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Leader (1850-1860), 25th January 1851, Edition Country of 2, Page 19

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      Jan. 25, 1851.] Wft$ 3l*Afcet* 91 ¦ _ ' ...

      Jan . 25 , 1851 . ] Wft $ 3 L * afcet * 91 ¦ _ ' : f

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      Pc01905

      P Rin This Department, As All Opinions, ...

      p riN THIS DEPARTMENT , AS ALL OPINIONS , HOWEVER EXTREME , ARE ALLOWED AK EXPRESSION , THE EDITOR NECESSARILY HOLDS HIMSELF RESPONSIBLE FOR NONE . ]

      There Is No Learned Man But Will Confess...

      There is no learned man but will confess he hath much profited by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment jharpened . If , then , it be profitable for > , im to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write . —Milton .

      An Answee. To Sib Edward Sugden. Queen's...

      AN ANSWEE . TO SIB EDWARD SUGDEN . Queen ' s Bench Prison , Jan . 14 , 1851 . Sir , —Byyoui letter , which appeared in the Times of the 7 th instam , in which you say " it is high time that the public should be informed of the true state of the case as regards prisoners for the contempt of the Court of Chancery , " you assail those prisoners generally , and me in particular . The passage affecting me is as fellows : — " The remaining prisoner of this class has long been in prison for non-payment of about £ 40 costs , from which he could obtain his discharge under tie Insolvent Act ; but he is so frequently before the court and the public as to render

      it unnecessary farther to refer to his case . " That the Insolvent Court is appointed for discharge from imprisonment for debt we know ; but we know , also , that there are other courts for discharging from false imprisonment . That I am falsely imprisoned you advise me by your letter itself , if I did not know it before , for you declare that every prisoner for contempt must be brought to the bar in thirty days , and I have never been brought to the bar of the Court of Chancery at all . You know this fact , for you say that when you visited the prison in October , you " took a note of every man ' s name , and date , and cause of commitment , " & c . Now , you saw that every commitment was by the Court of Exchequer , and for a different cause , and that that cause was

      discharged by an order in June , 1845 , and , therefore , that I have been falsely imprisoned from that time to the time of your inspection , under colour of a writ of attachment for the £ 40 , which had been previously directed to the warden of the Fleet , and which ought , according to law and to your own opinion now given , to have been returned at latest by the last general return-day in Michaelmas Term , 1840 , and that from that time it has been of no legal effect , and that the keeper of this prison , if he had as he ought to have done , put me by force ( unwilling man as you say I am to depart ) out of the prison on the receipt of the discharge from the commitment , the party who cluims the £ 40 could not have brought an action against him for an escape .

      This being " the true state of the case as regards " me , I may , without the least exaggeration , complain of contempt of all the superior courts committed by yourself in this instance : I may do this on the authority of the great oracle of your court , Lord Ifardwicke , who reduced the several sorts of contempts to three ; the first of which is the libelling , disparugm g > or prejudicing suitors in respect of causes pending in courts . The Chancery Reform Association full far ahort of the " true state of the case" as regards the victims , for they do not appear to know that nearly all the county gaols contain them , many of whom have been

      there for mnny years—one of them about two years , —for not giving up books and papers ; the reason for not giving up which is , that they are held by his solicitor as lien for the costs of putting in the answer prepared from those books and papers . Now , if this man were brought to tlvo bur , do you say that the court would commit him ? No , you » ay , the court orders no one to do what is impossible . But I can toll you of another case in which they did make an order , and held the man in prison in Winchester gaol more than twelve mouths , and would have held

      him till now , if I had not prevented it , without its being known whether he could perform the order or not : the order wan Unit , within u certain number of days from service thereof , he should lodge in a certain bunk u certain box containing / K ) 0 sovereigns . Before the order wiih nerved ( and 1 think it was made ex pattc , or it would have been a very foolish order ) the sovereigns were spent ; yet the man was taken on attachment for breach of the order . If lie hnd been brought up , he could not have been committed . AU thut while ho lay ut Winchester , not uble to put

      any solicitor on the move , until I heard of him , which I did by another person who was brought up , but brought up too late , and who , for that cause , was very expeditiously discharged , on the motion of Mr . Teed , and instructions prepared by me , under your act . If , as you say , "the courts of equity had no power to release prisoners for contempts without the plaintiff ' s consent , and contempts for mere non-payment of money , or of costs , could not be cleared under the Insolvent Court , " until your act was passed , could a humane mind suggest

