10 June 1804

Procedure (4)

Ch. Basis

' Turkish

The loaf you have been making me pay a penny for (send a boy once to a baker) is not fit to cut: it is full of chalk and fish bones. Give me a shilling for it, replied the baker it will be the best you ever tasted.

The fable is too absurd, to pass even for /as/ a fable. Yet putting only justice for bread, (and surely the story is not mended by it /the change/) thus silly is the story /apology //plea/ which passes for probity and superior wisdom among /reply which is taken or pretended to be taken for wisdom by/ men of law!

The object is to make men cherish /hug //clasp// to their bosoms/ all these abuses which are the obstacles /obstructions/ to good judicature, under the notion of their being necessary to it so many courses necessary to its existence: to propagate an undiscriminating fondness /veneration/ for technical judicature /modes of procedure/ in all its forms /in whatever form it shows itself //they show themselves/ - and to turn with horror from the only just and natural one. Natural justice /judicature //procedure/ - judicature /procedure/ in which you have no more vexation, expence and delay than what is necessary, is the sort of procedure /justice/ they have in Turkey - and you see what they get by it. "An observation One hears continually" (says he) "is - that justice ought to be administered as it is in Turkey. The mmost ignirant of men [...?] (continues he) are the only men upon earth who have seen clearly into /daylight in/ the business of all businesses which it concerns man most to understand /go to the bottom of/.....In Turkey where very little regard is paid to either the property the life or the reputation of the subject, nothing of this sort if worth a thought. disputes of all kinds, are dispatched one way or other in a trice. how they are ended /[...?] nothing/ so they are ended. The [...?] who see through the business at glance /who understand every thing before a word is spoken/ gives plaintiff and defendant so many bastinadoes, and or sends each of them to his[?] home.