19 June 1805

Evidence

Introd

Ch. Procedure technical

''.9. Exceptions Pauper List

At the very earliest stage of the cause, at the very same stage in which the like effect would later place under the natural, and does actually take place under the waiting[?] summary mode /course/ of procedure, the defendant, and his prosecutor, and such witnesses or other witnesses of any, as happen to be at hand /forthcoming/, are introduced together into the presence of a Judge. Each accordingly, at that preparatory meeting called the examination each has the liberty of putting questions to each, the Judge to both or either, for the maxim which leaves it to the desire[?] of the defendant whether he will give an answer, does /is/ not in that stage at least, understood to destroy altogether, howsoever it may impede the liberty of questioning /putting questions/.

Moreover, by one means or other, indeed or rather to give the short account of it, by so simple a means as the forbearing to extend the art of making business to a case in which there is nothing to be got by making it, quick work, quick by comparison at least is made of the case of felonies: so quick, that instances have not been wanting, in which the three inquiries, (two of them it will be seen somewhat worse than useless) + which take place of course in prosecutions for felony, have been all compressed into the compass of one day. True it is, that notwithstanding this accidental /casual/ dispatch, the mean duration of a prosecution for felony is in the greater part of England 3 months; in some parts in which the suffering of the individual and the prompt execution of the law is in the eye of the law of less moment, six month. (a) But in these three months, and these six months, after deduction of those for which in favourable circumstances a part of a day is sufficient, nothing at all is done. + Of that sort of business, which in case of [...?] which instead of life, a few pounds or a few shillings were at stake is so unnecessary to be made, none is made here, because here, as before observed nothing is to be got by making it +2 about.

Securities

(a) These numbers are mathematically correct: as will be found by whoever considers that in some parts of England the Circuit Court is held but once a twelvemonth in most parts six months. In London and Middlesex, the months are reduced to weeks

+ laying out of the setting out of the account that corruption of mind and body and mind, which is not worth thinking about.

+2 So that Upon the whole [...?] if the time in which nothing /no business/ is done but the work of corruption is rather of the longest the time in which any business is done is short in this branch of technical procedure; viz: not many times as long as that which the business of the same case would have occupied in the natural mode.