      no other cause or blame but that of the prisoners themselves for such a monstrous state of things ? However , it appears that the mind of a great thorough-paced lawyer cannot ; for all you seem to have lamented was , that the persons so kept incarcerated at the bidding , " as you call it , of the suitors , should have so adapted and contented themselves as to find a " home" in the Fleet ; and your sentiments , and those of Sir George Stephen , who comes in to back you with a letter in the Times of the 10 th , seem most of all outraged that they should have found something to eat !

      I deny your position in toto , that " the court only acts on the bidding of the suitor" in these cases , that is to say , in contempts of non-feazance , and which are only supposed contempts . In these cases the theory is , that the court lends its process , which it possesses of inherent jurisdiction to use in cases of real contempt or real feazance , such as abusing its officers or suitors , or prejudicing suits . Real contempts are criminal matters , and indictable ; supposed contempts are supposed criminal matters , and within the meaning of the Habeas Corpus Act . And the only possible principle on which these criminal processes were ever granted merely to enforce orders for private benefit was , that the court had no other process to

      use . Well , then , why is not some other process given ? Why , it is given , and ample means too : and now let me put this question : —Why ia not the same power and means which appear so amply set forth in the 13 th section of your act , in cases of " persons having privilege of Parliament , " applied to all other persons ? Why is it not sufficient to take the bill pro-confesso in any other case , as in that of privileged persons , and why cannot it be taken proconfesso in the same manner ? The truth is , that there is no law for imprisonment at all , except in criminal cases , in which it reaches all persons ; and that it is not one class that is privileged , but the people at large who are filched of their rights .

      But I go further , and convict you of being the sole inventor , cause , and author of some imprisonments which have taken place ; and this , too , where you were the Chancellor , and , therefore , the court itself . When you were Chancellor in Ireland , in the spring of 1835 , you either knew , or you did not know , that there was no such thing as imprisoning for contempt in not answering where the object was to take the bill pro-confesso ; and that , if a solicitor imprisoned a defendant when that was the object , he would bo fined . Now , nevertheless , and notwithstanding your assertions in your letter about the prisoners being " martyrs

      of their fellow-men , as soon as you returned , on Peel ' s going out of office , you being out of employment as a judge , set to amuse yourself again as legislator , and produced a counterpart of your English act for that happy country of which you had lately had the jurisdiction . This English act distinguishes between the Chancery and the Equity Exchequer , not extending to the latter a rule dispensing with writs of rebellion , the reason for which wae , that the Exchequer having no Sergeant-at-Arms as the Chancery had , could not , in the manner provided by that rule , dispense with such writs . When the Irish act came into operation , which was just at the time of the general refusal to pay tithes in Ireland in 18 H 7 , the usual power of taking bills pro-confesso was found to be insufficient in tithe-suits , because ,

      when the decree was obtained , it could not be executed readily . Some sharp-sighted wight of the law espied this negative recognition of writs of robellion to take bills pro-confesso ; and I recollect the exultations of the Times and other papers , that " the law was triumphant , " and that it had been found out that refusing to pay tithes wua rebellion , punishable by the Court of Exchequer ! On taking the first bill pro-confesso in one of those suits against a prisoner under your act , Chief Baron 1 ' ennelather said , " the practice was entirely new , " and that " those who hud framed the act did not appear to have been uwuro of the previous practice . " Therefore , however you lire umbraged by the idea of persons being imprisoned by mistake , you see it is the fact , and that , too , by aet of Parliament , imd with you for tli , e legislator .

      I feel there is not space , or I had wished to exemplify that favourite court of all lawyers , the Insolvent Court ; and , in fact , I sent iin anecdote of it to the Times immediatt ly on reading your letter , but which that journal instinctively eschewed ; and it is from that journal to the leader , and the rent of the impartial press in town and country , that I appeal for the insertion of this as u faint sketch of " the true state of the cuBO . " I am , Sir , yours , & o . WlIilUAM COIIUJBTT .

      Bishops And Their Power. January 7,1851....

