a short and
unpretending pamphlet, published by Mr. Dance, '
" provisional assignee of insolvent debtors in
England," on thatfrightful subject The Expenses
of the Law. It has often enough been affirmed,
and with truth, that the costs of a law-suit are
" monstrous," arc " terrible," are " intolerable ;"
and a number of equally strong adjectives have
been resorted to, descriptive of the pressure of
this acknowledged grievance. But there are one
or two modes of putting the matter to any plain
and clear-minded individual, which, it he should
happen to be a legislator, must make him blush
for his own share in the guilt of having per-
mitted, nod therefore as an accessory perpetrated,
the infliction upon the upright portion of his
countrymen of that immeasurable evil, an Eng-
lish bill of costs. Do Ministers and Members
of Parliament consider what cause it is, and
hose cause it is, that they protect by tolerating
the fearful expenses of a modern law-suit ? It is
the cause of every rogue in the I mud, against
every honest man in it. The authority which
pronounces that a British subject who has been
defrauded or injured to the amount of 201., shall
not have a chance of recovering it in one of the
King's Courts, but by the certain sacrifice of
501., is an authority which ought surely to be
adored by knaves, and held by all men of worth
and property in abhorrence. Every pound of
needless addition to the cost of recovering a right
withheld, is to the same extent a denial of jus-
tice, because it is an obstacle in the way of it.
All impediments to justice are bounties on fraud,
and direct encouragements to extortion and op-
pression. The poor man who happens to be an
unprincipled desperado, may wreak a double
malice on his enemy. He may wrong him first,
and ruin him afterwards by the sort of reparation
which he tenders to him. " Go to law with me
if you like." A poor man, who has justice on
hie side, will find her an exacting and unpro-
fitable ally, whose friendship he must re-
tain by subsidies far
,gaeater than his
finances can afford, and more than equiva-
lent to all the services which she renders him.
Mr. Dance has stated, in a few clearly written
pages, the miserable consequences of applying a
superfluous machinery to the decision of simple
questions ;and in a few mom e he has brought forward
the detailed and specific remedies by which he
prcmoses to mitigate at least the abuse. He con-
siders first the proceeding before trial—next the
unnecessary cost at which evidence is too fre-
quently obtained ;—then the glaring inconsis-
tency of those rules by which the parol exami-
nation of the parties themselves is prohibited in
a court of law,—while their written testimony is
not merely received, but required, in a court of
equity in answer to a bill, and made subservient
to legal purposes ; and when before arbitrators,
chosen under the very same court of law which
rejects the viva voce evidence or principals, that
viva voce evidence is often insisted on and given
for the purpose of aiding. that decision which the
Court makes binding upon the parties, though
founded on materials furnished through this
indirect violation of its own standing rules !
The author proceeds to recommend, that for
the trial of actions for debts extending from fifty
to a hundred pounds, and also for trespasses and
spe9ial damages not exceeding the latter amount,
the disproportionate expense and loss of time
now occasioned by the sittings of the Lord
Justice in term time, one or other of the
puisne Judges should sit every clay during
the whole term, and after it, if necessary, for the

determination of such minor causes ; and that to
save the expense of the repeated postponements
of trial, and attendance of witnesses,-a certain
number of causes should be set down for each
day, allowing only one counsel on either side to
be taxed in making up the costs. Mr. Brougham's
proposal of a court of arbitration is enforced
by Mr. Dance in this little work, which concludes
by the following suggestions upon a branch of
legal proceedings which teem with oppression—
those were honest debtors, not disposed to dis-
pute or litigate their debts, are saddled with an
enormous aggravation of them by dint of un-
necessary process to recover them. The whole
subject, indeed, of debtor and creditor, deserves
to be studied with diligence.
. .

" It • does not occur to me that there are any re-
gulationi tinder which it might be safe to give the
superior Court a power (absolutely independent of
the will of the parties) to refer any cause to arbitra-
tion, except as to the mere details of account, al-
though, in fact, such a power is virtually exercised
at present; but unfortunately, as it can only be ex-
ercised when the cause comes on for trial, it is of
the last moment when the whole of the expense has
been incurred, so that all the costs of the reference
become an additional burden to the parties.
" The costs of which I have yet spoken are such
only as occur in cases which are really disputed, and
after all practicable reductions there will still remain
a sufficiently heavy burden. But let us look to the
effect of costs arising in cases of debt, which are
neither disputed nor disputable. Such costs are in
truth most fearful and double-edged weapons, wound-
ing as often those who strike the blow as those at
whom it is aimed. In cases wherein the debt is
actually recovered, the costs add to the misery and
oppression of the debtor, and by tending to disable
hint from meeting other engagements, their recur-
rence very commonly drives him to bankruptcy or
insolvency. When OH the other hand the debt is
not recovered, the costs operate in aggravation of
the creditor's loss; arid therefore all such parties,
perceiving nothing in the expense of law but an 'en-
gine of mischief to themselves, must be expected to
look upon it, as they actually do, with great abhor-
rence.

