8 Apr 1806

Evidence

Exclusion

Ch. [...?] Cause

In /For/ a vast majority of the causes /disputes/ /judicial contests/ to which human weakness or improbity gives birth, a single attendance, was understood of both parties in the presence of each other and of the Judge is sufficient for decision: a single attendance, and the duration of it, upon an average, not more than a few minutes. The fee that without /with any/ exciting clamour could be exacted in return for so small a part of the Judge's time, would go but a small way towards satisfying his appetite /rapacity/ for money, especially where the opulence of the parties operated as a provocation: - To multiply fees it became necessary to multiply occasions for fees: to make money, it became necessary to make business.

By the indirect course thus taken for making money the quantity /degree/ of oppression was encreased /aggravated/ beyond calculation: tenfold, twentyfold, a hundred fold, a thousand fold or more according to circumstances. To get 5 to put into his own pocket, an /the/ architect who is paid by a percentage of 5 per cent, is /must/ obliged to put his employer to an /the/ expence of 100. Thus grievous to the party injured is peculation pro rata compared with simple embezzlement or theft. But this load of oppression produced by the made-business made by the architect is but a feather, compared with that which is produced by the made business made by the Judge. A more apposite parallel is afforded by the selfish man of Lord Bacon[?], the man who to avail one egg for himself sets his neighbour's house on fire.

The natural system of judicial procedure is happily not altogether unknown in any country: in particular not in England. It is the same with the domestic. The restoration or preservation of it stands happily exemplified in the practice of several Courts, which there will presently be occasion to bring to view. The system by which the art of making business has been carried to /brought to so disastrous/ a pitch of such unhappy perfection may be called the technical system.