18 July 1810

Fallacies Ch | | Ins employ most

or 8 9

If instead of unpopularity mischievousness were the quality generally looked for in the abuse or imperfections taken for the subject /ground/ of attack the system of abuses and imperfections of which the administration of what goes by the name of justice is composed would long ago have been scrutinized into and ransacked to the utmost, and that natural system which has for its objects outwardly[?] dispatch cheapness and unvexatiousness substituted throughout the whole field of law to that technical which has had for its object and its effect the screwing up the degree of uncertainty, delay, vexation and lawyer's-profit-yielding expence to the highest possible pitch consistent with endurance. (+) Unfortunately that part of the mass of abuse and imperfection which has this part of the field of government for its theatre falls as far short of every other part of the same mass in point of unpopularity as it exceeds it in point of real and personally felt /home-felt/ mischievousness.

 Add the [...?], or copy from, or refer to some other place for a brief dis[...?]tion /allusion[?]/ of the imperfection of the judicial systems and their want of adequate unpopularity.

(+) See Scotch Reform passim