" It seems, therefore, most imperatively necessary
to do something towards reducing most especially
the costs of this class, or at any rate of enabling
debtors to submit honestly and cheaply to such de-
mands as they have 110 wish to dispute.
"I cannot help thinking, that a great practical
mistake has been committed on this point. A few
years since arrests were permitted for debts when
they amounted to 101. To raise this sum to 20/.
was advocated as a measure of humanity to the
debtors, and it was so enacted accordingly ; but I
take upon me to assert, that in practice it has really
been productive of disadvantage in a large proportion
of cases, not only to the debtors, but to the creditors
also. For it is in truth a half measure, and, like
many other half measures, has induced consequences
of which its promoters foresaw nothing. It is true
that the debtor for 10/. can no longer be arrested
and held to bail. But the law which freed him
from this should have gone further, and freed his
person from imprisonment for the same debt, after
being sued to judgment. Formerly, if on being ar-
rested he paid the debt, it was with the addition of
3/. or V. costs to himself. If he went to prison and
became an insolvent, the like amount of costs and
no more fell on his creditor. The same man will
now arrive at the same point a little later in time,
but at an expense of about 15/., and if he prove in-
solvent as before, this addition will be out of the
pocket of his creditor. The alteration, it is to be
recollected, can only have operated on debts between
10/. and 201. in amount, and therefore the increase
of costs in proportion to debt is frightful.
" I admit that the process occupies time, which
the debtor gains, and which in his struggles to pre-
serve his liberty he will sometimes have made avail-
able so as to pay both debts and costs before judg-
ment can have been obtained against him. But even
then the expellee of these actions mast have been
materially greater than that of the same number of
arrests; and though they have not been attended
with actual imprisonment of the person in the same
individual cases, yet the proportion of costs to debt
is far too great to be supportable, and therefore
they must have led the way to imprisonment and
loss in other cases. In point of fact it will scarcely
be found to have diminished the number of persons
imprisoned for debt, and yet it has undoubtedly in-
creased the aggregate amount of useless law costs.
This increase being, as I before showed, confined to
the class of smaller cases, is a temptation which the
inferior practitioners cannot resist, and to which,
therefore a sound legislation would not leave them
exposed. _ _ _

" I have:long believed, and I am every day more
confirmed in my opinion, that the measure which
would remove the greatest number of these objec-
tions would he that of permitting any debtor to sub-
ject himself to the law of insolvency without pre-
viously going to prison. I can conceive nothing
more preposterous than the supposition, that when
a man -s unable to pay all his creditors, it can be
otherwise than mischi?vous either to him or to them
to head law charges upon him. I insist, that on the
contrary it would be highly beneficial to both that a
power should exist, competent to interpose and
prevent such proceedings, and to protect what pro•
perry he may have for equable distribution among
l►is creditors.

" In dismissing this question, it is no small gratifi-
cation that I can quote in its favour the opinion of
one to whose profound knowledge of human nature
the whole of the civilized world are delighted to
unite in bearing testimony. After describing the
court-yard of a prison, with a number of the debtors
engaged in playing at various games, Sir Walter
Scott says,' for these rehtxations the rigour of their
creditors afforded them full leisure, while it debarred
them the means of pursuing the honest labour by
whirs they might have redeemed their affairs and
maintained their starving and beggared families. "

