kpocket
would get a certain sentence and then go free. The poor debtor,
however, was compelled to languish in jail at the will of his creditor.

The report of the Prison Discipline Society for 1829 estimated that
fully 75,000 persons were annually imprisoned for debt in the United
States and that more than one-half of these owed less than twenty
dollars.[51] And such were the appalling conditions of these debtors'
prisons that there was no distinction of sex, age or character; all of
the unfortunates were indiscriminately herded together. Sometimes, even
in the inclement climate of the North, the jails were so poorly
constructed, that there was insufficient shelter from the elements. In
the newspapers of the period advertisements may be read in which
charitable societies or individuals appeal for food, fuel and clothing
for the inmates of these prisons. The thief and the murderer had a much
more comfortable time of it in prison than the poor debtor.

LAW KIND TO THE TRADERS.

With the law-making mercantile class the situation was very different.
The state and national bankruptcy acts, as apply to merchants, bankers,
storekeepers--the whole commercial class--were so loosely drafted and so
laxly enforced and judicially interpreted, that it was not hard to
defraud creditors and escape with the proceeds. A propertied bankrupt
could conceal his assets and hire adroit lawyers to get him off
scot-free on quibbling technicalities--a condition which has survived
to the present time, though in a lesser degree.[52]

But imprisonment for debt was not the only fate that befell the
propertyless. According to the "Annual Report of the Managers of the
Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in New York City," there were
12,000 paupers in New York City in 1820.[53] Many of these were
destitute Irish who, after having been plundered and dispossessed by the
absentee landlords and the capitalists of their own country, were
induced to pay their last farthing to the shippers for passage to
America. There were laws providing that ship masters must report to the
Mayors of cities and give a bond that the destitutes that they brought
over should not become public charges. These laws were systematically
and successfully evaded; poor immigrants were dumped unceremoniously at
obscure places along the coast from whence they had to make their way,
carrying their baggage and beds, to the cities the best that they could.
Cadwallader D. Colden, ma