You should regulate the expence of lock-up-houses, and have those regulations hung up for the INSPECTION of prisoners. YOU SHOULD PREVENT ANY OFFICER KEEPING A LOCK-UP-HOUSE, OR HAVING ANY INTEREST THEREIN. To enumerate ALL the frauds and artifices practised by these _gentlemen_ would swell this Letter to a voluminous size. Suffice it therefore, that I have pointed out more malpractices than you will easily rectify, or could have comprehended from COMMON report, notwithstanding you conceived them to be both numerous and flagrant. Having thus far shewn what is practised in open defiance of all laws human and divine, it will not be improper to remark how far these outrages are carefully prohibited by the strict letter of the laws now in force. No arrest is lawful, unless the bailiff absolutely lay his hand on the defendant; for the writs express arrest by the words CAPIAS, ATTACHIAS, that is, to take and catch-hold; therefore, breaking open doors to make an arrest is no more lawful than breaking them to commit a burglary; for every act of violence is unlawful till the arrest be made and complete. No arrest in civil cases is to be made with violence, by breaking open doors, unless when regular possession shall be recovered of any house, and the defendant happens to be in SUCH HOUSE. Therefore bailiffs enter at their peril, and the defendant is justifiable in putting him to death in the very instant he ATTEMPTS to raise a latch; for it would be absurd to suppose the laws will protect a man in the commission of an unlawful act. Any bailiff MALICIOUSLY arresting any person, where no cause of action is, shall suffer six months imprisonment, and shall pay treble damages, with a forfeiture of 10l. before he is discharged. No bailiff shall take more fees than what the law allows upon pain of incurring a penalty of 40l. with treble damages, to the party aggrieved. Attachment lies against him for executing a writ OPPRESSIVELY by FORCE, EXTORTION, or in any CORRUPT manner. But our laws have originally considered sheriffs only ostensible for the due execution of writs, and therefore take little notice of their deputies, but make him answerable for THEIR acts in a ministerial capacity; and equitably so, for the law supposes him capable of avoiding evils of this nature by chusing proper persons.