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long delayed, let him take comfort in the recollection that less is lost by the postponement of reformation, than would be lost in the struggle consequent upon intemperate measures.

CHAPTER IX.

MORAL LEGISLATION.

Duties of a Ruler-The two objects of moral legislation-Education of the People - Bible Society. Lotteries-Publichouses-Abrogation of bad laws-Primogeniture-Accumulation of property.

Ir a person who considered the general objects of the institution of civil government, were to look over the titles of the acts of a legislature during fifteen or twenty years, he would probably be surprised to find the proportion so small of those of which it was the express object to benefit the moral character of the people. He would find many laws that respected foreign policy, many perhaps that referred to internal political economy, many for the punishment of crime but few that teuded positively to promote the general happiness by increasing the general virtue. This, I say, may be a reasonable subject of surprise, when it is considered that the attainment of this happiness is the original and proper object of all government. There is a general want of advertence to this object, arising in part, perhaps, from the insufficient degree of conviction that virtue is the best promoter of the general weal.

To prevent an evil is always better than to repair it for which reason, if it be in the power of the legislator to diminish temptation or its influence, he will find that this is the most efficacious means of diminishing the offences and of increasing the happiness of a people. He who vigilantly detects and punishes vicious men, does well; but he who prevents them from becoming vicious, does better. It is better, both for a sufferer, for a culprit, and for the community, that a man's purse should remain in his pocket, than that, when it is taken away, the thief should be sure of a prison.

So far as is practicable, a government ought to be to a people, what a judicious parent is to a familynot merely the ruler, but the instructor and the guide. It is not perhaps so much in the power of a government to form the character of a people to virtue or to vice, as it is in the power of a parent to form that of his children. But much can be done if every thing cannot be: and indeed, when we take into account the relative duration of the political body as compared with that of a family, we may have reason to doubt whether governments cannot effect as much in ages as parents can do in years.— Now, a judicious father adopts a system of moral culture as well as of restraint: he does not merely lop the vagrant branches of his intellectual plant, but he trains and directs them in their proper course. The second object is to punish vice-the first to promote virtue. You may punish vice without securing virtue; but, if you secure virtue, the whole work is done.

Yet this primary object of moral legislation is that to which, comparatively, little attention is paid. Penalties are multiplied upon the doers of evil, but little endeavour is used to prevent the commission of evil by inducing principles and habits which overpower the tendency to the commission. In this respect, we begin to legislate at the secondary part of our office rather than at the first. We are political

surgeons, who cut out the tumours in the state, rather than the prescribers of that wholesome regimen by which the diseases in the political body are prevented.

But here arises a difficulty-How shall that political parent teach virtue which is not virtuous itself? The governments of most nations, however they may inculcate virtue in their enactments, preach it very imperfectly by their example.-What then is to be done?" Make the tree good." The first step in moral legislation is to rectify the legislator. It holds of nations as of men, that the beam should be first removed out of our own eye. Laws, in their insulated character, will be but partially effectual, whilst the practical example of a government is bad. To this consideration sufficient attention is not ordinarily paid. We do not adequately estimate the influence of a government's example upon the public character. Government is an object to which we look up as to our superior; and the many interests which prompt men to assimilate themselves to the character of the government, added to the natural tendency of subordinate parts to copy the example of the superior, occasions the character of a govern ment, independently of its particular measures, to be of immense influence upon the general virtue. Illustrations abound. If, in any instance, political subserviency is found to be a more efficient recommendation than integrity of character, it is easy to perceive that subserviency is practically inculcated, and that integrity is practically discouraged.

Amongst that portion, then, of a legislator's office which consists in endeavouring the moral amelioration of a people, the amendment of political institutions is conspicuous. In proportion to the greatness of the influence of governments, is the obligation to direct that influence in favour of virtue. A government of which the principles and practice were accordant with rectitude, would very powerfully affect the general morals. He, therefore, who explodes one vicious principle, or who amends one corrupt practice, is to be regarded as amongst the most useful and honourable of public men.

If, however, in any state there are dicffiulties, at present insurmountable, in the way of improving political institutions, still let us do what we can. Precept without example may do some good: nor are we to forget, that if the public virtue is increased by whatever means, it will react upon the governing power. A good people will not long tolerate a bad government.

