JB/091/219/001

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14 Feby 1808

At any time, or at all times, accident may have
furnished the the Court of Session with the elements of aptitude – up to
any degree of perfection: but the with the exception of the situation of Lord President, and Lords
of Justiciary, making together six out of the fifteen, if any such
qualification be to be found in any greater degree than that in which they would be collared by a press-gang, if commissioned for that purpose, to accident, not to design, will the thanks be due.

In the present Bill, I a provision is made by one of the
clauses that in each of the two Inner House judicatories called divisions,
there shall be a number, and that an equal one, of those same Lords of
Justiciary. In the a Court of Justiciary, Court, travelling
all over the Country, and frequently with no more than a
single seat in it, it is not possible for a man to fill occupy
a place for any considerable length of time, without being
finding it necessary to exhibit symptoms of thinking – to
put himself to the expence of thought.

At Edinburgh in the fixt judicatories, est ,
est et pluribis . Eight seats may there
be seen, in which the faculty of thinking is a superfluous
endowment, belongs to the catalogue of superfluities.

Lords of Justitiary, having each of them not only
to sit but to speak in public, and having Jurors in
causes of the highest importance – even in capital causes
to direct, stand thus far, in respect of the necessity
of not being altogether destitute of the elements of
judicial aptitude, upon a level with English Judges –
with English Judges. In term time it is not necessary
to those learned persons any such learned persons, unless occasionally to the Juror foreman, to have any voice at all,
or any opinion but that of any Lord Chief Justice. But
on the Circuit, by whatsoever is done by him in his name by him
it must be done: and the Jury Box – the receptacle implement
from which I observe learned Lords shrinking, like the unmathematicable
schoolboy from the ass's-bridge, is among the
tools which he must know how to work upon and to work with.

So far as regards concerns individuals,
and any such operation
to the pronouncing
or forming any sort of
judgment concerning the
aptitude of this or that
one of those learned persons
for the situation
filled by them, no
man can be more
completely destitute than myself of
all pretension, as if
all desire, to charge
himself with any such
invidious and needless
office: but a
sort of judgement that seems appears
to have been formed and
pronounced on this head
taking the on part
of the mass of learning
in globo, a judgment
framed by the Lord
Chancellors learned draughtsman,
under the guidance
of the his
Right Honourable Oracle
in the Court of Session
whose seat is in the spot
may on this occasion
have some claim to notice.

Identifier: | JB/091/219/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 91.
Date_1	1808-02-14	Marginal Summary Numbering	22-24
Box	091	Main Headings	scotch reform
Folio number	219	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e13
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	th 1806
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer	andre morellet
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1806
Notes public		ID Number	29215
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