ry was one which was habitually exercised in Greece, Rome, and
generally among the nations of antiquity. Even among the Jews, whose
legislation was of a comparatively humane character, this practice is
illustrated by the Old Testament story of the woman who sought the help of
Elisha, saying, "Thy servant my husband is dead ... and the creditor is
come to take unto him my two children to be bondmen." The savage severity
of these earlier laws was, however, found to be inconsistent with the
development of more humane ideas and the growth of popular rights; and
tended, as in the case of Greece and Rome, to create serious disturbance in
political relations between the patricians, who generally composed the
wealthier or creditor class, and the plebeians, in whose ranks the majority
of debtors were to be found. Later legislation consequently substituted
imprisonment in a public prison for the right of selling the person of the
debtor. Under the feudal systems of Europe the state generally insisted on
its subjects being left free for military service, and debts could not
therefore be enforced against the person of the debtor; but as trade began
to develop it was found necessary to provide some means of bringing
personal pressure to bear upon debtors for the purpose of compelling them
to meet their obligations, and under the practice of the English courts of
law the right of a creditor to enforce his claims by the imprisonment of
his debtor was gradually evolved (although no express legal enactment to
that effect appears at any time to have existed), and this practice
continued until comparatively recent times.

[Sidenote: Commercial objects.]

Without some system of enforcing payment of debts it would have been
impossible for the commerce of the world to have attained its present
proportions; for modern commerce is necessarily founded largely on credit,
and credit could not have existed without the power of enforcing the
fulfilment of financial contracts. On the other hand remedies against a
debtor's person, and still more against the persons of his family, are not
only inconsistent with the growth of opinion among civilized communities,
but are in themselves worse than futile, inasmuch as they strike at the
root of all personal effort on the part of a debtor to retrieve his
position and render a return to solvency impossible. Hence the necessity of
devising some system which is just to creditors while not unduly harsh upon
deb