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Another mischief resulting from the voluminousness
of a System of Laws,[+] [+] when discernible in the Penal Class, is the
opinion + +notion it gives rise to || || it propagates of their severity
The notion is not just, but it is a natural
The more Penal Laws there are in number,
are the greater quantity of punishment there
is supposed to be in the system.
The notion, tho' not just is a natural one:
and is calculated to afford furnish a plausible copious topic for
declamation to superficial observers.
It tends to make the Law odious and unpopular:
and in this view is as mischievous does as much mischief
as if it were better founded. Propagated among the people It raises in
many well disposed minds a fund of disquiet:
which is always a misfortune, be it
entertained with or without just cause. whatever be it's cause whether it have a just cause or not In
this way it is hurtful to the people themselves who
entertain it: it is hurtful in another way
to others as well as themselves: it makes them
unwilling to lend their assistance to the execution of
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the laws: and in this way + + by this means, as the bulk of the people can
not stand to make distinctions, it frustrates the
good effects and enhances the ill effects of
the Law in general.
To Of Legislators as such, it has besides another
ill effect: it teaches then to look for the
cause of an imagined evil, in that so much
has been done already: it teaches bids them to
sit with their hands before them; and not to makes
them not abide the thoughts be unwilling to think of doing any thing
more.
The notion I have said is not a just one?
Severity enough the Law has in many points a point
God is witness: but of this the multitude
of the Statutes inflicting severities, tho an
apparent, is no real proof. Nothing is capable
of being made more manifest.
It is a melancholy truth, says the Author
of the Commentaries, that out of among
the variety of actions which men are
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3
daily liable to committ, no fewer than
160 have been declared, by Act of Parliament,
Felonies without benefit of Clergy".
That somthing is not right, in the Law results certainly
from the observation: not however that is severe
but that it is unsystematical and confused.
By the same means that the number of offences
so made punishable is in fact 160, it might be
any number of times greater, without the and at the same time
the number of persons exposed by the law at
to suffer, and the magnitude of their sufferings
that is, it's severity, be any number of time
less. A single example will make this
clear.
Stealing Madder is made punishable by one
law; stealing Turnips by another: stealing
Potatoes by a 3d. By the same rule that
there is a separate law for each of these 3 articles,
there might be a separate law for every Article
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4
in Miller's Dictionary: and a great many
more might go to the establishing a due
punishment, or a punishment ever so much
short of what is due, for a single branch
(that I mean respecting growing vegetables) of the
single crime of Theft, than the whole Statute-book
contains at present. Tis the
defectiveness of the Law that is proved by these
eternal specifications, and not its amplitude.
One sees by this, how possible it is for
the Jurisprudence of a notion to labour
under the reproach of inordinate severity,
with all the inconveniences of the opposite
defect.
COMPOSIT. Whole together. Number of the Statutes... mis [BR][ ][ ]-chief. produces an opinion of Severity.
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Identifier: | JB/070/095/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 70.
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of laws in general |
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composition. whole together. number of the statutes. mischief produces an opinion of severity |
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jeremy bentham |
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