[clx. 274]

1822 July 5

Constitut. Code

Securities

Factitious Dignity /Honor/

?.4. Evils produced by it

Note to the list of good things operating as corruption add punishment i.e. the power of remitting it: also evil in other classes. Hence, tyrants the most praised.

?.4 Factitious honor in general - Evils produced by it - when as usual, arbitrarily conferred

When arbitrarily conferred either it is conferred either without so much as an indication of service in any specific shape rendered to the public, or if with any such indication without proof made and published of the reality of the facts on the supposed reality /ungrounded supposition/ of which it is /has been/ grounded.

1. If conferred without indication of service to the public that which is indicated by it is - that the individual on whom it is conferred is an object of favor to the person or persons by whom it has been conferred. In this case it is mischievous in /on/ the │   │ following ways /accounts/

Mischief /Evil/ 1. Burthen to the unhonoured at large

There are two sets of persons at whose expence is conferred every honour that is conferred: all the members of the community at large - the whole number of them: 2. those particular ones if any among whom peculiar benefits in this shape have been shared.

By the members at large, of any donation of this sort taken singly the expence is in but a small degree if in any degree felt. But when viewed in the aggregate, the expence to which communities have been subjected to in this shape, will, by every man, be more or less clearly perceived, and sensibly /acutely/ felt, in proportion as he thinks of it.

2 By those who, at the time when in the individual instance in question the honor was conferred, were already in possession of it, the expence is felt in a much more acute /intense/ degree. Witness the Dutchess of Northumberland who in the days of George the second was afraid of spitting /durst not spit/ out of her Coach as she passed along the street for fear of spitting upon a Lord.

Evil the second case. Burthen to the co-honored.