Amongst the most obvious means of rectifying the general morals by positive measures, one is the encouraging a judicious education of the people. Upon this judiciousness almost all its success depends. The great danger in undertaking a national system of education, is, that some peculiar notions will be instilled for political purposes, and that it will be converted into a source of patronage. In a word, the great danger is, that national education should become, like national churches, an ally of the state; and if this is done, the system will inevitably become, if not corrupt, lamentably alloyed with corruption. It does not seem as if the people of this country would countenance any endeavour to institute an education like this, because an attempt has been made, and the public voice was lifted successfully against it. A government, if it would rightly provide for the education of the community, must forget the peculiarities of creeds, political or religious. It must regard itself not as the head of a party, but as the parent of the people.

We know that schools exist which import an important and valuable education to the poor, and to which men of all principles and all creeds are willing

to subscribe. Here is effected much good with little or no evil. The great defect is in the limited extent of the good. The public cannot or do not give enough of their money to provide education for all. Is there, then, any sufficient reason why a govern. ment should not supply the deficiency; or why it should not undertake the whole, and leave private bounty to flow in other channels? The great difficulty is to provide for the purity of the employment of the funds for this employment may be made an ally of the petty politics of a town, as the whole institution may be made an ally of the state. However, as the annual grants to almost all such institutions would be small, it might perhaps escape that universal bane. One thing would be indispensableto provide that the authority by which appointments to masterships, &c., are made, should be studiously constituted with a view to the exclusion of every motive but the single object of the institution. Whether it is possible to exclude improper motives may be doubted; but it is perhaps as possible to exclude them from those as from the many institutions which the public money now supports. There is one way indeed in which education may be promoted with little danger of this petty corruption-by the purchase of land and erection of school-houses. This, together with the supply of books and the like, forms a principal item in the expense of these schools: and it might be hoped that, if the government did this, the public would do the remainder.

But you say, All this will add to the national burdens. We need not be very jealous on this head, whilst we are so little jealous of more money worse spent. Is it known, or is it considered, that the expense of an ordinary campaign would endow a school in every parish in England and Ireland for ever? Yet how coolly (who will contradict me if I say how needlessly?) we devote money to conduct a campaign!-Prevent, by a just and conciliating policy, one single war, and the money thus saved would provide, perpetually, a competent mental and moral education for every individual who needs it in the three kingdoms. Let a man for a moment indulge his imagination-let him rather indulge his reason, in supposing that one of our wars during the last century had been avoided, and that, fifty years ago, such an education had been provided. Of what comparative importance is the war to us now? In the one case, the money has provided the historian with materials to fill his pages with armaments, and victories, and defeats;-it has enabled us

To point a moral or adorn a tale;

-in the other, it would have effected, and would be now effecting, and would be destined for ages to effect, a great amount of solid good; a great increase of the virtue, the order, and the happiness of the people.

I suppose that the British and Foreign Bible Society, during the twenty or thirty years that it has existed, has done more direct good in the worldhas had a greater effect in meliorating the condition of the human species-than all the measures which have been directed to the same ends, of all the prime ministers in Europe during a century. But suppose much less than this, suppose it has done more good than the moral measures of any one court, and will not this single and simple fact prove that much more is in the power of the legislature than he is accustomed to think; and prove too, that there is an unhappy want of advertence amongst the conductors of governments to some of the most interesting and important duties of their office? With what means has this amount of moral good in all quarters of the earth been effected? Why, with a revenue that

never amounted to a hundred thousand pounds in any one year! A sum which, if we compare it with sums that are expended for measures of very questionable utility, is really trifling. Supposing that the legis lature of this country had given an annual fifty thousand pounds to this institution, no man surely will dispute that the sums would have done incalculably more good in our own country-to say nothing of the world--than fifty thousand pounds of public money ordinarily effects. In passing, it may be observed too, that such an appropriation of money by a government, would probably do much in propitiating the friendliness and good offices of other

nations.

"No consideration of emolument can be put in competition with the morals of a nation; and no minister can be justified, either on civil or religious grounds, in rendering the latter subservient to the former." "'* Such a truth should be brought into practical operation. If it had been, lotteries in England had not been so long endured-if it were, the prodigious multitudes of public-houses would not be endured now. That these haunts and schools of vice are pernicious, no one doubts. Why is an excess of them permitted?-They increase the revenue. "Emolument is put in competition with morals," and it prevails. Even on grounds of political economy, however, the evil is great-for they materially diminish the effective labour of the population. If to this we add the multitudes whom the idleness of drunkards throws upon the parishes, perhaps as much is really lost in wealth by this penny-wise policy, as is lost in virtue. Besides, all needless alehousekeepers are dead-weights upon the national industry. They contribute as little to the wealth of the state as he who lives upon the funds.

