date

1 June 1805 Evidence Introd
1 June 1805

Evidence

Introd.

Ch. False Ends. Judges

' 6. Interest connection

''.6. Connection between the Judge's and other sinister interests.

Among the different classes of men of law with /by/ which society is saved and afflicted /kept together/ [and afflicted],, /afflicted served and kept together/, that of the Judge, though the highest is but one. Of the others, as formed by natural causes, an enumeration has above been given: + and, be it as it may /howsoever the matter may stand/ with regard to the relative number of the individuals it has been seen at the same time how impossible it is that society should be rid of any entire class.

Of the sinister interest conferred to the person of the judge the nature and cause has /causes have/ already been explained. But every other class of lawyers has its interest: and in each instance that same cause has rendered the interest a sinister one. The direction thus given to the form of interest was indeed in these instances still more unavoidable than in that of the judge. Had intelligence /wisdom/ as well as opulence exerted on the part of the legislator in sufficient quantity /degree/ Judges and other official hands /such servants of the public/ might from the first have been paid by salary: but in the sort of /this field of/ service here in question such mode of payment would not have been applied /applied itself/ to the services rendered to individuals by individuals: the service being occasional, and [...?], such could not but have been the reward.

+ ch. Vexation
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  • Title: [1 June 1805 Evidence Introd]
    Description: 1 June 1805

    Evidence

    Introd.

    ' 6. Interest connection

    Not that this sinister interest could have been productive of any very serious mischief, had it not been for the sinister interest of the superintending /superior/ and all-ruling functionary, the Judge.

    In multiplying useless operations, it was /became/ necessary to him to multiply hands to perform them: in multiplying useless written testimonials it was necessary to multiply the hands that were to write them: in multiplying nonsense it was necessary to multiply heads that should understand it or pretend to understand it - in multiplying /augmenting/ the mass of operations, of instruments, of nonsense, all together, it was /became/ necessary to multiply tongues to talk about it.

    Each having his service to perform, each would be to have his recompense for performing /reward for rendering/ it. In this as in other lines /fields/ of labour, as the demand grew, the supply grew up along with it. Under a connection thus necessary and thus intimate, like porters crowding about a passenger at his landing, but were they ever so numerous, he could not multiply his own fees, without multiplying theirs at the same time. He could not therefore saddle the suitors with any gross quantity of burthen for his own benefit, without saddling them with a burthen of much greater weight for the benefit of these his associates and confederates. (Thus miserable /disastrous/ was the condition /situation/ of the suitor, thus fortake in mischief the germ of corruption once inoculated into the body of the law.)

    Thus it is that for every particle of the matter of emolument, (that is thus [...?] into the matter) of corruption, received into his coffers, and /together/ the correspondent portion of public mischief wrought by his own hands it became necessary to load society with perhaps twenty times the mischief /quantity/ wrought by those other hands. He has found himself in the situation of a surveyor, paid by his employer, by a per centage, say five per cent, on the money expended on the building: or the house, the office, the prison, or the palace.
  • Title: [23 June 1805 Evidence Introd]
    Description: 23 June 1805

    Evidence

    Introd

    Ch. Non Notoriety

    ''.3 Contracts

    In this state of things if a contract visibly[?] entered into fails of receiving, when and calls for it, the assistance of the Judge for the enforcement of the obligations imposed by it, the addition[?] of the services intended to be rendered in virtue of it, the party who suffers by such failure, fails not, as soon as such failure is made known to him, to receive a shock: a power which may be called a power of disappointment: which shock or pain is of course more or less severe, according to the value of the service the good, the property the benefit whatever be its nature of which he thus finds himself deprived. It may be next to nothing: it may be instead every thing that is dear to him, every thing he either considered himself as possessing in present or entertained any expectation of coming to the possession of in future.

    No sooner did /had/ the art of writing come into general /any tolerably extensive/ use than it was /came to be/ employed to give expression and permanence to this particular class of private laws: and no sooner did the practice of making this use of it become frequent, than the influence of sinister interest, ever upon the watch, laid hold /took possession/ of it for the purposes of abuse. Instruments which did not contain the expression of the will of the individuals who upon the face of them appeared by the mention made of their names to have been parties to those contracts, authors /instruction/ of those private laws were framed in such manner as to appear to contain the expression of such will, and by so doing, obtained, unless the fraud came to be /were/ discovered, the assistance of the power of the Judge, which accordingly employed itself in enforcing the fulfilment of these spurious contracts in the same manner it would have employed itself in providing for the fulfilment of so many genuine ones. The fabrication of such spurious instruments constitutes the most extensive and mischievous modification of that species of fraud which has acquired the name of forgery.

    + pretended wills, pretended conveyances inter vivos pretended bonds notes and securities for the payment of money.
  • 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.