A Letter to John Wilkes, Esq; Sheriff of London and Middlesex by Holloway Robert active 1771-1808

Author:Holloway, Robert, active 1771-1808 [Holloway, Robert, active 1771-1808]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Classics, Reference, General
Google: TRXDDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Good Press
Published: 2019-11-26T03:18:13+00:00

Notwithstanding our laws abound with these and many more excellent provisions in behalf of the subjects at large, by prescribing limits to the power, and inforcing the duty, of attornies, we daily feel their inefficiency to protect our liberty and property, a proof that human foresight is unequal to the task of guarding against the invention and chicanery of necessitous villany.

However, as the evils arise not so much from the Defect of our laws as from a Breach of them, there is a firm bottom to proceed on, and from your insatiable hatred to oppression, we may hope to see some wholesome regulations in the sheriffs department. The judicious choice of Mr. Reynolds, as under-sheriff, will greatly facilitate a remedy to these growing complaints; from whom, as a man and friend to the community, we have every thing to hope—as an able lawyer, nothing to doubt.

Lock-up-houses, EMPHATICALLY called spunging-houses, were originally instituted for the mutual benefit and advantage of debtor and creditor, as a kind of interlocutory residence or respite from a prison, which gave to the former a lotted time to procure sureties for his appearance, raise money or friends to pay the debt, or otherwise settle the matter; with like opportunity to the latter to consider of and consult his own interest. Thus far it became a humane and equitable institution; but, O Tempora! O Mores! how subverted are the lock-up-houses of this day: the instant a debtor enters one of these confines, a temporary hell presents itself. He is hemmed in and surrounded by a set of wretches, whose daily bread depends on the misfortunes of others; on the one side he hears pettyfoggers reading lectures on the Theory of vice, on the other, bailiffs urging the necessity of its Practice; before him are raigned the unhappy pupils, industriously improving on their infernal precepts, and rendering fraud, perjury, rapine, and every degree of robbery, as mechanical as shoe-making; behind stands a female Anodyne, bloated with all the infections purged from her sex, her heart ulcerated with vice, and her face with brandy, railing at the cruelty of creditors, and piously banding off comfort to his misfortunes, by holding out advice pernicious as Eve’s apple, a taste of which would entail misery on his whole posterity.

A spunging-house, in its present state, is as destructive to the principles of a man, as a brothel to the chastity of a woman; both enter with an equal degree of timidity and terror, and are seduced by similar stages of viciousness. The former, who held it a dishonour to delay payment of his bill with punctuality, will, after a month’s residence in a spunging-house, from hellish tenets and execrable examples, think it meritorious to cheat every creditor he has. The latter, who held the least obscenity offensive to her ear, will, from a like mode of seduction, and abominable examples, not only endure the sound, but court the substance. Most certain it is, that the seeds of vice are alike plentifully sown in these diabolical seminaries, and the hand of authority only can prevent its increase.

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