Judge William Stevenson Owen (now deceased), Circuit 24, favoured the total abolition of imprisonment for debt, “save, perhaps, for damages for tort.”... Further, “He would make default in a fiduciary capacity, or by an attorney or solicitor, or default in payment for the benefit of creditors of any portion of a salary or income, criminal misconduct.” His Honour Judge Edward Abbott Parry, lately of Circuit 8, but now appointed to replace the late Judge Emden at Lambeth, stated, when giving his evidence before the Select Committee, that the present system was to be disapproved (1) as favouring disreputable trade, (2) as failing to punish dishonesty, (3) as a means of blackmailing friends and relations of the debtor, (4) as injurious to the poor, etc. He favoured the total abolition of imprisonment for debt, at least theoretically. He added that he believed in credit as a necessary evil. Judge Sir William Lucius Selfe opposed the total abolition of imprisonment for debt so far as the working classes were concerned. He made certain exceptions, however, in which he would abolish imprisonment, notably in cases arising out of money-lending transactions. Judge William Wightman Wood, of Circuit 20, another witness, favoured the abolition of imprisonment. Mr. S. Savill, Chief Clerk at Marlborough Street Police Court, in his evidence, divided debts recoverable before Courts of Summary Jurisdiction into three classes: “I. Sums recoverable similarly to civil debts summarily recoverable under the Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879, _i.e._, cases in which the County Court has concurrent jurisdiction. In this class, a judgment summons necessitating proof of means must precede committal, and imprisonment is rare. II. Sums due under orders of the Court in cases of affiliation and maintenance orders and orders against persons legally liable for contributory maintenance of a child sent by the Court to a reformatory or industrial school. In this and in Class III. imprisonment is punitive, and purges the debt. III. Sums not recoverable under summary jurisdiction, comprising highway rates, poor rates, etc. Here stipendiary magistrates and ordinary justices have concurrent jurisdiction. Committals in this respect scarcely affect the poor classes, who live in houses and tenements for which the owners are, by consent of the local authority, rated up to £20, the power possessed by justices and stipendiary magistrates to discharge from payment any persons proving inability to pay from poverty not being used in the opinion of the witness to the extent intended by the Statute.”... Witness also suggested that imprisonment “as a screw” was abortive, and really only partially deterrent in its effect; he submitted, however, that if imprisonment for debt were abolished, strengthening of the punitive law would become necessary.