DEBTORS IN GAOL
< A FINE DISTINCTION (From Our Own Correspondent) LONDON, 14th March. No doubt the strong agitation against keeping debtors in gaol may compel reform. Imprisonment for debt is theoretically abolished in this.country. Public opinion, aroused by the Fleet Prison scandals revealed by Dickens in “Pickwick Papers, 1 ” enforced it. Yet today thousands of debtors are in gaol, not as debtors per se, but for failure to pay under court orders, a distinction too fine for lay logic. Though opinion and argument arc all on one side in this question, reform is not an easy matter. Debt distraint can only be effective against persons with some property, but it is impossible to allow others, who have no goods to seize, to exploit that fact by contracting debts they never mean to meet. Distraint on wages is the obvious solution, but this is firmly onnosed by trade union opinion. Incidentally,‘rates and taxes account for most imprisoned debtors, a fact rather forgotten by a good many politicians.
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Bibliographic details
Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 2 May 1935, Page 10
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166DEBTORS IN GAOL Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 2 May 1935, Page 10
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