JB/091/220/001

Click Here To Edit

17 Feby 1808

The apprehension of incapacity on the part of his
learned colleagues – of a degree of incapacity too glaring
to be endured, is not peculiar to the breast of
the Right Honourable and learned Lord. The disease imbecillity,
and along with it the consciousness of its existence, appear
to have been endemial in that seat of superior and supreme learning,
endemial from the beginning.

Turning to a book of practice, "in absence of the Lord
President, one of the ordinary Judges is elected", (I see) by
the Court to preside for the time."

Why elected? by what strange conception be anomaly to
plant every time the President as often as it happens to the President to have a cold the tumult of election on the bench of judicature?
For this plain reason: because had the filling of the vacancy
been left to accident, accident could might at any
time place in this active and conspicuous situation an individual conspicuously
unfit for it of going through the functions with any tolerable
degree of decency.

In one of the two proposed divisions, the number
of Judges seats is to be but seven: in England on the English
Benches in Westminster, five have been known and more
during a the absence of the Chief, or even on the occasion of a
vacancy in the Office, who ever heard of a temporary President vice Chief
the named provided in the way of election by his Colleagues?
this avulse deficit has ever been the motto there.
Are English Bench would It is not in the power of succession to
plant in any of those seats a degree of incapacity incompatible
with decency decorum. An English Bench would By its natural
elasticity an English Bench like a horse, spirited horse, would throw off any such burthen as
the those in the highest seat of Scottish learning seem to have
been condemned to groan under.

Identifier: | JB/091/220/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 91.
Date_1	1808-02-17	Marginal Summary Numbering	25
Box	091	Main Headings	scotch reform
Folio number	220	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	e14
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	iping 1804
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer	bernardino rivadavia
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1804
Notes public		ID Number	29216
Box Contents