A person ordered to be committed to prison on a criminal charge shall be carried to such prison as soon as may be and shall not be delivered from one officer to another except for easy and speedy conveyance; nor removed without his consent from one county to another unless by habeas corpus. If anyone having in his custody or under his power a person entitled to a writ of habeas corpus, whether issued or not, transfers him to the custody of another or changes his place of confinement with intent to elude the service of such writ, he forfeits $400 to the party aggrieved.