IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT

The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill to abolish imprisonment for debt, and the amendments offered thereto, by Mr. Van Buren.

These amendments as before stated, embrace a variety of provisions, which are, substantially, the following: 1st. They make the act prospective, so as not to interfere with the remedies of the parties upon existing contracts. 2. They except from the exemption secured by the act, all cases of moneys received by public officers, and, generally, all cases of moneys received by persons acting in a representative character. They also except all cases of action brought for torts. 3d. In the excepted cases the amendments provide, that if it shall be made to appear to the court, that the money for which the suit is brought was either corruptly received or fraudulently withheld, the defendant shall be subject to actual imprisonment, without the privileges of the jail now allowed, until the debt be paid, or the defendant discharged by due course of law. 4th. They authorize arrest and bail when it shall be made to appear that there is reason to believe that the defendant is about to depart from the United States.