The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England, from the Earliest Times Till the Reign of King George IV Volume N . 6 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 Excerpt: ...squalor carceris ") were by many considered as the necessary attributes; and even men of respectable judgment have supposed, in the case of debtors, that the filth of the prison was a proper means of compelling them to do justice to their creditors. This prejudice (for it is not entitled to be called reasoning) is no less inhuman than senseless, for it supposes all debtors able, but unwilling, to pay; it afflicts those most who deserve it least--the men of sensibility; and it forgets that habit, with most men, deadens the disgust they feel from the loathsomeness of their situation. What, then, is the remedy to be found for this evil? Work " He likewise recommends seclusion, adding, "Seclusion does not mean absolute and profound solitude, which ought to be reserved for very serious cases, and applied with due discretion: it means that during the night there should be an entire separation, and in the day, that the intervals of communication should be short and interrupted, and under the eye of the keeper, and that all the continued hours of work should be solitary. There is nothing in this state which an enfeebled mind cannot endure, but there is enough in it to produce a sober temper in any mind capable of being reclaimed. If this system of labour and seclusion could be established fully, it would have more permanent effect to reform the offender and to deter others, than transitory public examples; and we might hope speedily to CHAP, erase from the law a number of capital sentences, which a CI'XXVJudge is obliged to pronounce, when the greater part of the audience knows they are not meant to be put in execution, lessening thereby the impression which such sentences ought to make when the law should be armed with all its terrors." A charg...