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29 July 1805
Evidence
Introd. Jurisprudent[?]
Ch. II. Vices
The distinction vanishes /is alike evanescent/ when viewed from another point of view. This [let it be allowed] is a penal law and not a remedial: this other a remedial and not a penal one. Be it so: but in the class penal class the sufferance produced by a law to the convict, may be a fine [...?] the value of half a days worst paid labour: in the remedial class a suffering may rise to the height /level/ of the largest fortune, not to speak of imprisonment /[...?] and its punishment/ in name indefinite in effect perhaps for life.
The mask of humanity having been thus taken off, there remains lawyer craft in its genuine colours, with its real and perpetual end in view, confusion, uncertainty, and factitions made business. Whether the law be destined /In the individual case in hand/ to be construed away or no, there sounds /has its/ the principle of strict instruction to afford a pretence for construing it away, and there sits the professional lawyer with his hundred heads and as many hands [all open to the reception of fees for the attempt] the hands all grasping for the accustomed fees, the heads all in readiness to enter upon the experiment, and in the character of licenced accessories after the fact, to snatch /rescue/ the malefactor, if possible, out of the hands of justice.
But in a bosum of which it is a duty to feel for /look to/ consequences suppose humanity to consist in the blind and constant endeavour to diminish the number of penal inflictions without regard to consequences: in the breast of a vetran surgeon /let it be/ suppose it to be the ordinary effect of humanity, to have the patient to perish rather than put him to the pains of having his wound dressed. If it was rule or any other by humanity that he was induced to construe away the statutory law, in prejudice of the declared will of his lawful superior the legislator, observe whether this sort of strictness adheres to him in the construction /interpretation/ put upon that sort of law in the spinning of which he and his brethren are so assiduously employed.
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Title: [29 July 1805 Evidence 2 [.]Description: 29 July 1805 Evidence 2 [...?] Statutes according to this division are either penal or remedial. Penal are to be construed strictly: meaning by strictly /as appears by the exemplification/, the taking advantage of some particular word or words of /in/ the statute to avoid giving effect in this or that instance to what appears to have been the will and intention of the legislator upon the whole: here then the mark set up by the legislator is fallen short of by the Judge. Remedial statutes are to construed liberally. Here the mark set up by the legislator is to be overshot by the Judge. In a certain view /With a view to a certain and according to the measure of his faculties, The legislator the legislator, has made a law to a certain extent. On occasion and pretence of this law, the Judge, with a view to the same or to a different end, takes upon him to make another law /on [...?]/ to a further or collateral extent. Under this nomenclature /this distinction/ and this division which they /made by them/ in large part after the [...?] statutes not to say the whole/ there is no saying which part of the mass of statutes is marked out from misconstruction. For the misconstruction put upon penal statutes, a regard for humanity [the [...?] of lawyers a /an English lawyers/ humanity,] is the pretence: [for, whatever be the [...?] particular rule /becomes of other rules/ upon the carpet, the rule of hypocrisy is never deviated from]. A pretence? yes: how should it be other than a pretence? 1. [In the first place] the distinction between penal and remedial is mere vapour. Unless in so far as it is remedial, what penal law of the final class any thing but /further than/ an act of tyranny? Till the system of legislation is perfect, in practice as well as theory, the mass of penal law in every nation will and must involve such acts of tyranny. That in an usurpation and temerity can any serviceable /useful/ remedy and /any/ advantageous substitute be found, for any such immemorial and [...? ...?] tyranny? But can the /any/ legal tyranny on the part of the supreme authority, find any advantageous corrective in the arbitrary power of that which should be its sub-ordinate. Note Unless in so far as affording a gratification to an inordinate vengeance, or even more causeless antipathy, (a case indeed but too frequently exemplified) is the /has been/ sole object of the law, what in any instance is punishment /good for or proposed to be [...?] for/ of any use, but in the character of a tyranny? And of /what sort of efficacy can be possessed by/ what effect were any arrangements of law, call it remedial or any thing else, unless it have punishment, /more or less as bound/ to back it?
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Title: [27 July 1806 Scotch Reform /Evidence]Description: 27 July 1806 Scotch Reform /Evidence/ Lett Lawyers adverse Such being the opposition of interests, and such the cause of it, now as to the means of conciliation. I have hitherto considered the man of law in a state of unity. On a closer inspection we may distinguish in him two interests; the official and the professional. At present they may say in the [...?] stile[?] of complimentary [...?], and with a sincerity not altogether so liable to reception[?], there is a [...?] between us. Official lawyer and professional lawyer, partners and friends to each other, are both [...?] to the suitor. Looking a little further on we may [...?] a latent difference. The difference is the /the merely/ official lawyer though[?] a present wrong[?] is not incurable and is not the /one[?]/ irreconcilable wrong[?]: that of the professional lawyer is. The official lawyer, whatever he receives now in a composed[?] shape, part salary and part fees, he may receive /be made/ wholly in the shape of salary without fees: the professional lawyer whatever he receives he can never receive in any other shape than that of fees. Compensation, the sum that /[...?...?]/ [...?] which the humanity of our own age and nation never fails to [...?] into the wounds[?] which can never fail to be made by the land[?] Reform compensation, finds the hand of the official lawyer compleatly susceptible /open to it/, that of the professional lawyer as compleatly unsusceptible /stand against it/.
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Title: [[lxxxiv. 6] 1821 Nov. 26 4]Description: [lxxxiv. 6] 1821 Nov. 26 4ΒΌ0 [...?] ?5 Draughtsman Single /Appendix/ III Lawyers interest To the sinister interest which adheres to men in the situation in question in their character /quality/ of members of the body of the ruling few is added the sinister interest which adheres to them in their quality /character/ of lawyers. In the case of a work of the sort in question, several circumstances concurr in putting an exclusion upon all such Members as do not belong to the fraternity of Lawyers: either none such will be chosen: or if any are chosen their want of appropriate knowledge will be apt to deprive their learned colleagues of all confidence in them, and even to deprive them of all /the necessary/ confidence in themselves On this occasion in speaking of the Lawyer class, it will be necessary to consider all men to whom this appellation is applicable as forming one body having in respect to the matter in question one and the same interest: laying out of consideration the differences between the several species of this great genus, such as those designated by the words Official and professional Advocates and Attorneys, and so of the rest. The hostility /oppositeness/ of the interest of the Lawyer with /against/ that of the Citizen at large is not quite so necessary and incurable in the case of the Official, Lawyer as in the case of the Professional Lawyer: [...?] Professional Lawyers, in the case of the Attorney. But as hitherto it is a case almost unexampled for a man to be made a Judge, without having belonged to the order of Advocates are almost unexampled
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