10 July 1804

Procedure & Evidence

Note

Evils causes

Intricacy

The causes /suits/ by far the most common of any are as follows

1. In the superior criminal class /department of procedure/ - theft - with or without the circumstances of aggravation which it ----- it ---- robbery housebreaking or burglary. Among crimes punished by the English law with the -- mode if ---- called felony, unclergyable or clergyable, the number of individual crimes of the above description committed in a year is at least 7 /20 or 10/ times as great as that of all other felonious crimes put together.

2. In the inferior criminal or penal class /department/ - assault - (or injurious words spoken or written the number of individual offences of this description taking into account those prosecuted for in what is called the civil mode as well as those prosecuted for in what is called the criminal mode would probably found superior to all other offences under the ---- of felony prosecutable for one or other of those modes.

3. In the non-penal class /department/ debt for goods sold or for money lent on a bill or note of hand and delivered by a shop-keeper to a consumer, the number of these suits commenced could perhaps be found 30, 40 or 80 times as great as that of all other non-penal causes put together But in each of /every one/ of these species of causes the case is most commonly at the utmost or very near the utmost point /pitch/ of simplicity.

1. In the case of theft there is frequently no more than a single witness the owner of the good alleged to be stolen, or suppose another or two to be added the complexity thereby added to the case is, in respect of the additional quantity of time thereby required by the operation of which the evidence is the subject matter, too inconsiderable to be worth taking into the account /noting for this purpose/.

2. In the case of assaults and verbal injuries the same observations apply without any difference worth insisting on.

3. In the case of goods sold and delivered to a consumer upon credit, if at the shop, there will be the master shop-keeper if his testimony be admitted or at any rate his journey-man: if delivered elsewhere, the porter with or without the corresponding evidence derived from the evidence of the Book-keeper confirmed and ----ed by the ---- of his books