Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-06-10

States of
country there is question upon which the exist
ing laws are so diverse The matter is one which
concerns every man, because any man, in any
walk of life, liable to the misfortunes which arise
from hard times, in judgment, bad ventures,
Sickness the failures of others, and other
And the strange stories of debtor and creditor
which illustrate the hardships of present laws
in this direction numberless.
If all creditors were just and if all debtors were
honest there would be no difficulty. But both
sides of the contract stands INSCRIPTIONS class
whose dishonesty makes misery for the honest.
Money-lenders and instalment sharks take ad-
vantage of the law to harrow and torture the ig-
norant the poor and the friendless the hand,
and dishonest debtors seek to swinde honest cred
itors the other and evade payment of their just
Obligations. Balzac, III discussing this eternal So
Cial question sixty years ago, summed up by saying
that under any system Of law the dishonest debtor
would always on the whole come out ahead of the
creditor. This may may not be true Some of
the authentic facts in the may serve to illus
trate the existing condition of things and enable
the reader to judge for himself.
They can't jail you for debt in this State" said
the lawyers to Signor Mascagni when he found him
self behind the bars of a certain prison. " know
they can't, replied Mascagni; but unfortunately
they do -" He tells in his book Myself and Yankee
Debtors Prisons" how he was incarcerated in ten
cities, including Philadelphia Chicago Pittsburgh,
St Louis, and Boston the charge in each case being
a technical one-the reality that he had not
paid his bills And at the present moment thou
sands of American citizens in precisely the
position, actually imprisoned many of them in
is those among them who can pay and will not who
cause large part of the legal complication.
Kept in Jail for Years
a N interesting case, one which was productive
of unexpected results, occurred in Chicago. An
express company was robbed It's agent one Escott
was accused, prosecuted in a criminal action and
acquitted The company then reSorted to the
civil courts and obtained judgment against Escott
for the amount of money missing. That made
EscOtt a debtor. He was imprisoned and as long as
the debt remained unpaid, and as long as the COM
pany paid his board in advance he could be kept
in a cell. In those days rich creditors sometimes
paid a debtors prison-bOard months in advance
1t possible to pay even years in advance, thus
keeping the debtor in durance vile indefinitely In
such cases the motive of the creditor was not the
collection of money due him, but the venting of
spite Such was the motive when the express COM
pany paid its agents prison-board months in
advance.
Then shrewd lawyer took up Escotts case de-
terned to his release. The lawyer proved to
the court that the law read weekly in advance
meaning strictly every seven days, and not quar-
terly, or serniannually yearly He argued that
therefore the express company had not complied
with the law and SO demanded his clients release
On that techncalty, Escott set free The
case became celebrated, and many debtors were
released from prison proof of similar technical
evasions of the law by creditors From that time
forward State after another passed constitu-
tional amendments abolishlng Imprisonment Tor
debt.
While the attorney generals of the various States
declare that it is impossible to imprison any
person for debt in this country, they mention ex-
Ceptons by which debtors may actually be kept
in prison for long periods on some technical charge
in which the word debt does not appear. One of
that in which the principal was recently re-
leased from jail after having passed six years in