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1815.]

Noxious Processes.-Mr. Mathson.

the manufacturer, in loss of the workmen's time, as that of attending the gas apparatus.

Where the expence of candles rises to 800l. or 1000l. per annum, the saving will be a full half; because the attendance is very little increased, and the first cost, and wear and tear, by no means in proportion. This consideration should weigh forcibly with the inhabitants of London, to adopt large and general apparatus for the shops, rather than small, ones for individual establishments, as has been done in several situations in London where the expences of attendance is proportionably so much greater: also that they may reasonably expect a greater saving, because the light used in shops and dwelling houses, are more costly than the common lights or lamps burned in manufactories or F.

streets.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. STR,

I time ago of a patent obtained for a

HAVE read in your Magazine some

case to cover the head, to prevent the bad effects of the fumes of muriatic acid on the constitution in some branch of manufactures. It appears to me that great benefit might be derived by those employed in many unhealthful trades, such as painters, scythe-grinders, and others, by using a covering of that nature for the face, made with thick cotton or linen, as the injurious effects is known to be produced by what is taken in at the mouth and nose. C. W.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

STR,

A provincial intelligence of your num

MONG the deaths recorded in the

ber for April last, p. 274, occurs the name of the "Rev. Mr. Mathson, of Pattesdale." The article was doubtless copied from one of the newspapers, in some of which I noticed the insertion of his death as having lately happened. It is rather a remarkable circumstance that the Rev. Mr. Mattison, of Patterdale (for so his name and place of abode ought to have been spelt), died in the year 1765, as appears from the obituary of the Gentlenian's Magazine of that year. The account of the singular circumstances of his life is inserted in Hutchinson's History of Cumberland, vol. i. p. 432, where it is said he lived to the age of 96. It has often been copied into different publications, as an amusing instance of industry and economy in the clerical cha

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racter.

Basingstoke,

J. J.

19

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

HE ascendency of reason in the

Taffairs of a people, is the test of their advancement in civilization and freedom. It is the unhappy condition of nations, still savage or subject to des potic sway, to be the dupes of prejudice and passion. On the contrary, a nation governed by its own free-will, and by good intelligence, makes laws which impose no impracticable condi tions, and balance the just pretensions of every class of the community.

The latter, in a qualified degree, is the condition of the people of England. The House of Commons may not be wholly adequate to all its professed constitutional purposes, because so many of its members do not represent their due proportion of the people; yet six hundred and fifty legislators cannot de liberate two hundred days in every year, without passing, even by chance, many salutary laws. In points which do not affect their personal interests with the minister, it must be admitted by the severest patriotism, that they distribute equal justice between their fellow citizens; while, in the four hundred public and private acts of every session, many of the provisions evince a disposition to ameliorate the condition of society, either closely following or often prece ding the progress of public intelligence.

It is my present purpose to invite atten tion to a law which has recently been passed to adjust the relations of debtors and creditors, commonly called, "Lord Redesdale's Act;" though its principle had been urged for twenty years, by the present enlightened and benevolent Governor General of India. It is one of those laws in which the intelligence of the legislature preceded that of large and active portions of the public, in regard to some of whom its provisions interfered with their profits; while, in relation to others, it took away powers which they had too long been accustomed to exercise. An interested opposition has in consequence been organized against this law, which will call for all the firmness of parliament to resist. Practising at tornies have not occasion to commence the half of their customary number of suits; sheriff's officers do not make a half of the usual number of captions; the spunging-houses are without com pany; the gaolers have fewer inmates on whom to prey; the barristers get but a tythe of their ordinary fees; Jews and discounters meet with fewer cases of urgent

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urgent distress; and the officers of the courts of law experience a serious defalcation in their perquisites.-How then, say all these people, can so injurious a Jaw be suffered to remain in the Statutebook?

Such, at least, is the question of the hungry pettifogger, who calculates his gains by the number of victims he can embarrass or immure-of the bumbailiff and his follower, whose subsistence depends on the business of their patron, the attorney-of the gaoler, who calcu lates his salary on the gratuities paid by debtors for indulgence of the bar. rister who gets a fee for his opinions, his pleadings, his declaration, and his brief on one side or the other-and of the officers of our tribunals, who, by a narrow policy, are allowed to derive their salaries from misery, instead of being liberally paid by the public. In the county of Middlesex, I am told, this business of these several classes has fallen off in the proportion of 1 to 3; and, through the whole kingdom, in the proportion of 1 to 4. Can we wonder, then, that every trifling difficulty, in the execution of the bill, has been improperly magni. fied-that cases, in which it may happen to release unworthy objects, have been unduly dwelt upon-and that every means have been exerted to alarm the commercial world, and the powerful members of the legal profession, into a belief of alledged dangers from its operation?

