MR. GILPINsaid, he wished to ask Mr. Attorney General, If his attention has been called to a case recently reported in the public papers of the violent removal of a debtor, William Watson, aged seventy-two years, from his residence for debt, when in the last stage of consumption, and when the certificate of a physician was shown to the Sheriff's officer stating that Watson could only be removed at the risk of his life; to the fact that the said Watson was forcibly taken to Horsemonger Lane Gaol, and died almost immediately after his admission; and to ask if the Law of England authorizes a Sheriff's officer thus to remove a dying man in the face of such a protest on the part of a duly qualified physician?
THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, in reply, that the law of England did not, in his opinion, justify the sheriff's officer in removing the debtor under the circumstances stated in the Question. The sheriff, no doubt, was placed in a situation of great difficulty, for if the debtor recovered and made his escape, the sheriff would be liable to an action at law. He (the Attorney General) might be permitted to add that, if the Bill on the subject of bankruptcy were permitted to pass, a question of that nature could no longer arise.