date

29 March 1804 Evidence Forthcomingness
29 March 1804

Evidence

Forthcomingness

Ch. Means

4. Remuneratory

6. A capital disadvantage attending the use /employment/ of the matter of reward as a means of obtaining the discovery of a source of evidence, is confined to the higher class of penal causes suits, and to the case in which the person whose evidence is sought for, stands with reference to the delinquency and the delinquent aimed at in its relation of an accomplice, exposed to the same punishment. In this case a reward has no value, unless exemption from the punishment be annexed /attached/ to it. What is the consequence? That to rid society of one malefactor, you saddle it with another. Under this system delinquency in each professional branch of it, depredation for example, and smuggling is found only, never extirpated. Fox hunters, amidst their eagerness in pursuit of their species of game /the individual fox/, never loose sight of the necessity of keeping the breed in preservation /care due to the preservation of the breed/. In certain counties the policy /course taken/ by the legislator in the pursuit of his game, is the same as that taken by the foxhunter in the pursuit of his, howsoever opposite may be the wish.

In England this species /sort/ of half-destruction /extirpation/, half-preservation policy is in every days practice. On the Continent of Europe, go where you will find it extremely rare. This mischievous policy /practice/ is connected with rule of law the exclusion of self-inculpative evidence, and originates in the same /pernicious/ prejudice /most baneful and prolific source/ Refusing so much as to ask for information of the malefactor whom they have in their power, men are obliged to bid for it, and bid for it thus high, and yet very often ineffectually, at the hands of the malefactor who is out of their reach.
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    Description: 26 March 1804

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    Considered in the character of punishment, it is the property of this means of compulsion not to be susceptible of injustice. Punishment commonly so called - punishment applied to offences of the ordinary description, is on every occasion [...?] /[...?]/ to be inflicted unjustly, for want of /through default/ of trustworthiness on the part of the inculpative evidence. Real evidence may be fallacious: personal evidence /the evidence of witnesses/ may be incorrect or mendacious. In this case we have /see/ a witness whose evidence so far as it makes against the defendant can not but be true: he has nothing to mesh[?] him to mendacity on that side: he has every thing to restrain him from it.

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