Legal Term: ACT OF GRACE

Definition: Scotch law. The name by which the statute which provides for the aliment of prisoners confined for civil debts, is usually known.

2. This statute provides that where a prisoner for debt declares upon oath, before the magis trate of the jurisdiction, that he has not wherewith to maintain himself, the magistrate may set him it liberty, if the creditor, in consequence of whose diligence he was imprisoned, does not aliment him within ten days after intimation for that purpose. 1695, c. 32, Ersk. Pr. L. Scot. 4, 3, 14. This is somewhat similar to a provision in the insolvent act of Pennsylvania.

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