Doubtless they merit some correction, and the magistrates consider that fines of ten shillings are appropriate, but then they thoughtlessly add "or seven days." Think of the folly of it! because a man cannot pay a few shillings down, the State conveys him to prison and puts the community to the very considerable expense of keeping him.

The law has fined him, but he cannot pay then, so the law turns round and fines the community.
What sense, decency, or profit can there possibly be in committing women to prison, even for drunkenness, for three, five or seven days?
How can it profit either the State or the woman?
It only serves to familiarise her with prison.
I could laugh at it, were it not so serious.

Just look at this absurdity! A woman gets drunk on Thursday, she is charged on Friday.
"Five shillings, or three days!" On Friday afternoon she enters prison, for the clerk has made out a "commitment," and the gaoler has handed her into the prison van.

Her "commitment" is handed to the prison authorities; it is tabulated, so is she; but at nine o'clock next morning she is discharged from prison, for the law reckons every part of a day to be a complete day; and the law also says that there must be no discharge from prison on a Sunday, and to keep her till Monday would be illegal, for it would be "four days." How small, how disastrous, and how expensive it is! If offenders, young or old, must be punished, let them be punished decently.

If they ought to be sent to prison, to prison send them.
But if their petty offences can be expunged by the payment of a few shillings, why not give them a little time to pay those fines?
Such a course would stop for ever the miserable, deadly round of short expensive imprisonments.