date

4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature
4 Oct 1803

Evidence

Judicature

Anonymous

II. Official abuses. Public Offices themselves are /being/ so numerous and erroneous[?] on the one hand, the abuses they are exposed to so various on the other much precision and of that detail which is necessary to precision could not without a too extensive digression be attempted here. Offices judicial, military, administrative: among administrative, offices for receipt of public money as well as judicial offices for the expenditure of it: be termed servitors[?] - individuals having business to transact in their respective offices.

A[?] state of things which renders the task of open information particularly invidious /oppressive/ is that where the person to whom the information of the abuse would be to be adopted, stands in the situation of patron to the author of it, having especially in the case nor that an infrequent one perhaps introduced him into the situation which gave occasion to the abuse: the informer may in this case find himself in a situation little if at all different from him who should have his adversary for his judge.

When the mischief of the abuse bears exclusively or more particularly upon a determinate individual, the character of an informer is affirmed with less difficulty - without any proportionable /comparatively/ very violent opposition from that portion of public opinion which is predominant /bears rule/ in the office /particulars/, and the only little other enmity a man /the informer/ is exposed to by it is that which may come under the denomination of private enmity. But even in that case if either the situation of the oppressed, or his comfort in that situation is dependant in any shape upon the good will of the oppressor, the force of the restrictive motives which tend to withold him from performing any such compliant[?], may be much too great to be surmounted /overcome/ so great as to be insurmountable may be so great as not to be capable of being surmounted without an irreparable violation of the rules of human prudence. In /So far as/ this state of things, [...?] the notification of a standing disposition not to accept for what it is /may be/ worth the sort of information conveyed by anonymous indication is but a branch of that general notification which in some way or other might in every line of government to be made - the notification of a constant disposition to afford protection to the oppressed.
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  • Title: [4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature]
    Description: 4 Oct 1803

    Evidence

    Judicature

    Anonymous

    Of the institution modified as here proposed, the true character is not severity, but lenity: the natural effect - not punishment, but prevention without punishment.

    To confine to delinquents /the guilty/, or rather to those who but for the /this/ warning might have become guilty the terror/ apprehension/ it is calculated inspire, and at the same time to secure it against the unpopularity /adverse[?]/ to which not altogether without just case it would otherwise be exposed, an additional notification would require to be subjourned[?]. This is - that the only use that would ever be made of any evidence of this stamp would be that of making it serve as a clue to unexceptionable evidence to an intercourse with the anonymous informer, if on the assurance of the requisite attention and conditional severity, In [...?] to present himself for examination before the compulsory[?] eye, if not, to a search after any such other unexceptionable evidence as the anonymous information may have pointed out. To this might be added that as often as it should happen that any general importations or intimation[?] to the prejudice of any individual character should be added or substituted to any such specific indications, all such unsupported charges would /might/ be seen of being treated with tempted[?] disregard.

    When the anonymous letter was presented to Alexander as he was about to take the prescribed medicine in the [...?]. Alexander upon receiving the anonymous letter by which an intimation was given that poison had been infused into the cup of medicine that would be presented to him by Philip his physician, inquired no further but drank off the draught before the physicians face. This has probably being quoted more than once as an example of the treatment which by a truly magnanimous sovereign would be shewn upon information of this stamp. But the magnaminity displayed by this hero was displayed at his own personal risk: the magnaminity displayed by an official superior who should refuse to pay regard to an anonymous address indicating incriminative[?] evidence against one of his subordinates would be displayed at the risk of the public, and to the accommodation of his own indolence. How can the personal behaviour of every subordinate in positions and [...?] office, be supposed to be a jurist as well [...?] to the [...?] and candour who presides in it as that of a <...> physician out materials be he the monarch from whom be it scarcely.
  • Title: [4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature]
    Description: 4 Oct 1803

    Evidence

    Judicature

    Anonymous

    In the case where the mischief of the above finds /affords to/ no individual any person nature /motive of a personal nature/ for giving information of it the demand /need/ for this vehicle of intelligence is still more urgent. Sympathy for the public, antipathy against improbity, both of them modifications of Public spirit, to these pure and social motives especially if reinforced by the disocial motive of personal enmity towards a delinquent may urge a man with some considerable force urge man to convey to his superiors information the efforts of which if followed up would draw down punishment /censure/ on the heads of his delinquent colleagues. But in such case, under the /any such/ condition as that indispensable condition of open accusation what chance /security/ can there be of that degree of knowledge regularity /exactness/ of information which is necessary to the prevention of abuse when the only occasions on which it can be obtained are those rare and casual ones where the inciting force of enmity has burst through the restraints imposed by ordinary prudence? When the abuse is of such a nature that, the mischief of it /abuse/ without counting[?] any individual, falls exclusively on the public purse in[?] information given of it by a colleague to the prejudice of a colleague, is resented /almost seen to be/ by all as an act of treachery to all and a sort of civil excommunication, and much less intolerable than the ecclesiastical of old times is the natural and almost necessary consequence. What of the /case be of the number of those/ abuse in which the whole fraternity have their profit, and the removal of which would be felt by each of them as the private loss?
  • Title: [4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature]
    Description: 4 Oct 1803

    Evidence

    Judicature

    Anonymous

    Were it necessary for a man to look over whatever stricture have been made in publications /books/ on the subject of anonymous evidence, my expectation would be to find /what he might expect to find would be a/ sentence of condemnation without distinction or reason. So far as concerns the examples /applications/ on the contemplation of which the censures have been grounded, I should suppose it to be well /the censures may not improbably have been/ grounded: but were it to be extended to the use here proposed to be made of it, that ground has no application /would fail/.

    Mention anonymous evidence, the imagination transports itself immediately to quondum[?] Venice and the liar's mouths. But In Venice the system /course/ of penal procedure was secret, and therefore arbitrary, and justly /horrible[?]/ terrible to [...?]. towards that darkness a circumstance that could not be known was - in which of the two characters the evidence of this stamp would be employed - simply indicative or ultimate. In the character of ultimate evidence, for any thing that any body could be afraid of: a character in which it could not be made use of, without horrible injustice.

    If there be a country the judicial procedure of which contrasts more strongly than that of another with the judicial procedure of quondum Venice, it is that of existing England. In the character of indicative evidence, as a clue to evidence not anonymous instances of its having been employed in England by superiors for the discovery of misdemeanours on the part of subordinates in office have fallen under any view observation in more instances than are not infrequently office have been made known every here and there by the public newspapers. But to make use now and then of anonymous evidence of this sort is one thing: to make officially known to all concerned that on every occasion attention will be regularly paid to it, is another. Abuses of no inconsiderable magnitude have abounded time out of mind in certain offices: the bringing to light some of these abuses was the object of the correspondence held by authority with anonymous informants in three scattered instances. The object of this correspondence was to obtain grounds for punishments to punish abuses which had the determination to listen to such information been <...> and intentions[?] would probably never have existed.