25 Oct 1805

Evidence

Appropriate

These questions therefore that in English jurisprudence present themselves in abundance, are capable of being comprized under the general head of questions relative to appropriate evidence, /work/ - not out of the nature the things /case/, but out of depraved and neglected state and condition of English law:

1. Out of the negligence of the legislator in not furnishing the people with the document necessary for their information and guidance: the list of the several legal demands, with the Titles in which they are respectively to be granted.

2. On the fraud and hypocrisy of the Judges /judicial fraternity/: who pretending to see a rule of action laid down every where where there is none, punish the suitors without caring and without mercy for the pretended transgressions of their imaginary rules. [barkmasters[?] of the low Egyptian race, who requiring of their vassals /slaves/ such bricks as are not to be made without straw, will keep back the supply of straw, yet punish men for not having made the bricks.]
Similar Items
  • Title: [1818 April 17 Parl. Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 April 17

    Parl. Reform Bill

    Reasons

    1 Election Districts

    III Judges not to appeal[?]

    10

    10

    {By the Duke of Richmond in his Parliamentary Reform Bill, the task of dividing the country for this purpose into districts was committed to the twelve Judges. As well it might have been committed to the twelve Caesars. Legal Power, inclination, appropriate active talent – of every imaginable requisite was there wanting. the deficiency he might have seen […?] in that exalted station at its maximum. Making the demarcation requisite without the preliminary documents and operations above indicated, could have been making Egyptian bricks without straw: and of no such documents or operations did his plan propose any provision to be made. Of those preeminently learned persons at any rate the office is not exposed to any such charge /reproach/ as that of being a sine-cure, the offices can not be numbered among sinecures: the day on which time could be found by them for any such additional burthen would never be to be found.}

    {To no one of them would the thought of bestowing a thought upon any such subject be endurable: no two of them would concurr in the same thought.

    Habitually Unanimous in their determination of the response /several responses/ given in relation to each subject /question/ by the oracle by the voice of which goes forth among the people and determines their fate under /by/ the name of Common Law /the voice of which calls itself /is worshipped sometimes by the name of/ Common Law sometimes Equality sometimes Common Law/ unanimously would direct the learned brotherhood the instant a task /swarm of questions all/ so alien to their habits were submitted to their cognizance.

    The choice of a site for a Penitentiary was at one time committed to these same learned hands. Simple as was the subject /task/ in comparison of that here in question, before any thing could be agreed, unanimity took her flight from the learned Breasts and year after year the projected seat and instrument of reformation remained without a spot on which to place itself.}
  • Title: [Oct 1805 Evidence Appropriate]
    Description: Oct 1805

    Evidence

    Appropriate

    The cause /origin/ of the questions as subjects of debate themselves is one thing: the cause /origin/ of the importance that belongs to them is another. The questions themselves spring as we have seen out of one species of abuse: the /their/ importance that belongs to them out of another species of abuse.

    Under the natural system, if, for want of due notice, or by any other accident, a party happens not to be prepared on this or that day with this or that article of necessary evidence, the evidence being by the supposition in his power /at his command/, he brings it with him the next day. But in the English technical system, in which the denial of justice is the ordinary state of things, and justice is not so much as pretended to be administered but after a short period separated from each other by distant intervals the next day does not come till six months after and /or/ in some places perhaps twelve months: and when another day for the production of the omitted evidence does come, it is not to be obtained but upon the terms of the second plunderage, performing once again for the benefit of the man of law all those useless ceremonies /preliminaries/ which never ought to have been performed at all. Under the care of English Judges a /every/ law suit is thus the very stem of [...?]: when a pretence has been found for preventing it from gaining the top of the hill, if it be destined to take a second chance it is not allowed to keep the ground that it has gained, but it is in the first [...?] /rolled back/ into the bottom, before a second chance is allowed it, of getting /being forced up/ up to the top.
  • Title: [9 Oct 1809 Parl y Reform B]
    Description: 9 Oct 1809

    Parl y Reform

    B. I. Necessity

    Ch. Occasional inadequate

    §.3. Burke advocates occasional

    4

    Against every thing which can serve to continue the check upon misrule in any /the

    only/ hands that have an interest in the prevention of it—against every thing which

    can serve /effect of/ to keep the Members of House of Commons /Representatives of the

    people/ in that state the keeping them in which is the very course he himself so

    frequently recommends—in a word against short parliaments, and

    exclusion of Court dependents from the right of voting, he

    argues expressly in terms /a passage/ which will be considered /has been looked into/

    in the course of these pages /the present work/. +

    /According to his plan/ The power of corruption is it to according to his plan to

    receive any the slightest check? Not it indeed: all that is to be done with it is the

    vesting it in other hands: the exquisitely pure and able hands that he knows of:—and

    whenever it were their fate to be called hence, the constitution /English liberties/,

    like the vassals /slaves/ of a Tartar /Tartar chieftains/ were to be buried with them

    in the same grave.