Study Edition · Essay 30
Debtors' Prisons (1)
Source: The Idler, No. 22, Saturday 16 September 1758 (the revised paper printed in the collected Idler). Text from The Works of Samuel Johnson (Oxford, 1825), vol. 4, Project Gutenberg #12050. Archaic verb forms modernized; vocabulary kept and glossed.
In 18th-century England a creditor could have a debtor locked up indefinitely, until the debt was paid, which for a man in prison was often never. Johnson, who was himself arrested for debt in 1756, attacks the system in the form of a letter to the Idler. His arguments are economic as well as moral: prison wastes useful workers, lets angry creditors act as judges in their own cause, and punishes poverty as if it were a crime.
33 sentences: 7 simple, 17 moderate, 9 complex. Hover a number for its paraphrase; click it for the full note.
Key Vocabulary
- ruefulsad; expressing regret
- zealousvery enthusiastic; passionate
- seditionspeech or action encouraging rebellion
- gangrenethe decay of body tissue
- atrophya wasting away from lack of use
- slothlaziness
- creditora person to whom money is owed
- wantonnesscruelty without reason; recklessness
- malignitydeep ill will; spite
- acrimonybitterness
- casualtychance; accident (old sense)
- depravedcorrupted; morally bad
- lenitymildness; mercy
- languishto suffer and grow weak, especially for a long time
- concurto agree; to act together
- compulsiveforced; compelled (old sense)
- insolvencybeing unable to pay one's debts
- insidiousharmful in a sly, gradual way
- avaricegreed for money
The Essay
O nomen dulce libertatis! O jus eximium nostrae civitatis! (Cicero)1
To the Idler
Sir,2
As I was passing lately under one of the gates of this city, I was struck with horror by a rueful cry, which summoned me to remember the poor debtors.3
The wisdom and justice of the English laws are, by Englishmen at least, loudly celebrated: but scarcely the most zealous admirers of our institutions can think that law wise, which, when men are capable of work, obliges them to beg; or just, which exposes the liberty of one to the passions of another.4
The prosperity of a people is proportionate to the number of hands and minds usefully employed.5 To the community, sedition is a fever, corruption is a gangrene, and idleness an atrophy.6 Whatever body, and whatever society, wastes more than it acquires, must gradually decay; and every being that continues to be fed, and ceases to labour, takes away something from the public stock.7
The confinement, therefore, of any man in the sloth and darkness of a prison, is a loss to the nation, and no gain to the creditor.8 For of the multitudes who are pining in those cells of misery, a very small part is suspected of any fraudulent act by which they retain what belongs to others.9 The rest are imprisoned by the wantonness of pride, the malignity of revenge, or the acrimony of disappointed expectation.10
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; another, that his wife looked above her neighbours, and his children went in silk clothes to the dancing-school; and another, that he pretended to be a joker and a wit.11 Some will reply, that if they were in debt, they should meet with the same treatment; some, that they owe no more than they can pay, and need therefore give no account of their actions.12 Some will confess their resolution, that their debtors shall rot in jail; and some will discover, that they hope, by cruelty, to wring the payment from their friends.13
The end of all civil regulations is to secure 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 loss, is allowed to be the judge of his own cause, and to assign the punishment of his own pain; when the distinction between guilt and unhappiness, between casualty and design, is intrusted to eyes blind with interest, to understandings depraved by resentment.14
Since poverty is punished among us as a crime, it ought at least to be treated with the same lenity as other crimes; the offender ought not to languish at the will of him whom he has offended, but to be allowed some appeal to the justice of his country.15 There can be no reason why any debtor should be imprisoned, but that he may be compelled to payment; and a term should therefore be fixed, in which the creditor should exhibit his accusation of concealed property.16 If such property can be discovered, let it be given to the creditor; if the charge is not offered, or cannot be proved, let the prisoner be dismissed.17
Those who made the laws have apparently supposed, that every deficiency of payment is the crime of the debtor.18 But the truth is, that the creditor always shares the act, and often more than shares the guilt, of improper trust.19 It seldom happens that any man imprisons another but for debts which he suffered to be contracted in hope of advantage to himself, 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.20