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Let us, however, dispassionately enquire into its purpose and objects. We shall find, that its principle is to render not only the present, but the future property of the debtor, liable for his debts. And what more can reason expect or desire? Can creditors ask more of debtors than their property, present and future? Ought not the present property to have been sufficient-could justice fairly ask more?-Yet this law commits all future property, and renders the debtor virtually a slave, till the creditor is satisfied!-With what ground of reason then can creditors complain of this act? Do they want more than the present and future possessions of their debtor-If they do, their wishes ought not to be gratified-they are Shylocks, seeking their pound of human flesh, who ought to be hunted out of civilized society-and tyrants, who ought not to enjoy the protection of laws made by free-men in the spirit of reason and justice!

The terms and provisions of the bill all tend to that object, the transfer of

the property of the debtor to his cre ditors. For this purpose an assignee, or assignees, usually the chief of the creditors, are appointed to take possession of the property and make dividends -the penalty of transportation is inflicted for making false returns-public advertisements and circular notices are given to creditors who are heard in person, or by counsel--the debtor is subjected to public interrogatories-and great rewards are offered for discoveries of concealment. These provisions, if not effectual, were made as much so as is consistent with the spirit of the British Con-titution; and, if on any point they appear to be insufficient, the framers of the law can have no objection to improve or extend them, so that, as far as human inquisition can extend, a full disclosure of the debtor's property shall be made. Let the reward be increased for the discovery of concealments-let the punishment be the most terrible known to the law, and let it be invariably inflicted, rather than innocence should suffer for the frauds of guilt-or that the just principles of this law should be abandoned, because they may occasionally be abused by knavery! Let the guilty be amenable for crimes, but them only. Define, as accurately as you can, the really culpable acts of debtors; and punish offenders as severely as you please, but do not extend your penalties to the innocent or unfortunate, or,

what would be worse than any definite legal penalty, leave them to be punished in the discretion of any enraged, vengeful, and inexorable creditor.

Other provisions of the act deprive a debtor of a second enlargement within five years, so that no man can insult public decency by incurring debts, in the expectation of being speedily liberated again.-An unprincipled career of a year must be atoned for by four years unpitied imprisonment, a penalty so far beyond any prospect of advantage, that no better security could exist against the immoralities of spend-thrifts and swind lers, than this provision of this very statute.

It appears that, in the first fifteen months of its operation, the new law has relieved from personal duress, no less than FOUR THOUSAND debtors; that is, 2,400 in London, and 1,600 in the provinces; the whole of whose debts, averaging five hundred pounds, amounted to TWO MILLIONS. The dividends they have paid have been trifling; but neither this consideration, nor that of

the

1815.]

Horrors of Imprisonment for Debt.

the vast numbers discharged from confinement, afford any just or valid objection to the bill.

If their means had been commensurate with their debts, they would not have been objects for relief; they were in confinement simply because they did not possess the means of paying their debts. It is therefore most absurd to object to the bill, because the means of those who bave been relieved by it, have borne any inconsiderable proportion to the amount of their debts. Rather would it not have been as cruel as unreasonable, to have persisted in detaining persons whose means are proved to have been so inadequate, than blame the instrument which has relieved them from the pressure of debts, whose payment could not have been accelerated by the imprison ment of the debtors, and by the hopeless sufferings of their families.

The prodigious numbers relieved, or who remain to be relieved, are in like Laanner no evidence against the justice of the law; but rather seem to prove at once its necessity as well as justice. The operation of twenty-two years' wars on the national industry-of taxes to support their expences of paper-money to sustain the taxes-of speculations and experiments in every brauch of industry, to obtain a living in such timesof monopolies of land, which have driven the starving population into towns-and of depreciated currency, affecting all annuitants, and small incomes, has created a load of private debt and domestic suffering, which it would have been faithless not to have relieved, by abating the severity of the laws between debtor and creditor. This mass of insolvents arising from the foibles of the state, me rited the attention of those for whose errors, they have innocently or wilfully suffered; though it must be confessed, that under other circumstances it would have been more just to have given such a law a prospective operation, and not to have stept so abruptly between the contracts of debtor and creditor.

