obferve the mistress of the family whispering to her fervants, I find orders given to put off business till to-morrow, I fee the watches frequently inspected, and yet cannot withdraw to the vacuity of folitude, or venture myself in my own company.

Thus burthenfome to myself and others, I form many schemes of employment which may make my life useful or agreeable, and exempt me from the ignominy of living by fufferance. This new course I have long defigned, but have not yet begun. The prefent moment is never proper for the change, but there is always a time in view when all obftacles will be removed, and I shall furprize all that know me with a new diftribution of my time. Twenty years have past since I have refolved a complete amendment, and twenty years have been loft in delays. Age is coming upon me; and I fhould look back with rage and despair upon the waste of life, but that I am now beginning in earnest to begin a reformation.

I am, SIR,

Your humble fervant,

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DICK LINGER.

NUMB. 22. SATURDAY, September 16, 1758:

SÍR,

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To the IDLER.

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SI was paffing lately under one of the this city, I was ftruck with horror by a rueful ery, which summoned me to remember the poor debtors.

The wisdom and juftice of the English laws are, by Englishmen at least, loudly celebrated; but fcarcely the moft zealous admirers of our inftitutions can think that law wife, which, when men are capable of work, obliges them to beg; or juft, which expofes the liberty of one to the paffions of another.

The profperity of a people is proportionate to the number of hands and minds ufefully employed. To the community, fedition is a fever, corruption is a gangrene, and idleness an atrophy. Whatever body, and whatever fociety, waftes more than it acquires, muft gradually decay; and every being that continues to be fed, and ceafes to labour, takes away fomething from the publick stock.

The confinement, therefore, of any man in the floth and darkness of a prifon, is a lofs to the nation, and no gain to the creditor. For of the multitudes who are pining in thofe cells of misery, a very small part is fufpected of any fraudulent act by which they retain what belongs to others. The reft are imprifoned by the wantonnefs of pride, the malignity of revenge, or the acrimony of difappointed expecta

tion.

If those, who thus rigorously exercise the power which the law has put into their hands, be asked, why they continue to imprison those whom they know to be unable to pay them; one will answer, that his debtor once lived better than himself; an-. other, that his wife looked above her neighbours, and his children went in filk clothes to the dancingschool; and another, that he pretended to be a joker and a wit. Some will reply, that if they were in debt, they should meet with the fame treatment; fome, that they owe no more than they can pay, and need therefore give no account of their actions. Some will confefs their resolution, that their debtors fhall rot in jail; and fome will discover, that they hope, by cruelty, to wring the payment from their friends.

The end of all civil regulations is to fecure private happiness from private malignity; to keep individuals from the power of one another; but this end is apparently neglected, when a man, irritated with lofs, is allowed to be the judge of his own caufe, and to affign the punishment of his own pain; when the diftinction between guilt and happiness, between cafualty and defign, is entrusted to eyes blind with interest, to understandings depraved by refentment.

Since poverty is punished among us as a crime, it ought at least to be treated with the fame lenity as other crimes; the offender ought not to languish at the will of him whom he has offended, but to be allowed fome appeal to the justice of his country. There can be no reason why any debtor fhould be imprisoned, but that he may be compelled to payment; and a term fhould therefore be fixed, in which

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which the creditor fhould exhibit his accufation of concealed property. If fuch property can be difcovered, let it be given to the creditor; if the charge is not offered, or cannot be proved, let the prifoner be difmiffed.

Those who made the laws have apparently fupposed, that every deficiency of payment is the crime of the debtor. But the truth is, that the creditor always shares the act, and often more than fhares the guilt of improper truft. It feldom happens that any man imprisons another but for debts which he suffered to be contracted in hope of advantage to himfelf, and for bargains in which he proportioned his profit to his own opinion of the hazard; and there is no reason, why one should punish the other for a contract in which both concurred.

Many of the inhabitants of prisons may justly complain of harder treatment. He that once owes more than he can pay, is often obliged to bribe his creditor to patience, by encreasing his debt. Worfe and worfe commodities, at a higher and higher price, are forced upon him; he is impoverished by compulsive traffick, and at laft overwhelmed, in the common receptacles of mifery, by debts, which, without his own confent, were accumulated on his head. To the relief of this diftrefs, no other objection can be made, but that by an eafy diffolution of debts, fraud will be left without punishment, and imprudence without awe, and that when infolvency fhall be no longer punishable, credit will cease.

The motive to credit, is the hope of advantage. Commerce can never be at a stop, while one man wants what another can fupply; and credit will

never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit. He that trufts one whom he defigns to fue, is criminal by the act of trust; the ceffation of fuch infidious traffick is to be defired, and no reason can be given why a change of the law fhould impair any other.

We fee nation trade with nation, where no payment can be compelled. Mutual convenience produces mutual confidence; and the merchants continue to fatisfy the demands of each other, though they have nothing to dread but the loss of trade.

It is vain to continue an institution, which experience fhews to be ineffectual. We have now imprifoned one generation of debtors after another, but we do not find that their numbers leffen. We have now learned, that rashness and imprudence will not be deterred from taking credit; let us try whether fraud and avarice may be more eafily reftrained from giving it.

I am, SIR, &c.

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