Many of the inhabitants of prisons may justly complain of harder treatment.21 He that once owes more than he can pay, is often obliged to bribe his creditor to patience, by increasing his debt.22 Worse and worse commodities, at a higher and higher price, are forced upon him; he is impoverished by compulsive traffic, and at last overwhelmed, in the common receptacles of misery, by debts, which, without his own consent, were accumulated on his head.23 To the relief of this distress, no other objection can be made, but that by an easy dissolution of debts fraud will be left without punishment, and imprudence without awe; and that when insolvency should be no longer punishable, credit will cease.24
The motive to credit is the hope of advantage.25 Commerce can never be at a stop, while one man wants what another can supply; and credit will never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit.26 He that trusts one whom he designs to sue, is criminal by the act of trust: the cessation of such insidious traffic is to be desired, and no reason can be given why a change of the law should impair any other.27
We see nation trade with nation, where no payment can be compelled.28 Mutual convenience produces mutual confidence; and the merchants continue to satisfy the demands of each other, though they have nothing to dread but the loss of trade.29
It is vain to continue an institution, which experience shows to be ineffectual.30 We have now imprisoned one generation of debtors after another, but we do not find that their numbers lessen.31 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 easily restrained from giving it.32
I am, Sir, &c.33
Sentence Notes
In plain English: “O sweet name of liberty! O excellent right of our citizenship!”
Reference & context: Cicero, Against Verres II.5.163. Cicero cries out as he describes a Roman citizen being flogged illegally. Johnson suggests that English debtors are denied a citizen's basic freedom in the same way.
In plain English: Dear Sir,
Reference & context: Johnson often wrote Idler papers in the form of letters from imaginary correspondents.
In plain English: As I walked under one of London's gates recently, I was horrified by a pitiful cry calling on me to remember the poor debtors.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Johnson opens with a real street sound of 18th-century London.
Reference & context: Two of London's old city gates, Ludgate and Newgate, housed prisons. Debtors begged from grilled windows overlooking the street, calling “Remember the poor debtors!”
In plain English: Englishmen, at any rate, loudly praise the wisdom and justice of English law. But even the keenest admirer of our system can hardly call a law wise when it forces men who could work to beg instead, or just when it puts one man's freedom at the mercy of another man's feelings.
Reference & context: Note the irony of “by Englishmen at least”: foreigners may be less impressed.
In plain English: A nation's wealth depends on how many of its people are usefully at work.
In plain English: For a society, rebellion is like a fever, corruption like gangrene, and idleness like a wasting disease.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A classic image of society as a body, with three diseases neatly matched to three social evils.
In plain English: Any body or society that uses up more than it gains must slowly decline; and everyone who keeps eating but stops working takes something away from the nation's wealth.
In plain English: So locking a man up in the idleness and darkness of a prison is a loss to the country and no gain to the person he owes.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The essay's economic argument in a nutshell: debtors' prison helps nobody.
In plain English: Of the crowds wasting away in those miserable cells, very few are suspected of fraudulently hiding money that belongs to others.
In plain English: The rest are in prison because of their creditors' arrogance, desire for revenge, or bitterness at not being paid.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A balanced triplet that pins the blame on creditors' emotions, not on the debtors.
In plain English: Ask the people who use their legal power so harshly why they keep in prison men they know can't pay. One will say his debtor used to live better than he did; another, that the debtor's wife looked down on her neighbours and his children went to dancing school in silk; another, that he claimed to be a joker and a wit.
Reference & context: Johnson exposes the petty envy behind many prosecutions.
In plain English: Some will say that they'd get the same treatment if they were in debt; others, that since they owe nothing they can't pay, they don't have to justify themselves.
