IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 1117, 20 July 1865, Page 5

IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT.

{To the Editor of the JJa.ly Times.)

Sir —To imprisou an insolvent for d-ibt, has al«aj3 been e3teeined a h;irsh remedy —a relic of a barbarous age, quite out of harmony with the exigencies of a more civilized era. It is paradoxiui! to send a man to gaol, where he has no possible means of earning anything-, and to hope for payment thereby. Hucii a proceeding, nevertheless, gratifies the baser part of our nature; and although the whole tendency of modern legislation and practice, is to do away with such a cruel and revengeful mode of obtaining redress, there are still some .ready to take their fellow by the throat and*sa3 i, '• Pay me that thouowest." For some years imprisonment for small debts has been abolished in England and Scotland, and a Parliamentary Committee has just reported on the Bankruptcy Act recommending in the three first paragraphs of their report the total abolition of imprisonment for debt, except in cases where the debtor may be about to quit the kingdom. I understand we may look for some amendment in our Creditors and Debtors Act during the ensuing Assembly, and would it not be well to adopt the humane recommendation, that imprisonment for debt should be abolished ? Perhaps we are not here precisely on the same platform as at Home. Colonies give so much room for fraud and evasion of just claims, that reckless trading is far more common than at Home. Men make a pile of their neighbors'goods, and walk off with the proceeds. Another recommendation of the Parliamentary report is, that where a debtor has not paid 63 8d in the pound, he shall not be free for six years, that is, till the claim be barred by the statute of limitations. An enactment to this effect is greatly needed in Dunedin, looking to the amount of recent dividends. The mercantile world have a remedy in their own hands, they should decline all further dealing with any person who becomes insolvent and cannot pay a reasonable dividend. We miy be scarcely ripe for the generous legislation proposed at Home, but while we keep the meshes of the net small enough to secure the larger fishes, we should leave themopen enough to let the little fishes through. My reflections have been turned to the foregoing subject by a call from a poor

woman, soliciting a contribution to take her to Sydney. The subscription paper bore the signatures of several charitable people. The applicant bore unmistakeable marks of poverty and wretchedness. She was advanced in life and her days of activity had long since passed away. Her history was tliat she had been seventeen weeks incarcerated inDunedin prison for a debt of L2O. Her husband had absconded, and satisfaction was taken out of the weaker vessel. A married woman, who is said to be nobody in the eyes of the law, ' had been lodged and kept in durance vile for upwards of four months for a paltry debt of her husband's. If she had stolen the money in her misery, she would not probably have received a severer sentence for a first offence than thirty days' imprisonment. A law which allows a married female to be so treated is a disgrace to the Statute Book, and requires immediate alteration.—l am, &c, A COUSTBTMAN.