"It would be no injustice," says Playfair, "i. publicans were prevented from legal recovery for beer or spirits consumed in their houses; in the same manner that payment cannot be enforced of any person under twenty-one years of age, except for necessaries." This, however, were to attempt to cure one evil by another. It were a practical encouragement of continual fraud. The short and simple way is to refuse licenses, and to take care that those who have the power of licensing shall exercise it justly.

This sound proposition, that neither on 66 civil nor religious grounds" is it right to consult policy at the expense of morals, is, as we have seen, at the basis of political truth. Here, then, let Political Truth be applied. It will be found, by the farseeing legislator, to be expedient as well as right.

Bishop Warburton says, "Though a multiplication of good laws does nothing against a general corruption of manners, yet the abrogation of bad ones greatly promotes reformation." The truth of the first clause is very disputable: the last is unquestionably true. This abrogation of bad laws, forms a very important part of moral legislation; and unhappily, it is a part which there are peculiar difficulties in effecting. There are few bad laws of which there are not some persons who are interested in the continuance. The interests of these persons, the supineness of others, the pride of a third class, and the superstitious attachment of a fourth to ancient things, occasion many laws to remain on the statute books of nations, long after their perniciousness has

been ascertained.

Gifford: Life of Pitt.

+ Causes of Decline of Nations, 4to, p. 226. Letters to Bishop Hurd, No. 32.

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Thus it has happened in our own country with respect to the game laws. It is perfectly certain that they greatly increase the vices of the people, and yet they remain unrepealed. Why? Voluble answers can no doubt be given, but they will generally be resolvable into vanity or selfishness. The legislator who shall thoroughly amend the game laws, (perhaps thorough amendment will not be far from abolition,) will be a greater benefactor to his country than multitudes who are rewarded with offices and coronets.

Thus, too, it has happened with the system of primogeniture. The two great effects of this system are, first, to increase the inequality of property, and next to perpetuate the artificial distinctions of rank.

That the existing inequality of property is a great political and moral evil, it was attempted in the third chapter of the preceding essay to show. The means of diminishing this inequality, which in that chapter were urged as an obligation of private life, are not likely to be fully effectual so long as the law encourages its continuance. A man who possesses an

Affection

estate in land dies without a will. He has two sons. Why should the law declare that one of these should be rich and the other poor? Is it reasonable? Is it just? As to its reasonableness, I discover no conceivable reason why, because one brother is born a twelvemonth before another, he should possess ten times as much property as the younger. dictates equality; and in such cases the dictate of affection is commonly the dictate of reason. We have seen, what antecedently to enquiry we might expect, that the practical effects are bad. Civil laws ought, as moral guides of the community, to discourage great inequality of property. How then shall we sufficiently deplore a system which expressly encourages and increases it? Some time ago, (and probably at the present day,) the laws of Virginia did not permit one son to inherit the landed estates of his father to the exclusion of his brothers. The effect was beneficial, for it actually diminished the disparity of property.* We, however, not only do not forbid the descent of estates to one son, but we actually ordain it. It were sufficient, surely, to allow private vanity to have its own will in "keeping up a family" at the expense of sense and virtue, without encouraging it to do this by legal enactments when it might otherwise be more wise. The descent of intestates' estates in land to the elder son has the effect of an example, and of inducing vicious notions upon those who make their wills. That which is habitual to the mind as a provision of the law, acquires a sort of sanction and fictitious propriety, by which it is recommended to the public.

The partial distribution of intestates' estates is, however, only of casual operation. Of the laws which make certain estates inalienable, or, which is not very different, allow the present possessor to entail them, the effect is constant and habitual. To prevent a reasonable and good man from making that division of his property which reason and goodness prescribe, is a measure which, if it be adopted, ought surely to be recommended by very powerful considerations. And what are they-except that they enable or oblige a man to keep up the splendour of his family? Splendour of family! Oh! to what an ignis fatuus, to what a pitiable scheme of vanity, are affection, and reason, and virtue, obliged

The Virginians singularly confounded good moral legislation with bad, for they made a law declaring all landed property inviolable. The consequence was what might have been expected many got into debt and remained quietly on their estates, laughing at their creditors..

