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.