Where's Dickens when you need him most?

And you thought the crop of British upper-class schoolboys were going to be allowed to take the first prize in the Wackford Squeers clone contest.

No, it looks like that prize is going to go to those freedom loving crazy kids south of the 49th.

It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found.
Not every warrant results in an arrest, but in Minnesota many debtors spend up to 48 hours in cells with criminals. Consumer attorneys say such arrests are increasing in many states, including Arkansas, Arizona and Washington, driven by a bad economy, high consumer debt and a growing industry that buys bad debts and employs every means available to collect.

In looking around for the modern chronicler of the age to tell the story of the downtrodden and the poor I could only come up with a fairy tale written by someone who thinks Pip's older sister was just hawt.

Jill has more.