bation Act which is now in force. The new rules issued by the Home Secretary, making a considerable extension of the policy of remission laid down in the Prisons Act, do not apply to the debtor, nor is he entitled during his confinement to a proportional reduction in the term of his imprisonment on payment of part of the amount for which he is committed, as in the case of a fine.

The gross misrepresentation that the imprisonment of debtors is for contempt of court and not for the debt has been repeated ad nauseam, distinguished Civil Servants and highly placed officers of the Crown having fallen victims to the fallacy. The language of the statute itself does not, however, lend any countenance to the subterfuge. The false description is very hard to kill, and it is an instance of the failure of the truth to overtake a lie which has got twenty-four hours' start of it. As a matter of law, the order of commitment to prison is in the nature of a qualified execution, and not of a punishment for so-called "contempt," and the mere ipse dixit of the Recorder of London and the Attorney-General is not sufficient to confirm the alternative view. A glance at the statute, "An Act for the Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt," which is the cause of all the misunderstanding-many people having read, I apprehend, no further than the title

-shows that it does not profess to abolish imprisonment for debt. There are six exceptions to abolition in the Act, and the order in question is a statutory one, compulsory upon Judge, and part and parcel of the sixth of these exceptions, which relates to the procedure by judgment summons, and is in pursuance thereof. The statute thus clearly contemplates the imprisonment of debtors who have not been guilty of any fraud.

If the committal order were really for contempt of court, the Judge could (and would) make an order to liberate the prisoner on being satisfied at any time that no contempt was intended. But the debtor is, as the Act states, imprisoned for debt, and he can only obtain his release at

the hands of the creditor by payment of the full debt and costs, which being done, the Judge has no power to detain him an hour, however flagrant the contempt may have been. It is true that the judge makes an order which is disobeyed, but the express purpose of that order is to bring about imprisonment, and we have only to repeal the statutory exceptions to the abolition of imprisonment for debt to get rid of the so-called "contempt."

We are told that if the power of committal on a judgment summons is abolished, the credit system of this country will be destroyed. The answer to this seems to be that what is done in Scotland, and practically in Ireland (for, after allowing for the difference in population, at least thirty debtors are imprisoned in England for every one in Ireland), can be done in England also. Large restrictions on imprisonment for debt were introduced in 1844, yet the credit system of England went up all the

same.

Some County Court Judges defend the present system on the ground that without it working men would be driven into the workhouse in times of sickness and slackness of work. I do not believe this. Nor do all of those who put it forward really believe it. And in this the humanitarians are at one with Sir Richard Harington, who, as a late County Court Judge, is not without experience. He says: "I believe that the man who was known to pay when he could would always be trusted in such times, and that the discipline which would compel those who would otherwise be thriftless to pay ready-money would be the best cure for their thriftless tendencies." But if the abolition of imprisonment for debt did injure the working-men's credit in times of strife and distress, would it greatly matter? Is it any advantage to a man to be kept out of the workhouse for a time if he thereby incurs debts which will afterwards lead to imprisonment and other hardships? Compelling a man to pay by means of a committal order hardly ever lessens his liabilities, and usually in

creases them owing to the costs. One committal order generally leads to another.

When will the ratepayers put down the foot and say, "No more imprisonment for debt? We disapprove of it, and we object in the strongest terms to expending our money for the benefit of a creditor, or to gratify his vengeance." The creditors, of course, do not care anything for the public. Their hearts are in their breeches pockets. "I want my money, and the State is bound to get it for me at any cost to the ratepayer," is the substance of their demand. It is the ratepayer who pays for the maintenance of the imprisoned debtor; it is the ratepayer who in many, many cases pays for the maintenance of the man's wife and family while the bread-winner is in prison, even if, as sometimes happens, they resort to theft to obtain the supply of food which has been suddenly cut off. Probably every debtor leaves prison more heavily in debt than when he entered it, and it must be as clear as day that he can do nothing towards supporting those who are dependent upon him while he is confined within the four walls of a criminal prison.

JOSEPH COLLINSON.

ON VIVISECTION

WHEN I was a medical student, between fifty and sixty years ago, the method of research by means of experiments on living creatures, commonly called vivisection, was little known in this country, and was hardly mentioned in our medical schools except with reprobation. But since that time, and particularly during the last thirty years, it has increased to such an extent in almost every country of the civilised world that the interest of the public has been strongly aroused, and the vivisection question continues to be discussed on public platforms and in the Press from every point of view. The ordinary arguments against vivisection are sufficiently obvious to appeal to everyone. The cruelty of this method (only slightly alleviated by the use of anaesthetics), its fallacious and contradictory results, and its demoralising effects upon those who practise or witness it, have been repeatedly demonstrated, in spite of the misleading statements and baseless assertions of the vivisectors and their allies. But in this age there are a great many persons so selfish and cowardly that they would condone any amount of cruelty to animals, or even to human beings, if they were persuaded that they would thereby gain some benefit or gratify some desire. Such persons are usually very credulous, and are easily induced to believe the promises of the vivisectors, no matter how often those promises have proved unreliable and delusive.

The principal argument brought forward by the advocates of vivisection is the assertion that important dis

coveries in medicine and surgery have been made by this method; but this claim will not bear examination. Let us see what value is ascribed to vivisection in the important department of abdominal surgery. The following statement was made by Sir Frederick Treves in his "Address on Some Rudiments of Intestinal Surgery," delivered before the Midland Medical Society at Birmingham, and reported in the British Medical Journal of November 5, 1898: "Many years ago I carried out on the Continent sundry operations upon the intestines of dogs; but such are the differences between the human and canine bowel that when I came to operate upon man I found I was much hampered by my new experience, that I had everything to unlearn, and that my experiments had done little but unfit me to deal with the human intestine."

The following letter to Dr. Berdoe from the late Mr. Lawson Tait gives the opinion of that eminent surgeon on this important matter:

"DEAR DR. Berdoe,

"BIRMINGHAM,

• October 9, 1889.

You may take it from me that, instead of vivisection having in any way advanced abdominal surgery, it has, on the contrary, had a uniform tendency to retard it. This I show to be particularly the case in operations upon the gall-bladder, and refer you to the current number of the Edinburgh Medical Journal, where in an article I point to the fact. As to the use of the antiseptics of Lister, it increased our mortality, prevented recoveries, and did a vast deal of harm by retarding true progress.

"Yours very truly,

"LAWSON TAIT."

In his essay on "The Uselessness of Vivisection," Mr. Tait declared that he had been led astray again and again by the published results of experiments on animals, and that he had been obliged to discard them entirely.

It has been claimed that Lord Lister revolutionised modern surgery by his antiseptic system, and that this was discovered by experiments on animals. The truth about this is that Lord Lister invented an elaborate ritual of