It however behoves those creditors who complain of the early effects of the new law, to state whether they believe that in any instance their condition would have been improved if it had continued in their power indefinitely to detain their debtor in prison. Unless they can make this appear, the retrospective operation of the bill is no valid objection to it; and it may be suspected, that the indulgence of an implacable spirit against a helpless debtor, is their true ground, rather than any calculation of legi

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timate advantage to their own estate. It is notorious, that, under the system of indefinite imprisonment, not one creditor in twenty ever obtained a farthing of an imprisoned debtor; while he was often fixed with heavy and ruinous costs, and on the wretched debtor and his family a load of useless misery was heaped, which generally terminated his life, attended by circumstances that often defied all the powers of the tragic muse!*

Are we then to yield to the wishes of harpies of the law, and mistaken creditors, and revive a system so pregnant with horrors, so indiscriminate in its severity, and so inefficient in its operation? Are we to outrage every feeling of huma nity, and abandon every check on the indulgence of bad passions, that cruelty may stand in place of prudence and discretion among tradesmen? Is law to be the snare in which the unwary or incautious are to be caught by the speculating and grasping trader, who gives loose and unguarded credit, trusting that he may exact, by the torture of imprisonment, from tender-hearted parents, kind relatives, or sympathizing friends? Is it not more reasonable that trade should be carried on at the proper risk of the trader; and that it should be his duty scrupulously to ascertain what, as well as whom, he trusts, or cheerfully submit to the penalty of his credulity, and be satisfied with payment in the property of his cre

* Often have men been detained in prison for debt or costs, of trifling amounts, for twenty or thirty years. I once saw a man in Newgate, who had been detained there twenty-seven years; and I have known a family of four brothers, who were detained in four several goals for the same debt above seventeen years, two of whom victims of their novel condition of liberty, died prisoners, and the other two became within a few months after the heir of their debtor had given them a free discharge. The man in Newgate told me, that his creditor died a few years before, after paying him ten times the amount of the debt in groats, and he was then able to supersede the action; but in twenty years his friends, or connections in the world, as he termed it, being all dead; and having been so long habituated to one mode of life, in which by services to new comers he gained a living, he felt the greatest terror at the idea of being ejected from a habitation which had become natural to him, and which time had changed from a prison to an asylum. Persons who wish to inform themselves of all the villanies and extortions to which the system of arbitrary imprisonment for debt is liable, should consult Mr. Pearce's late publication on the Abuses of the Lanv.

ditor,

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It is impertinent in the opposers of this law to speak of the relief which they say it affords to swindlers. No swindler is or can be enlarged by it. All fraudulent transactions are excluded from relief by an express clause. Swindlers continue also as much as ever obnoxious to the criminal law, and the civil law as it stood, effected as little relief in the recovery of property from swindlers, as is pretended in regard to this new bill. Nor does it appear by past experience that swindlers, or any class of swindling creditors, enjoy an immunity from this bill. Among the 2400 liberated in Londou, a large majority were unfortunate and unhappy persons, who but for this statute would have been borne down to their graves by the oppression of debts, which they could never pay, or they must have suffered imprisonments without any prospect of relief. Old and young, industrious and idle, wise and foolish, male and female, virtuous and vicious, have all stood at the bar of the court created by this statute; and, after surmounting the opposition and cross-examinations of their creditors, have happily been liberated.I say happily liberated, even though some score of them might have merited perpetual imprisonment; for was it not better that the whole should be liberated, however culpable some might have been, than that many hundreds of unfortunates should have been doomed to interminable miseries? Are we on this subject to reverse all the axioms, even of criminal jurisprudence; and are we to punish ninety-nine who are inno. cent lest one guilty should escape ?*

In a word, then, I conjure the humane and intelligent part of my countrymen to

* I should diminish the utility of these remarks, if I forbore to state, as general conclusions, founded on the disclosures before this busy tribunal, that, in nine cases out of ten, the original cause of insolvency arose from negociating accommodation bills. These led the parties into labyrinths, from which they never could extricate themselves. That legislature therefore would honour itself, which should, by some special enactments, such as those which I formerly pointed out, (see Monthly Mag. for September, 1810,) prevent inexperienced persons from rushing into this gulph of destruction, just as a moth rushes into a candle. Another great cause of ruin appears in the costs of attornies in vexatious uits, against which, to the disgrace. of our

make themselves acquainted with the spirit and the provisions of this law, before they suffer themselves to be misled by false statements and interested reasonings. They will then, I persuade myself, hail it as a signal triumph of reason and benevolence over the prejudice of custom, and the tyranny of avarice. Among our laws on the subject of property, they will find it a ray of sun-shine breaking into a cavern of darkness. To the weak and helpless, they will discover that it serves as a guardian against the caprice of the strong and wealthy, and places those under the protection of dispassionate authority who, without such aid, were liable to become the victims of hatred, revenge, and insatiable avarice. And, on whichever side they view it, they will find that its tendency is to break the galling chains of hopeless and pennyless prisoners, serving to restore thousands to the bosoms of their afflicted families, affording them an opportunity of paying their creditors, giving them a chance of retrieving the errors of inexperience or credulity, and enabling them to become useful and respectable members of society.

