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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 178, 25 July 1878, Page 2

To the Editor of the 'Evexixg Mail.' Sir,— Dickens wrote against imprisonment for debt, and by exposing the glaring cruelties of the law then in existence caused it to be abolished. But, alas, Dickens has passed away, and an evil almost as glaring and quite as cruel still exists. A case goes into Court and it is. decided that a man, occupying a respectable position, a married mau witb a wife aud family, is to devote five shillings a week out of an uncertain thirty-five to paying off a debt. The case seems to be all the more cruel, as all the creditors, save one seemed willing to wait. Failing to pay he is to go to prison, and from that moment the blight of disgrace falls on him, be may hold his head erect after he comes out again, he may be to all outward appearances the same man, but the disgrace is there just the same the worm is at his heart, and in nine cases out of ten that step is the first one on a downward course, and who can tell where it will end Will this disgrace, this humbling of a man before bis fellows, pay his debt? Will it make the creditor one whit better or happier? I don't intend for one moment to justify the man for getting into debt; he was wrong, very wrong, but his fault was venial, and who can say but that his punishment exceeds the offence. Not long ago a Magistrate ih the old country refused to send a thief to prison for stealing from a pocket in the back of a lady's jacket on the ground that the temptutiou offered was too strong to be resisted. Might we not look nearer home and find cases somewhat similar? Is not every temptation placed iv the way of a man to go beyond his means, and if he be not one of those who have such control over themselves as to say no (and let me tell you they are by no means scarce) and when he is down the hardest and most inflexible of his creditors are those who placed the very temptations before him, and in a way invited him to help himself. I know that I am arguing a losing cause, but it is one of common humanity. What are his family to do while he is in jail; what will be do afterwards? These are" questions which though they may be answered in this mauner here will "have to be answered in a very different manner hereafter. Surely it is a disgrace to a Christian community like this, boasting as we do to be representatives of a free and enlightened country, that this thing be allowed to proceed on its cruel way unchecked. Surely " man's inhumanity to man " will find that it cropped up in the wrong place when it found its way to Nelson. Apologising for trespassing I am, &c, Shylocjc.