      BISHOPS AND THEIR POWER . January 7 , 1851 . Sir , — The truly Catholic and unsectarian tone which pervades your columns is really quite cheering , in these days of bigotry and exclusiveness , doomed , as we now are , to listen to the war cries of intolerance and the din of battling sectaries . The position you have assumed , in reference to the anti-Popish crusade , I conceive to be the only one justified by the dictates of charity and the teachings of reason and common sense . There is , alas I far too much real Popery at work in our so-called Protestant Christendom to justify censoriousness on the part of the clergy , the laity , or those Dissenters who have seen fit to sustain them in the strife .

      To confine my remarks to a single point— -I would ask , is not the aristocratic power at present wielded by our Bishops as essentially Popish , as it is truly subversive of the rights of individuals , and the moral influence of the Church ? As in the social world we behold the rich becoming richer , and the poor growing poorer , so in the episcopal world we find the mitred few becoming more absolute , and the clerical many more helpless , year after year . Wider and deeper grows the gulf which yearns between the rulers and the workers in the Church . The moral

      influence which superior talents , or a well-sustained consistency must ever exercise , is now superseded by a more cold , arbitrary authority , —the promptings of self-will are allowed to lord it over justice ; in fact , the Church , which should be the embodiment of the spiritual , has degenerated into a mere copyist and slave of the worldly , or conventional power . Instances , too numerous to be quoted , might be adduced of the injurious consequences of the toleration of these abuses—instances of wrong without redress—of curates hunted down by their ecclesiastical superiors—condemned without trial—doomed to misery and disgrace without means or opportunity of defence — and all , apparently , on the absurd and monstrous suppositions that Bishops , like despot kings , " can do no wrong . "

      I find such an instance recorded in a pamphlet now before me , entitled , Charles James , Lord Bishop of London ! What he Can do , and what he Has done ! to which allow me to direct your serious attention . The case to which it more immediately relates , is just one of those which serve to show the real character of the system whose workings they illustrate . It presents to us the strange picture of a clergyman battling for year 3 against the malice and inexorable self-will of a bishop , and in vain seeking , as one accused , to be confronted with his accusers , and made acquainted with their accusations . Untried ,

      unbeard ,. the Reverend Thomas Harvey was condemned by the mitred Eord of London to misery , to fearful loss ; deprived of his income , his clerical position as foreign chaplain , and hence , of his peace of mind . Over eighteen years has this persecution extended , and yet now , even now , it remains unatoned for by the dignitary . The clergyman is , it appears , crippled in his resources , and wellnigh broken in spirit ; and yet , still the bishop remains inexorable ; and , sheltered by the law , defies each effort of his victim to obtain the reparation which justice and charity alike demand for the wrongs of years .

      Now , if such things as these still find toleration within the pale of the Church of England , can we feel any just surprise at her gradually losing her hold on the affections of the people , and ceasing to retain the honour even of her priests ? Does it not behove all who would behold the rise of a really nationul and influential Church to resist these abuses , and thus avert the ruin which they must necessarily precipitate ?

      May I , therefore , solicit your influence on behalf of this case , which though , indeed , the case of an individual , is likewise the type of a system . I have studied it deeply in all its aspects , and am assured of its demanding the support and sympathy of the press , and affording an illustration of the workings of that very power which is year by year weakening the influence and hastening on the downfal of tho Chnreli .

      Wishing you all success in your noble endeavour to establish a paper at once with the age and of the age , I remain , dear riir , sincerely yours , A 1 ' ki . i . ow Worickk .

      Toe Rorula/Rion Question. Due .1(),|18f)...

      toe roruLA / riON question . Due . 1 () , | 18 f ) 0 . Sut , —Mr . Search , in his remarks on my statement respecting population and production , appears to me to have adopted u tone of llippancy totally unsuited to the subject , and quite uncalled for by the passage quoted . Mr . Search should have confined himself to my statement , and not have introduced topics to which I niudo no reference . 1 neither mentioned MalthuH ' n name nor any of his statements or arguments , nor < lo I feel bound to defend his view of the question . What Mr . Search calls " Maltlms ' s philosophy "—though it is no more his than any other " law of nature "—viz ., that there is a tendency in population to exceed production , is considered ho well proved , and ho generally admitted by Dr . ChulmorH uud Mr . Mill , thut they adopt tho doctrino

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 25, 1851, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25011851/page/19/