JB/031/193/001

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1828 Sept. 10
Blackstone

Ch. Judiciary [& Procedure]?
(13) 4 Actors & Functionaries
II. Prehensors
Prehensable. Defendants Yes
Witnesses, not.

Thus it was convenient
that Defendants shd be
prehensible — not so
Witnesses.

Thus it is, that to those by whom and of course for whom
laws under Law as it is, laws are and ever have been
made it was convenient and agreable that Defendants (proper exception excepted)
should be subjected to prehension; not so, that Witness
should.

Prehension of consequence
as regards length of confinement,
which depends
on sort of judicatory or distance
of it &c. To deal with thus with
witnesses 'too bad' Noble & Rvd
Lords &c.

This difference would not have been so considerable —
no — nothing near so considerable were it not for the grave consequences
given to prehension — the consequence in respect of length of
confinement. Prehended for ab debt or peccadillo, debt or
no debt, peccadillo or no peccadillo a man remains endurance
durance, for winter, for half a year or a whole one [according to circumstances which have nothing to do
with the matter] according as the judicatory (the Court says Law as it is) is called by such or
such a name, or the scene of action was lay at this or that distance
from the metropolis — [seat of chosen judicature.] So
far so good: men were used to it: higher orders, to act it
higher and lower orders to suffer it: thus far then every thing was as it should be.
But witnesses — thus to deal with witnesses? that (as a Lord
Liverpool might have said) would have been too bad: Honorable
Gentlemen, Noble Lords, Right Revered Lords, Most Revered
Lords — keep such men in a Jail for six months and twelve
months together, for nothing at all, at the pleasure of every Attorney
that can get a man to pay him for it? The very idea imagination of
such a thing is enough to turn one giddy.

Per unlearned, why not
take him before Judge instead
of jail or Spunging house
as is the case before a Justice

Well but (says say our unlearned reader, and has been saying
so for these some several pages back — be the man a defender witness
be the man a defendant, keep him in jail for a twelve month
together without hearing him? what's the use of that tell
us, my Lord Judge — what's the use of that. When a
man is taken up whether it be to make answer to a demand,
made upon himself — whether it be to give evidence as to a demand
made upon another man, why can not he as well be what, the reason he can not
brought taken before to your Lordship in Court, as to a Jailor, or
the Keeper of a Spunging House. Had the demand been made before a Justice
Justice of the Peace, the man defendant
as soon as taken up, would
have been taken before the
Justice — sent to a Jail in
the first instance, or to in any
case to a Spunging House.

Identifier: | JB/031/193/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 31.
Date_1	1828-09-10	Marginal Summary Numbering	not numbered
Box	031	Main Headings	civil code
Folio number	193	Info in main headings field	blackstone
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	c13 / c4
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	b&m 1828
Marginals	richard doane	Paper Producer	arthur moore; richard doane
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1828
Notes public		ID Number	9879
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