to bow! Where is the man who will stand forward and affirm that this splendour is dictated by a regard to the proper dignity of our nature? Where is he who will affirm that it is dictated by sound principles of virtue?-Where, especially, is he who will affirm that it is dictated by religion? It has nothing to do with religion, nor virtue, nor human dignity: religion despises it as idly vain; morality reprobates it as sacrificing sense and affection to vanity; dignity rejects it as a fictitious and unworthy substitute for itself. Yet, perhaps, this humiliating motive of vanity is the most powerful of those which induce attachment to the system of primogeniture, or which would occasion opposition to attempts at reform. Perhaps it will be said, that to make the real estate of a man inalienable is really a kindness to his successors, by preventing him from squandering it away-to which the answer is, that there is no more reason for preventing the extravagance of those who possess much property than of those who possess little. No legislature thinks of enacting that a man who has two thousand pound in the funds shall not sell it and spend it if he thinks fit. In general, men take care of their property without compulsion from the law; and if it is affirmed that the heads of great families are more addicted to this profusion and extravagance than other men, it will only additionally show the mischiefs of excessive possessions. Why should they be more addicted to it unless the temptations of greatness are unusually powerful, and unusually prevail?

But it will be said, that the system is almost necessary to an order of nobility. I am sorry for it. If, as is probably at present the case, that order is expedient in the political constitution, and if its weight in the constitution must be kept up by the system of primogeniture, I do not affirm that, with respect to the peerage, this system should be at present abolished. But then let the enlightened man consider whither these considerations lead him. If a system essentially irrational and injurious, is indispensable to a certain order of mankind, what is it but to show that, in the constitution of that order itself, there is something inherently wrong? Something that, if the excellence of mankind were greater, it would be found desirable to amend? Nor here, in accordance with that fearless pursuit of truth, whether welcome or unwelcome, which I propose to myself in these pages, can I refrain from the remark, that in surveying from different points the constituent principles of an order of peers, we are led to one and the same conclusion-that there is in these principles something really and inherently wrong; something which adapts the order to an imperfect, and only to an imperfect, state of mankind.

If then we grant the propriety of an exception in the case of the peerage, we do not grant it with respect to other men. Much may be done to diminish the inequality of property, and with it to diminish the vices of a people, by abolishing the system of primogeniture except in the case of peers.

Of so great ill consequence is excessive wealth, and the effect to which it tends, excessive poverty, that a government might perhaps rightly discountenance the accumulation of extreme personal property. Probably there is no means of doing this, without an improper encroachment upon liberty, except by some regulations respecting wills. I perceive nothing either unreasonable or unjust in refusing a probate for an amount exceeding a certain sum. Supposing the law would allow no man to bequeath more than a given sum, what would be the ill effect? That it would discourage enterprising industry? That industry is of little use which extends its desires of accumulation to an amount that

has no limit. The man of talent and application, after he had so far benefited himself and his country by his exertions or inventions, as to acquire such property as would procure for him all the accommodations of life which he could rationally enjoy, may retire from the accumulation of more, and leave the result of his talents to bring comfort and competence to other men. It may be said, that a man might still accumulate a larger sum to dispose of before his death:-So he might; but few would do it. Of those who are ambitious of so much more than conduces to the welfare of themselves and their children, few would continue to toil in order to give it away. Benevolence does not generally form a part of the motives to such accumulation. If once the law refused the bequest of more than a fixed sum, by appropriating the excess to the exigencies of the state, or to measures of public utility, men would learn to set limits to their desires. That restless pursuit of wealth which is pernicious to the pursuer and to other men, would be powerfully checked; and he who had acquired enough, might habitually give place to the many who had too little. The writer of these pages makes no pretensions to a knowledge of the minute details of moral legislation. It is his business, in a case like this, whilst enforcing the end only to suggest the means. Other and better means of diminishing the inequality of property than those which have just been alluded to, may probably be discovered by practical men. But of the end itself it becomes the writer of morality to speak with earnestness and with confidence.* It admits of neither dispute nor doubt, that in our own country, and in many others, there subsist extremes of wealth and poverty which are highly injurious to private virtue and to the public good; and therefore it admits neither of dispute nor doubt, that the endeavour to diminish these extremes, is an important, (unhappy-that it is also a neglected!) branch of moral legislation.

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IN considering this great subject the enquirer after truth is presented, as upon some kindred subjects, with one great pervading difficulty. If he applies the conclusions of abstract truth, such is the imperfect condition of mankind, that it loses a portion of its practical adaptation to its object. If he deviates from this truth, where shall he seek for a director of his judgment? He is left to roam amongst endless speculations, where nothing is to be found with the impress of certain rectitude.

