date

4 Oct 1803 Evidence Judicature
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.
Similar Items
  • Title: [16 May 1804 Evidence Forthcomingness]
    Description: 16 May 1804

    Evidence

    Forthcomingness

    Ch. Investigatorial

    Certain it is, that it is from the practice of English not of French Law - of the system in which the light of indicative evidence is /seems to be/ obtainable in all cases - not of the system in which it is not obtainable but in so narrow a description of cases - that in my own instance the idea of the distinction was deduced elicited. In different tribunals not competent to ultimate decision I observed masses of evidence collected: parts of it I saw preserved or at least noted and thereupon in tribunals competent to ultimate decision employed in the character of ultimate evidence (a) The other part staid behind received no further employment. Of this residuum /caput morturum/ what was to be said? Had it not been received? had it been excluded /refused/ to be heard /refused a hearing/ on any of the thousand pretences on /by/ which evidence on the occasion of the ultimate examination called a trial stands excluded? Not it indeed: it had been heard with as little objection as the most /best/ unexceptional evidence. Would it have been heard then known as it must have been in a general way what was to be expected from it - would it have been heard without any prospect of its being of any kind of use? No certainly. In what way then must it have been expected to prove of use? In the way of leading to the discovery of other evidence immediately applicable in an immediate way to the purpose of evidence.

    Note

    (a) In the case of preparatory examinations taken by single Justices of the [...?] material witnessess bound over to give evidence at the trial. In the case of investigation performed by a Committees of Parliament, and Commissions of Inquiry, evidence collected, and prosecutions in the way of impeachment or indictment grounded on the information thus obtained.
  • Title: [[...?] [...?] 1804 Evidence]
    Description: [...?] [...?] 1804

    Evidence

    Forthcomingness

    Ch. Investigatorial

    ยง.1. Investigation quid

    Ch. Of Investigatorial Procedure and Investigatorial Tribunals /Courts of Enquiry/

    By procedure ad investogadum or investigatorial procedure I understand any system or mode of procedure, considered as applied to the discovery of one lot of evidence through the medium of another: in other words one link in a chain of evidence (a) through the medium of another: in other words of following up a thread of evidence in examining a lot of evidence not in the character of a lot of a lot of evidence for the ultimate hearing /ultimate evidence/ - evidence for grounding a decision on the subject of the cause - but in the character of evidence of evidence /a lot of indicative evidence/. In a word it consists in the examination of evidence in the character of indicative evidence.

    Evidence fit for ultimate evidence, will not, it is plain, be on that account the less fit to be heard or received in the character of a lot o indicative evidence. But it may frequently happen, that a lot of evidence, plainly unfit to serve in the character of ultimate evidence shall be as fit as any other to serve in the character of indicative evidence. (b)

    Suppose In a case in which all the evidence which the transaction furnishes to be /is/ already known to both parties, there exists no demand for procedure of the investigational cast, as above described. For distinctions sake, procedure in this case may be termed procedure testibus cognitis, or rather to include real and written evidence, probationibus cognitis.

    (a) Note a Ch [...?] [...?] of a chain of evidence

    (b) [...?]?
  • 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.