Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JAMES DALRYMPLE OF STAIR.

George Bain
v.
The Bailies of Culrosse

Date: 14 February 1671

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George Bain pursues the bailies of Culrosse for payment of the debt of a rebel, whom they had suffered to go free up and down their streets; whereupon he had taken instruments against them, and protested that they should be liable for the debt,—seeing squalor carceris is justly introduced against debtors that will not pay their debt, and the magistrates of burghs may not take it off in whole or in part; and produced a practick observed by Durie upon the 27th of March 1623,—Smith against the Bailies of Elgine,—where the prisoner being suffered to walk freely upon the streets till he obtained a charge to set to liberty, the magistrates were found liable. The defender alleged Absolvitor; because he offers to prove that this prisoner's going out was necessary, viz.—he, being a person altogether indigent, was permitted sometimes to go and mendicate his bread, and once to go to the burial of a child of his own; and immediately thereafter, the pursuers having taken instruments, the rebel was put in ward, and continued there till he died. Which the Lords found relevant to liberate the burgh.

Vol. I, Page 719.