The dictate of simple truth respecting the Administration of Justice is, that if two men differ upon

The legal division of the personal property of intestates admits of easy amendment. Two men die, of whom each leaves six thousand pounds behind him. One has a wife and one child, and the other a wife and eight children. It can hardly be rational to give to the widow in both these cases the same share of the property. In one or two nations the law gives a third of the income of the real estates, in addition, to the widow; but better regulations even than this were easily devised.

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a question of property or of right, that decision should be made between them which Justice, in that specific case, requires; that if a person has committed a public offence, that punishment should be awarded which his actual deserts and the proper objects of punishment demand.

But if this truth is applied in the present state of society, it is found so difficult to obtain judges who will apply the sound principles of equity, judges who will exercise absolute discretionary power without improper biasses, that the enquirer is fearful to pronounce a judgment respecting the rule which should regulate the administration of justice.

Men, seeing the difficulties to which an attempt to administer simple equity is exposed, have advanced as a fundamental maxim-that the law shall be made by one set of men and its execution entrusted to another thus endeavouring, on the one hand, to prevent rules from being made under the bias resulting from the contemplation of particular cases, and on the other, to preclude the appliers of the rules from the influence of the same bias, by obliging them to decide according to a preconcerted law.

But, when we have gone thus far-when we have allowed that questions between man and man shall be decided by a rule that is independent of the merits of the present case, we have departed far from the pure dictate of rectitude. We have made the standard to consist not of justice but of law; and having done this, we have opened wide the door to the entrance of injustice. And it does enter indeed!

The consideration of this state of things indicates one satisfactory truth-that we should pursue the rule of abstract rectitude to the utmost of our power; that we should constantly keep in view, that whatever decision is made upon any other ground than that of simple justice, it is so far defeating the object for which Courts of Justice are established: and therefore, that in whatever degree it is practicable to find men who will decide every specific question according to the dictates of justice upon that question, in the same degree it is right to supersede the application of inferior principles.

Am I then sacrificing the fundamental principles upon which the morality of these Essays is founded? Am I, at last, conceding that expediency ought to take precedence of rectitude? No: but I am saying, that if the state of human virtue is such that not one can be found to judge justly between his brethrenmen must judge as justly as they can, and a legislator must contrive such boundaries and checks for those who have to administer justice, as shall make the imperfection of human virtue as little pernicious as he may. If this virtue were perfect, courts of law might perhaps safely and rightly be shut up. There would be a rule of judgment preferable to law; and law itself, so far as it consists of absolute rules for the direction of decisions between man and man, might almost be done away.

Now, in considering the degree in which this great desideratum-the substitution of justice for lawcan be effected, let us be especially careful that we throw no other impediments in the way of justice than those which are interposed by the want of purity in mankind. Let us never regard a system of administering justice as fixed, so that its maxims shall not be altered whenever an increase of purity dictates that an alteration may be made. All the existing national systems of administering justice are imperfect and alloyed;-a mixture of evil and good. It were sorrowful indeed to assume that they cannot be, or to provide that they shall not be, amended.

The system in this country, like most systems which are the gradual accretion of the lapse of ages, is incongruous in its different parts. In the decisions

that are founded upon legal technicalities, the method of applying absolute uniform law is adopted. In the assessment of damages there is exercised very great discretionary power. In pronouncing verdicts upon prisoners, juries are scarcely allowed any discretion at all. They say absolutely either not guilty or guilty. Then again, discretion is entrusted to the judge, and he may pronounce sentences of imprisonment or of transportation, varying according to his judgment in their duration or circumstances. The reader should well observe this admission of discretionary power to the judicial court, because it is a practical acknowledgment that considerations of equity are indispensable to the administration of justice, whatever may be the multiplicity or precision of the laws. Our judges are entrusted, on the circuits, with the discretionary power of commuting capital punishments or leaving the offender for execution. This is equivalent to an acknowledgment, that even the most tremendous sanctions of the state are more safely applied upon principles of equity than upon principles of Law. Let the reader bear this in his mind.

