Evidence

18 June 1805

Introd

Regular useless

The Common Law procedure and Equity procedure agree in this that in both such evidence /that evidence/ as the cause affords is extracted in a bad and imperfect manner the end of a course of months or years, which in Summary Procedure is extracted /may frequently/ in the best and most perfect mode possible in as many hours or even minutes.

Such is the fruit and the use of the labours of those two professional men, the Special Pleader and the Equity Draughtsman.

Of this sort is the labour, so directed, so applied such are the labours by which the professional Lawyer is supposed to give himself the best qualification possible that a man can possess for the very highest seats in Judicature.

To a Judge who has /should have/ the interest of truth and justice really at heart the labour of the Special Pleader and the Equity Draughtsman are of as much real use in /may in point of real use be compared with/ the labours of those females who follow the army for the purpose of stripping the dead and wounded after the battle, or to the general who commands it.

There is indeed this difference. The female plunderers do not on either side diminish the chance which the General has of obtaining /shall of the General may give him for/ a victory. But the labours of the male depredators on both sides concur in rendering it impossible for the wisest and most upright of Judges to do any thing better than rendering /administering/ the most enormous and deplorable injustice under the name of justice, of a fictitious and unnecessary vexation, expense and delay done by injustice, under the name of justice.