29 June 1804

Procedure

25 (4)

Ends

'.5. Ends reducible

Not that in the case of punishment wrongful[?] not in quantity but in quality, the error in quality, ought, in this extended point of view to be regarded as a matter of indifference. It is the advantage and the recommendation of compound[?] modes of punishment, that they are capable of being made commensurate to each other: of simple modes it is the disadvantage - that in general /with reference to each other/ they are incommensurable. In this case though they can not be said to be unequal in quantity, neither can they be said to be equal,

Let the proper punishment, the punishment presented by the legislator be imprisonment for a year: let the punishment im/un/properly substituted to it by the Judge, the punishment made undue in quality, be a fine of ,100. Although the pecuniary circumstances of the party were known, much more when they are unknown, it can not be said that the punishment thus undue in quality, was /is/ in quantity either too great or too little. At the same time /Yet/, that a considerable degree of evil may have been produced by the substitution - a considerable degree of the efficacy of the propert punishment destroyed by it, will appear plain enough from this circumstance; in all cases of a rich and powerful though secret or at any rate unpunishable, accomplice, or set of accomplices, the punishment if it be pecuniary may be reduced to nothing: if by the same forbidden act by which the known agent /discovered actor/ suffers viz: in virtue of such his punishment a loss to the amount of ,100, the secret instigator and protector makes a gain of ,200, the efficacy of the undue /improper/ punishment thus substituted to the property one[?] amounts to nothing. The ,100 if instead of being paid to him out of prison, it had been promised to be given to him to support and comfort him in prison for the appointed time might possibly (it may be said), have been equally efficacious. Possibly: but it is not certain that a man will accept of any sum to live a year in prison, as it is that he will accept ,100 to pay ,100 when he has a pecuniary recompense for it besides.