to prove that the Court of Chancery is blameless
in such matters; and that Chancery
prisoners, though incarcerated by that Court in
the first instance, become

"So pleased with ruin and in love with jail,"

that "the great difficulty" always has been
to tear them away from their beloved cells!
This, we believe, was, more than once, the
case in the Bastille of Old France, also.

"When the Fleet Prison was cleared," says
Sir Edward Sugden, in this letter to the Times,
"the great difficulty was to compel the
prisoners to leave the prison. They filled the
offices of cook, hotel-keeper, &c., and it was
absolutely necessary, when their costs had been
paid for them, and their discharges obtained,
to turn them out of the Fleet; and some, after
having been sent comfortably home to their
friends, returned after a time, and, knocking at the
Fleet gates, begged to be re-admitted! One man
who had a large room, which he let out in lodgings,
resorted to many contrivances to remain in prison,
and when at last his discharge was obtained in
spite of his resistance, several detainers for debt
were lodged against him, which upon inquiry
turned out to be fabrications: no such persons as
the attorneys or creditors could be found. He
contrived to remain in the Fleet for a considerable
time longer, and, when ejected by force, was found
to have amassed a considerable sum of money.
Nor is this to be wondered at, considering how
long many of them had been there, and that, in
fact, it had become their home!"

It would seem to be nearly impossible,
according to Sir Edward Sugden's plea, for
any Chancery prisoner to remain long in
prison, except from his own wilfulness. Sir
Edward Sugden, to his honour, framed, in
1830, chapter 36 of 1 William IV. He says
of it:—

"The object of that act was to render it
impossible for any man to be detained in prison for
contempt from poverty or ignorance, and to
enable every man, by paying his debts as far as he
could, to obtain his liberty. For this purpose the
act provides that every person shall, within thirty
days, be brought to the bar of the Court of Chancery
for his contempt, or in default thereof the
gaoler is at once to discharge him out of custody
without payment of the costs of contempt, which
are to be paid by the person who issued the
process. This was an effectual remedy against the
abuse of leaving a poor man to die in a county
gaol. The act then provides, that if a person
being brought before the Court shall make oath in
court that he is unable, by reason of poverty, to
employ a solicitor to put in his answer, the Court
may appoint a solicitor and counsel for him to put
in his answer, and may pay the costs out of the
suitors' fund. This, therefore, fully provided for
the poor man. The act then provides for a visitation
by one of the Masters of the Court of Chancery
of the Fleet every three months, who is to
examine the prisoners for contempt and report on
their respective cases to the Court, and the Court
itself is authorised to direct the costs of the
contempt of every such prisoner to be paid out of the
suitors' fund, and to assign a solicitor and counsel
to such prisoner for putting in his answer and
defending him in formá pauperis, and to direct any
such prisoner, having previously done such acts as
the Court shall direct, to be discharged out of
custody."

This thorough purgation of Chancery
prisoners, provides for the expulsion of those,
even, who are afflicted with a morbid love of
confinement:—

"The act goes still further; for in any other
case of commitment for contempt not specially
provided for, the Court may discharge the prisoner
upon such terms, and making any costs, costs in the
cause, as the Court may deem proper. And, which
is not the least valuable part of the act, when any
contempt prisoner shall be entitled to his
discharge upon applying to the Court, but shall omit
to make such application, the Court may
compulsorily discharge him from the contempt and
from custody."

Nothing can be plainer, more humane, or
more summary. "There is no class of
prisoners," says Sir Edward Sugden, farther on,
"of whose liberty the law is so tender." His
Ejectment Act reaches the prisoner, whether
he be poor, or ignorant of his offence, or in
love with imprisonment.

If Sir Edward Sugden's facts had supported
his arguments, he would have made out a case
against us; but, they do not. In October
last, he visited the Queen's Bench Prison.
"I found," he narrates, "twenty-four prisoners
for contempt!" The dates of most of the
committals, he adds, range from 1827 to 1841,
and a few from that year to last October.
The fact of twenty-four persons being still in
prison for contempt, in spite of Sir Edward
Sugden's excellent Act, confutes him; and
makes in direct contradiction to his assertion,
that "the Court of Chancery appears to be
free from all blame, as regards the legislative
provisions of the poor, unwary, and ignorant,
and even as regards the obstinate and
dishonest debtor."

The vice of Sir Edward Sugden's plea for
the Immaculate, is simply this:—he
confounds the law with its administrator. He
borrows the lustre of his own statute to blind
us to the mal-administration of it in the Court
of Chancery. The truth is, that Sir Edward
Sugden's Act is nearly inoperative in the
present condition of that "hell" (Lord
Brougham); of that "scourge to the country"
(the Vice-Chancellor Knight Bruce); of that
arena of torture "in which the unhappy
suitor is tossed from judge to master, and from
master to judge, often terminating the game
by despair, insolvency, and death" (Mr.
Commissioner Fane); that system which "not
merely operates to delay justice, but gives
rise to fraud and oppression" (Lord Langdale);
by whose decrees "estates are
destroyed, according to law" (Vice-Chancellor
Shadwell).

Were the High Court of Chancery the
purest and promptest fount of justice, on this