Ought more need more-be urged in favour of any human law? Considered merely as an alternative in a choice of difficulties-its only errors are those of charity and beneficence. But, estimated as one of those contrivances of wisdom, by which man endeavours to confer perfection on his establishments, its faults, though magnified by the prejudices of inordinate self-love, can never be made more evident or conspicuous, than the spots in the ALL-GEORIOUS SUN.

COMMON SENSE.

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1815.]*

·Improvements of the Insolvent Act.

⚫ught ever to be trusted with unrestricted powers; and, above all men, no English lawyer, a class of the community whose professional subtleties lead them, in spite of good moral dispositions, into as many labyrinths and erroneous conclusions, as the school men in the dark ages fell into, from an equal use and abuse of logic.

2. On all points in which the three Judges do not agree, the parties should be at liberty to appeal to a court, composed of one Judge and of a Jury, drawn in equal proportions from Middlesex, Surry, and Westminster; this court to sit one week in every month.

3. Written notices should be sent one month before the application for discharge to every creditor, which notices should also exhibit au abstract of the totals of the debts and effects.

4. The assignees should appoint a meeting of the creditors within twenty-one days after their appointment, by circular letters, and send an abstract of the debts and effects, as sworn before the court.

5. An allowance to the debtor, as a guard against the necessity and motive for fraud, should be made of one-fifth of the effects, provided it do not exceed 1501.; the same to be selected and estimated by three persons, one named by the court, one by the creditors, and one by the debtor.

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tain his discharge under this bill, who has obtained goods from any creditor, for which he had no probable means of paying, or who re-sold or pawned such goods, or the major part thereof, not being a dealer in the same, for less than they cost him, or who assigned them in preference to another creditor, within 12 months after he obtained the same, if for not less than 501, and more than 1001.; or 18 months if between 1001. and 3001.; or 24 months if above 3001.

11. For the purpose of satisfying the creditors, in regard to the disposition of the property, the debtor applying for discharge should give an exact account of all his receipts and disbursements, within three months previously to his being in custody; also a list of all bills, notes, bonds, assignments, or securities which he has granted, or negotiated, within the same period; and likewise an account of the sales of all real property which may have been in his possession, within two years.

12. Cases of uncertificated bankrupts should be heard and decided in the same manner as that of other debtors; and, if no fraud or reservation of property is substantiated, they should be discharged like other debtors, under the act.

SIR,

6. A special reward of one hundred To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. pounds to be paid for discoveries of concealments over and above the proportion of the property now allowed.

7. Once a year, on request from the assignees, or three of the chief creditors, the discharged debtor, on one month's notice, to be required to state the nature and value of his property, a dividend being to be made on such amounts as exceed treble. the fifth allowed as above.

8. In all cases of debtors and creditors, the decision and agreement of threefourths of the creditors in number and amount, the proposal having been submit ted to the whole, shall be binding on the other fourth, so as to preclude the necessity of seeking relief under the bankrupt laws, or this bill, whenever three-fourths are satisfied with any proposed arrangement.

9. Debts of the crown to be concluded by the agreements of other creditors, and by the provisions of the laws in regard to debtors generally, the same general principles of equity applying to crown debts as to all others, and the crown being more able to bear its proportion of losses than private creditors; whereas, at present, without the plea of necessity, and therefore of justice, the claims of the crown usually

involve debtors and creditors in one common loss, and often in irretrievable ruin, 10. No person shall be allowed to ob

1

ON

N Monday, September 7, 1812, about 12 o'clock at noon, as I was travelling along the turnpike road, I observed, about two hundred yards before me, something rising from the middle of the road, which appeared like a quan tity of steam, or smoke, issuing rapidly from a narrow aperture (perhaps six or eight inches in diameter,) in the surface; but, on my nearer approach, I perceived it to be dust. It immediately ascended, in a compact column, to the height of fifty or sixty feet, where it expanded, and was soon lost in the surrounding atmosphere.

I would further observe, that the air was unusually calm at the time; and, although I particularly examined the ground, I could not discover any traces to mark the precise spot whence it issued.

The time from its first rising from the earth, till its dispersion, could not be more than half a minute.

Would not the same cause, acting.' upon a body of water, have produced what is commonly termed a spout?

water.

C. S.

For

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