JB/121/436/001

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1 Apr. 1802 26
Dispensing power

25
This, though
nonsense, is not
the less punishable

But (says Your Lordship) all this — you
can not deny it for you it is you yourself
that have proved it — is a mere heap of
nonsense — You can not surely — you can not
seriously — mean that a man should be punished
for writing [a letter of] nonsense — and such
nonsense!

Oh, yes my Lord indeed I do — most
seriously: not indeed for nonsense merely as nonsense
but for nonsense inasmuch as it is used for a covering: and such
a covering as has hath fraud [and treachery] and perfidy
and treachery and oppression and usurpation
and a something which it requires candour and not to
com say mercy — to distinguish from treason — and the
very worst sort species of treason — treason against the constitution at the bottom of it.

for that
purpose nothing
but answers could
have served

It is however not strictly
nonsense — only folly.

Note

Selden in his table talk –—speaking of witchcraft
observes that though all witchcraft is impossible, yet
considering how much real mischief may be has been done by such pretence the pretence
that this is no reason why a man should not be punished
for the such pretence of it. If a man should twirl a
hat round and cry buz, saying that the effect of
the twirl and the buz will be that the wearer of the
hat shall pine away and die. Shall not this man
be punished says he? Yes surely — not merely for twirling
the hat, nor for saying buz: but because by the
action and the nonsense it is his study to produce
that lamentable effect which by the false terrors horrific ideas associated with
it the nonsense such nonsense have but too often been produced by it.

the lost term Ghost
which was laid and
punished by Lord Mansfield
conversed by knocks
and scratches. If instead
of these inarticulate sounds
it had conversed and
articulated but nonsensical
sounds such as buz:
would not buz served as
evidences of the conspiracy
as well as the knocks and
scratches?

Identifier: | JB/121/436/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 121.
Date_1	1802-04-01	Marginal Summary Numbering	25
Box	121	Main Headings	Panopticon
Folio number	436	Info in main headings field	Dispensing power
Image	001	Titles
Category	Text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	"Recto" is not in the list (recto, verso) of allowed values for the "Rectoverso" property.	Page Numbering	F26
Penner		Watermarks	1800
Marginals	Jeremy Bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections	Jeremy Bentham	Paper Produced in Year	1800
Notes public		ID Number	001
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