We made some remarks the other day on the
case of the two children, under six years of age,
who were indicted for felony at the Westminster
Sessions. It will be recollected that those chil-
dren had taken a pair of stockings from the out-
side of a shop where they had been improperly
exposed by the owner, and that the transaction
had been witnessed by one of the new police,
who watched the children before they took the
property, and, instead of telling the owner that
his goods were in danger, lay in wait until the
robbery was completed. Having thus obtained
the materiel for a prosecution, and qualified him-
self for a witness, he, by virtue of giving evi-
dence on the trial, entitled himself to a certain
sum under the name of expenses—and thus we
see how the indiscriminate mode of allowing ex-
penses to witnesses on criminal trials, under Mr.
Peel's Bill, operates as a bounty to officers to
promote a system of punishment rather than one
of prevention. The policeman, no doubt, acted
according to what he thought his duty in watching
the progress of a dishonest intention until it
ripened into crime, which shews that the new
police inherit the notions of the ancient Dog-
berries, who thought it the worst of all crimes
to spoil a prosecution by too early interference
with the operations of a thief. But let that
pass. We should like to know who was the
' committing Magistrate, for we are of opinion
that in this case the committal was illegal ? It
is laid down by Sir Matthew Hale, a great autho-
ritys that a child under seven years of age can-
not, by the common law, be guilty of, felony.
He says that it is the presumption of law, that
before that age there is no discretion to discern
good and evil, and no circumstances in any other
particular case can be allowed to rebut that gene-

ral presumption. Of the same opinion is Sir Win.
Blackstone, who has these words, " Under seven
years of age, indeed, an infant cannot be guilty
of felony." In the present case the children are
stated to have been under six years. One of them
pleaded "guilty," the other, although there was
no doubt of the fact of taking the property,
was found not guilty by the Jury, on the hu-
mane recommendation of the Chairman. Now,
Sir Matthew Hale further says that an-infant
under seven years of age cannot be convicted
on its own confession—and, therefore, the plea
of " guilty" should not have been received as
to the one child—and, as to the other, the
Chairman ought to have told the .Jury they had
no authority to take the case into consideration
at all, for both the committal and the trial were
against law, it being the Common Law of
England that no infant of the tender years of
the prisoner is criminally responsible for its acts,
which provision of the Common Law has never
been repealed, and cannot now be altered but
by an Act of Parliament. This would have
saved the county the expenses of an illegal
prosecution, and prevented the public feelings
from being shocked by the exhibition of two
babies placed in the dock to receive the doom
of felons.—Morning Herald.
Mr. Briscoe, in his speech at the Surrey
Quarter Sessions, on Tuesday last, furnished
some admirable illustrations of the glorious re-
sults of the law, which gives a creditor almost
unlimited power over the person of his debtor—
a law, the general principle of which is at va-
riance with the soundest policy, and which, we
hesitate not to affirm, has never been productive
of the slightest good to the community. The
law is unjust in so far as it gives the creditor
power to imprison not only the fraudulent debtor,
but also him who has been brow zit to ruin by
misfortune or fraud. It makes no distinction of
persons or acts ; and to add to its absurdity ii►
this respect, it deprives the debtor, by consign-
ing him to prison, of the only means of intim-
nifving his creditor—nay, in consequence of the
expenses which are generally incurred before the
debtor can be sent to prison, the debt itself is
so increased in amount as to render payment
utterly impossible. In the cases alluded to by
Mr. Briscoe, it appeared that in one of them the
original debt was ss. 2d., and that by the time
the debtor was sent to prison it amounted to
14s. 2d. ;—in another, that the debt of seven
shillings was augmented to 15s. 2d. ;—in a third
that the original debt of 3s. 10d. was increased
to 10s. 4d.—and lastly, that a debt of 10s. 4d.
became, in the same way, 14s. 6d.! These
are plain facts, and we think they prove be-
yond the possibility of doubt the impolicy of the
present law,—not that we think no punishment
due to him who robs his neighbour of his pro-
perty, but that the law makes no distinction be-
tween the fraudulent anti honest debtor, and that
the means of punishment which it adopts are
precisely those which are injurious both to
debtor and creditor, and beneficial to no one.
The fraudulent debtor, or spendthrift, is a sub-
ject who ought in justice to be brought under,
the operation of the law, and to his punishment
in such manner as may conduce to his reforma-
tion and the reimbursement of his creditor,
there can be no objection ; but it is well known
that there are many debtors, both for large and
for small sums, who are debtors through the
fraud of others or their own misfortunes, and
from whom the only hope of payment is from
due opportunity being afforded them, and not
from locking them up ; and to adopt, therefore,
the same process towards the former, as towards
those who will not pay, although they possess
the means, is neither more or less than the most
manifest injustice. Yet such is the law at the
present moment ; and we think it would be dif-
ficult to select one from the statute-book more
pregnant with the seeds of barbarism. Let us
hope, that the ensuing Session of Parliament'
will not be allowed to pass over without some
effectual amendment being made in it.—Morn-
ing Advertiser.