In plain English: Some will admit they are determined to let their debtors rot in jail; and some will reveal that they hope to force the money out of the debtors' friends by being cruel.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: “Rot in jail” is the plain language of revenge, quoted as the creditors themselves would say it.
In plain English: The purpose of all laws is to protect private happiness from private ill will, and to stop individuals from having power over each other. That purpose is clearly forgotten when a man angry at his loss is allowed to judge his own case and choose the punishment for his own injury; when telling guilt from bad luck, or accident from intent, is left to eyes blinded by self-interest and minds twisted by resentment.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A definition of the purpose of law that is still quoted today.
Reference & context: A basic principle of justice, in Latin nemo iudex in causa sua: no one should be the judge in his own case. The printed text reads “guilt and happiness,” almost certainly a misprint for “unhappiness” (that is, misfortune), and is corrected here.
In plain English: Since we punish poverty as if it were a crime, we should at least treat it as mildly as other crimes. The ‘offender’ shouldn't suffer indefinitely at the whim of the person he has offended, but should be able to appeal to the country's courts.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A bitter irony: real criminals have more legal rights than the poor.
In plain English: The only possible reason to imprison a debtor is to make him pay. So there should be a time limit within which the creditor must produce his charge that the debtor is hiding property.
In plain English: If hidden property is found, give it to the creditor; if no charge is made, or it can't be proved, let the prisoner go.
In plain English: The lawmakers seem to have assumed that every failure to pay is the debtor's fault.
In plain English: But in truth, the lender always shares in the decision to lend unwisely, and often carries more than half the blame.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A strikingly modern point about irresponsible lending.
In plain English: A man rarely imprisons another except for debts he allowed to build up because he hoped to profit, and for deals where he set his own profit according to how risky he thought they were. There's no reason one party should punish the other for an agreement they both entered into.
In plain English: Many prisoners can fairly complain of even worse treatment.
In plain English: Someone who owes more than he can pay often has to buy his creditor's patience by borrowing even more.
In plain English: He is pushed into buying worse and worse goods at higher and higher prices. Forced trading makes him poorer, and in the end he is crushed, in the public dumping grounds of misery, by debts that piled up on him without his agreement.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The repeated comparatives show the debt spiral speeding up.
Reference & context: Desperate debtors were often made to take poor-quality goods on credit at inflated prices as a condition of more time to pay.
In plain English: The only objection to relieving this suffering is that if debts could be easily cancelled, fraud would go unpunished and carelessness would have nothing to fear; and that if bankruptcy were no longer punished, nobody would lend any more.
In plain English: People lend because they hope to gain.
In plain English: Trade will never stop as long as one person needs what another can provide; and lending will never stop as long as loans are likely to be repaid at a profit.
In plain English: Anyone who lends to a man he already plans to sue is the real wrongdoer for lending. We should want such underhand dealing to end, and there's no reason a change in the law would harm any honest trade.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Johnson turns the accusation around: the predatory lender is the criminal.
In plain English: We see countries trading with each other even though no one can force a foreign buyer to pay.
In plain English: Mutual benefit creates mutual trust, and merchants keep meeting each other's demands even though the only penalty for failing is losing business.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A neat chiasmus-like pairing: convenience breeds confidence.
In plain English: There's no point keeping a system that experience shows doesn't work.
In plain English: We have locked up one generation of debtors after another, but their numbers aren't going down.
In plain English: We have learned that prison doesn't stop reckless people from borrowing. Let's see whether it is easier to stop greedy and dishonest people from lending.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A crisp, reversing ending: change the target of the law from the borrower to the lender.
In plain English: Yours, etc.
Fun Fact
Johnson knew the danger firsthand. In March 1756 he was arrested for a debt of £5 18s and had to send a note to the novelist Samuel Richardson begging for help; Richardson sent six guineas. Imprisonment for debt was not abolished in England until the Debtors Act of 1869, more than a century later. Charles Dickens's father was locked up in the Marshalsea debtors' prison in 1824, when Charles was twelve.