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In default of distress defendant may be committed.
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21. If at the time and place appointed for the return of any such warrant of distress the constable who shall have had the execution of the same shall return that he could find no goods or chattels, or no sufficient goods or chattels, whereon he could levy the sum or sums therein mentioned, together with the costs of or occasioned by the levying of the same, it shall be lawful for the justice of the peace before whom the same shall be returned to issue his warrant of commitment under his hand and seal, directed to the same or any other constable, reciting the conviction or order shortly, the issuing of the warrant of distress, and the return thereto, and requiring such constable to convey such defendant to the house of correction, or if there be no house of correction then to the common gaol of the county, riding, division, liberty, city, borough, or place for which such justice shall then be acting, and there to deliver him to the keeper thereof, and requiring such keeper to receive the defendant into such house of correction or gaol, and there to imprison him, or to imprison him and keep him to hard labour, in such manner and for such time as shall have been directed and appointed by the statute on which the conviction or order mentioned in such warrant of distress was founded, unless the sum or sums adjudged to be paid, and all costs and charges of the distress, and also the costs and charges of the commitment and conveying of the defendant to prison, if such justice shall think fit so to order, (the amount thereof being ascertained and stated in such commitment,) shall be sooner paid.
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