.MTc4Mw.MjE0NDU

16 864

himself or family, and deprives society of the benefits that might be derived from his industry and talents. Imprisonment, as a punishment, is directed of its odium and disgrace, which should ever attend it, and thus becomes less efficacious in deterring the unprincipled from the commission of fraud upon the creditors as well as from other offences. In order to remedy there evils these evils, let it be the object of the law while it enforces its sanctions, to make a distinction between poverty and fraud, misfortune and crime. Of [?] the debtor be dishonest, and has seconded [?] or transferred his property, with intent to defraud his creditors, let the law, while it protects the poor and honest from from arrest and imprisonment for debts hereafter contracted, provide a remedy more scrutinizing than the present one, for the detection of the fraud, and a compulsory process against the fraudulent debtor, by which payment of his debts may be more effectually secured and enforced. In connection with subject, the assignments of property, so frequently made of late by insolvent debtors for their creditors, may be mentioned, as requiring some salutary regulations to be established by law for the equitable distribution of the property assigned among all the creditors who after notice shall assent to the assignment. By the mutual consent of the debtor and his creditors these assignments may be thus made to operate as a voluntary insolvent law and promote in most cases the interests of all the parties concurred. Unjust preferences of favored creditors made in these assignments, and fraudulent attachments of property, for pretended debts, should also be guarded against by the law.