Richmond enquirer. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1815-1867, 1824-03-26

not unfrequeniIy involved in this calamity.---
who, among ourselves, can arrogantiy claim
an exemption from misfortune Oar lives
and our substance are both held by that frail
tenure which belongs to all earthly things
The proud and foolish man, surveying his
vast possessions, may exclaim, Soul take thy
rest but the echo to his boast, is the awful
denunciation, Dust thou ant and unto dust
shalt thou return or the elemeots have
commissioned To destroy, and The winds,
the fire, or the hosd, in AN instant pros,rates
his earthly hopes. In these dispensations
OF an inscrutable Providence, 10 which all are
alike subject, but from which, for the present
we may be happily exempt, let us be- taught
the necessity Of bearing with humility OUR
prosperity; but let not that exemption steel
our hearts against the Observation-Disclosures cup
of life is made sufficiently bitter by their mis-
fortunes-"I's cruelty alone that will admin
ster an additional drug. And vet these VIC
Tins of misfortune are the subjects of your
punishment.
What, let me ask, is the legitimate object
ofpunishments The reformation of the Of
fender, or to restrain him from violence Re-
form the prisoner In what? Does any
man desire 10 become ins0lvent? If there he
any one thing about which all mankind agree,
il is in the wish TO better his condition. This
wish Is implanted in our nature, and grows
with our growth. Can you increase it by
punishment Or can il b. necessary for the
peace OF society to restrain of his liberty the
man whose only crime is his misfortune
How are these weighty considerations a.
gainst the existing policy met by its friends !?
II IS urged by them that the evil complained
oil has been exaggerated-that the sufferers
are but few-that the moral sense Of mankind
revolts at the Imprisonment of an honest
debtor. Is this SO !? Then there is an end
of the question. You can have no difficulty
in changing system so unjust and so cruel
that none are found wicked enough to carry
1t into execution. Why disgrace your statute
book with such law? II is but an evidence
ofyour insensibility TO the character of your
code But, unfortunately far the gentleman
who thus argued, the moral sense OF mankind
is not what he supposes Let us look at facts.
Take the document exhibited Yesterday bv
my honorable friend from Kentucky lCoi.
Johnson)- 10 the record OF the jail in Bos-
ton, the metropolis of the very state whose
representative on this floor reposes on the
moral sense of mankind as "a sufficient shield
against any abuse under the existing law. 10
recurring In this document, intend nothing
that is lnvidous-I presume Boston is not
more remarkable for The number of IFS insol-
vent debtors, or the severity of creditors, than
any other part of the United States. Indeed.
member from New York, at the last session,
exhibited d similar document from the tails of
New York. Taking this document as the
rule 10y which To estimate the number of
sufferers in the United States, what picture
OF human misery does il exhibit. In a popu-
iatloD OF 10000, the nanlher af souls in Bos-
ton, there were committed in $50, one ihous-
and four hundred and fnrty-two in 1921.
one Thousand two hundred and eghty-one {;
and IN the three frsi quarters of 1898 seven
hundred and sxty-nine making proportion
| OF one-ihrtleth fthe whole population, which
has suffered Imprisonment for debt, and a.
mong this number, in the whole time, four
hundred and thirty females. This, then,is a
| specimen of the moral sense of the people of
Boston, and, as have assumed, of the United
States. BY which rule, after every reasona
ble deduction for the difference betw cen pop
nlous towns and the country, il may lie safely
affirmed, that $4,000 human beings are annu-
ally incarcerated for debt in the United
States. When we add To this The wives and
children of the sufferers, if our sympathy is
To he thus limited 10 the exclusion of more
distant relatives, we may fairly conclude that
10000 people are annually involved directly
and indirectly in the mischief resulting from
this barbarous policy. If the scope of evil
then has been exaggerated, it cannot be from
misrepresentation ofthe number of the suffer
ers. Is it in the extent of their sufferings p
Whefe is the barometer by which these can be
weighed Has the Senator from Massachu-
sets, or any of you, visited these abOdes Of
wretchedness-w whose silence, is Interrupted
only by the signs and groans of the victims {;
or, peradVenture by the aspiration of some
! broken heart, penetrating with the eye OF
hope the dark cloud that surrounds human
thinSs, and looking to a better world, " where
the wicked cease from troubling and the
weary are at rest 2" OF these dreary abodee,
Ut may well be said, as of the grave
Darkness, death, and long despair,
Reign in eternal silence there.
The sensibiy OF mankind is a subject of
curious speculation. Let some ideal case of
misfortune be touched by the hand Of mas
ter-some great uuknown--altho' the theatre
OF suffering be the Ultima Thule Of the habi.
table Globe, and although centuries have in
teryened, yet every page will be believed
with the sympathetic tear-while we hear,
without emotion, Of the real sufferngs ofthou-
: sands, If, perchaDce, they are our immediate
neighbors and contemporaries.
/ What flight Of fancy-what power Of de-
scription, could add shade to the dark pic
ture OF human affection, exhibited in this al
ready alluded-io document? A husband and
a father is snatched from his family at the
moment when the wife is suffering and in pc
Ri, and that very situation The cause Of the ar
rest, with view tn practice on the humanity
Of others Yes torn from wife and nine
children, dependent for their existence on the
daily labor Of the debtor. The creditor is
conjnred to relax bis rigOr. Shylock like, he
turns y deaf ear to the supplicalion-ihe wife
falls victim. the children live on Charity
But, airOclOus as is this case, IL yields in enor.
nifty To another. Where widowed mother
is imprisoned by brutal creditor, as an OBJ
stacIe 20 bis detestsbIe purposes against an IN