19 June 1805

Evidence

Introd

Ch. Procedure Technical

''.9. Exceptions Pauper Lists

This plan of policy has been more conspicuously exemplified in the English edition of the technical system than in the French. To the former therefore let us look in preference for the illustration of it.

Among the offences over which for the preservation of society it is most necessary to keep a strict hand, and which at the same time, in spite of every thing that can be done /precaution that can be taken against them/ by legislative vigilance will ever be by far the most common, are the offences /crimes/ of injurious[?] indigence. A great majority, say 19 out of 20 at least 9 out of 10 of that heterogenous mass of first and second rate offences, which from /by/ the punishment /hodge-podge/ /heterogenous mass of/ that has been [...?] to them have been lumped together under the denomination of felonies, have their origin in that situation in life, couple with that motive. This consideration it is that appears to have determined the spirit /tone[?]/ of the mode of procedure appropriated to the case of felony.

A man in whom the desperate [...?] of attempting at the hazard of life to seize the property of another would not /never/ have been found had he possessed as the fruit of his own industry the means of sustenance, would not in general be able to put in an a plea to a Declaration in the Common Pleas or an answer to a Bill in Equity. Accordingly, the every [...?] though hitherto never written maxim that neither Plaintiff nor Defendent, much less both together, shall ever be admitted, till it is impossible they should any longer be kept out, into the presence of a Judge, does not extend to felonies.