JB/119/314/001

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1 Panopticon Bill. Introductory Obser<hi rend="superscript">ons

The texture of this Bill may perhaps be observed to be in some respects not altogether
of a piece with the patterns in common use.

The difference, if it should be found to consist in nothing but the rendering the matter
so much the easier to refer to, the expression so much the more intelligible, unambiguous & comprehensive,
as well as concise, so much the better adapted, in a word, to all the ends of language,
will I hope not be deemed an objection, at least not a conclusive one: if it should, I would
undertake if required, arduous as the task may be, to dress it up in the most prevailing stile:
and I would beg to be allowed to do so, rather than that that part of a business in which
I am so nearly concerned should pass into other hands: having had such manifold occasion
to observe that the customary superfluities are commonly bought at the expence not only of
conciseness & apprehensibility, but (strange as it may seem) even of comprehensiveness &
precision.//

What I have saved in pleonasms, I have spent in reasons: which, as the practice is
not without precedent, will I hope, as far as the indulgence is thought reasonable, be preserved.
According to an established rule of interpretation, or as Lawyers call it, construction, as often as
a Preamble happens to contain matter from whence any thing in the shape of a reason seems
capable of being extracted, that reason is laid hold of, and made the most of. Reasons
being therefore always looked out for in Parliamentary compositions, and by Lawyers, I hope
it will not be thought either unparliamentary or unlawyerlike to give them: especially so long as
they take up no more than a small part of the room made by the throwing out of a species
of matter which is worse than useless.

//The case is, that, of the undertaking to give more than is necessary, a consequence as
natural as at first glance it may seem otherwise, is the giving less than is sufficient. For,
the more voluminous the plan of phraseology adopted is, the more in danger it is of not
being uniformly kept up to. The practice of heaping up at every turn strings of specific
enumerations, which are already superseded by concomitant terms, or might be so by a
generic expression once for all defined, is accordingly an inexhaustible mine of deficiency and
imperfection.

So likewise, as to what concerns more unconsequential redundancies; if, for example,
instead of the simple word shall, it were deemed necessary to legal effect, or more
congenial to legislative dignity, to put at every turn, it is hereby further enacted & declared
by the authority aforesaid that it shall and may be lawful to and for ..... and the said
..... is hereby authorized and required, and so on without end, I should not
despair, with the assistance of some experienced Attorney's Clerk, paying him by the time
to muster up legal knowledge enough for the purpose: but untill ordered to make such
corrections, I shall hold myself excused.

Identifier: | JB/119/314/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 119.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	119	Main Headings	panopticon
Folio number	314	Info in main headings field	panopticon bill
Image	001	Titles
Category	copy/fair copy sheet	Number of Pages	4
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f1 / f2 / f3 / f4
Penner		Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	39825
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