Of the general tendency and attendant evils of uniform law, some illustrations have been offered in the preceding Essay, and some observations have been offered in the chapter on Arbitration, on the advantages of administering justice upon principles of equity, that is, by a large discretionary power. Now it will be our business to enquire into some of the reasonings by which the application of uniform law is recommended-to illustrate yet further the moral claims of Courts of Equity, and to show if we can that some greater approximation to the adoption of these courts is practicable even in the present condition of mankind.

legal men, so that a person may present his "case" ! to three or four able lawyers in succession, and receive from each a different answer. Nay, if several should agree when they are applied to as judges in the case, it is found, when a person comes into court, that counsel can find legal arguments, and unanswerable arguments too, on both sides of the question, till at last the question is decided, not by a fixed law, but by a preponderance of weight of conflicting precedents. Indeed the unfixedness of the law is practically so great, that common fame has made it a proverb.

Another inconvenience which is inseparable from the use of fixed rules is, that they almost preclude a court from attending sufficiently to one very important point in the administration of justice, the intention of offending parties. Law says, if a man steals another person's watch under such and such circumstances, he shall receive such and such a punishment. Yet the guilt of two men who steal watches under the same visible circumstances, is often totally disproportionate; and this disproportion indicates the propriety of corresponding gradations of penalty. Yet fixed law awards the same penalty to both. If it is said that a court may take intention and motives into the account in its sentence, so it may; but in whatever degree it does this, in the same degree it acknowledges the incompetency and inaptitude of fixed laws.

"The motives and intentions of the parties." When we consider that the personal guilt of a inan depends more upon these than upon bis simple acts, and consequently that these rather than his acts indicate his deserts, it appears desirable that human tribunals should measure their punishments as much by a reference to actual deserts as is consistent with the public good. I would not undertake to affirm that the guilt of the offender is to us the ultimate standard of just punishment, because it may be necessary to the prevention of crimes, that of two offences equal in guilt, one should be punished more severely than another, on account of the greater facilities for its commission-that is, on account of the greater impracticability of guarding against the offence, or of detecting the offender after it is committed. But, in speaking of the propriety of adverting to intention, this is not the point in view. I speak not of the difference between two classes of crimes, but of the actual motives, inducements, and temptations of the individual offender. Stealing five pounds worth of property in sheep, although it may be no more vicious, as an act, than stealing a five-pound note from the person, may perhaps be rightly visited with a severer punishment. This is one thing But two men may each steal a sheep with very different degrees of personal guilt. This is another. And this is the point of which we speak. A man who is able to maintain himself in respectability, but will not apply himself to an honest occu

The administration of justice, according to a previously made rule, labours under this fundamental objection, that it assumes a knowledge in the maker of the rule which he does not possess. It assumes that he can tell beforehand, not only what is a good decision in a certain class of questions, but what is the best; and the objection appears so much the more palpable, because it assumes, that a party who judges a case before it exists, can better tell what is justly due to an offended, or an offending person, than those who hear all the particulars of the individual case. This objection, which it is evident can never be got over, is practically felt and acknowledged. Every relaxation of a strict adherence to the law, every concession of discretionary power to juries or to courts, is an acknowledgment of the inherent inadequacy and impropriety of fixed rules. You perceive that no fixed rules can define and discriminate justly for specific cases. Multiply them as you may, the gradations in the demands for equitable decision will multiply yet faster; so that you are forced at last to concede something to equity, though perhaps there has not hitherto been conceded enough. Our Court of Chancery was origi-pation-who lives by artifices, or frauds, or thefts, nally, and still is called a Court of Equity, the erection of which court is paying a sort of tacit homage to equity as superior to law, and making a sort of tacit acknowledgment how imperfect and inefficient the fundamental principles of fixed law are. It is perhaps a subject of regret that this court is now a court of equity rather in name than in fact. It proceeds, in a great degree, according to the rule of precedent; one of the principal differences between its practical character and that of legal courts being, that in one a jury decides questions, and in the other a judge.

And after all, the fixedness of the law is much less in practice than in theory. We all know how various and contradictory are the "opinions" of

or gambling, or contracting debts, watches night after night an opportunity to carry off sheep from an inclosure. He succeeds, and spends the value in drunkenness, or at a bagnio. A man of decent character who, in a period of distress, endeavours in vain to procure employment or bread-who pawns, day after day, his furniture, his clothing, his bed, to obtain food for his children and his wife-who finds at last that all is gone, and that hunger continues its demands-passes a sheep field. The thought of robbing starts suddenly before him, and he as suddenly executes it. He carries home the meat, and is found by the police hastily cutting slices for his voracious family. Ought these two men to receive ¦ the same punishment? It is impossible. Justice,

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