058-206.xml

Title: [8 June 1805 Evidence Introd]

Description: 8 June 1805

Evidence

Introd.

Ch. False Ends - Judge

' Corruption. Cause

Thus it was, that, from so simple a cause as this unfortunate connection, thus it was that in the most important of all lines of service the matter of reward became, became and to the whole amount of it, the matter, the wages of corruption, conferring on /making in the bosom of/ the Judge an interest acting in complete opposition to his duty, in complete opposition to the ends of justice. Thus it is that whatever little intelligence and ingenuity was in those rude times to be found in that commanding station, was directed to that disasterous species of manufacture, making business: to the giving to the system of procedure that sort of form and texture which should render it as productive as possible in the character of a fund of fees. (a)

In our days, the hands of Judges are tied, the eyes o their constitutional superiors, the eyes of an enlightened and jealous public are fixed continually upon them, and Judges like men of other ranks, and especially in high places, trained by education know fear in their bosoms a breath /the preponderance of a bubble/ of reputation - over a mass of opulence. In those early /rude/ days, and throughout the course of ages during which under the influence of the corruptive format[?] /harm of corruption/, the system of procedure was developing itself and repining into the present state of rottenness, the Judge was fastened[?] by no rules, was subject to no inspection: no constitutional superior, or none but what was either in a state of complicity with him or in a state of sleep, the people imminently /universally[?]/ blind and stupid, rapacity in the judicial as in every other station of the judge in every other, raiding too much and wearing[?] none. Stalking forth without a mask. Stalking forth and devouring its prey - without a mark.

058-210.xml

Title: [1 June 1805 Evidence Introd]

Description: 1 June 1805

Evidence

Introd.

Ch. False Ends Judges

' 3. Corruption - cause

''.5. Channels through which the matter of corruption

between service and reward is formed in the manner in question, every particle of reward /whatever portion of the matter of the reward/ which the judge can hope to possess himself if by operations directed to that end, operates upon his mind, every particle of it in the way of corruption /a sinister direction/: or by a change not the less but the more effectual by being latent /quiet/ and imperceptible, the matter of reward

A point /distinction/carefully to be observed is - that it is in the mode of connection only, of the connection between the service and the reward, not in the quantum /magnitude/ of the reward, that this /so disastrous a/ change depends: and that of any increase, when the connection is formed in the conscious and proper mode, is not to operate /act/ as a forment, but on the contrary as a check.

If by adding to the number of operations performable /performed/, and thence of fees receivable from the aggregate number of suits in a year, that aggregate remains the same, it be in the power of the Judge to increase his annual emolument, from ,200 a year to ,400, the prospect of each /the/ additional ,200 a year operates /acts/ upon his mind in the character /form and direction/ of a bribe. Whereas if, instead of being thus capable of being by his own sinister exertions doubled, it be /were/ quadrupled to him in the shape of salary, no sinister influence takes place.

058-201.xml

Title: [June 1805 Evidence Introd.]

Description: June 1805

Evidence

Introd.

False Ends re Judge

''.3. corruption cause

Keep this as it is, or re-write, setting out with the principles of renumeration and quoting the London Police Act as an application of them.

''.3. Corruption universal: cause, the mode in which the Judge was paid. /took payment./

We have been seeing how natural it was, (whether there were or were not an habitual exercise under some such name as that of legislative power one authority recognised as superior to that of the Judge, and as such more competent in the establishment of universally binding and settled rules /regulations/,) how natural it was (in what ever other department of the field of government the power of the legislator should have exercised itself,) that this narrow /confined/ department, the conduct of the business of judicial procedure should have been lodged or rather left to fall of itself into the hands of the Judge. We come now to see how natural, or rather necessary it was, that in the then existing state of society in other respects, this power should have been abused: abused to the utmost power of possible, not to say of considerable abuse: abused to the length of having given birth to these monstrous systems of iniquity and depredation /fraud and extraction/ which may be seen every where administered under the name of justice.

The principle of corruption the cause of this abuse is extremely simple: it consists altogether in the mode in which, in the instance of the judicial office, reward was attached to labour, renumeration /recompense/ to service. Even in the present days of private & public opulence, much more in those days of poverty the quantity of pay left capable of being increased with the quantity of labour real or apparent and the quantity of such labour left capable of being increased to an indefinite amount at the will of the Judges. Of labour so applied, a quantity adequate to the demand could not have been had /be had/ without recompense /wages/: in those days of public indigence such recompense could not have been administered /attached itself/ to the service in the only form in which, without giving birth to the ensuing corruption it could have attached itself, viz: that of settled salary, pure of incidental /occasional/ emoluments, such as in English are called fees. It might indeed have attached itself to labour and without producing any such corruptive effect have been attached even in the shape of fees, had the number of incidents productive of such fees been so circumstanced, as not to have been incresable[?] by any end[?] worthy[?] /endeavour on the part/ of the Judge, or even though they had been so increasible[?] had not the pockets of the suitors been among the pockets out of which they were to come.