JB/149/052/001

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This comes of a species of rebellion which it
is high time were quelled. Bear witness (says Parliament)
and you shall be paid: and if you are
to be paid you shall not bear witness, say the judges, we will not hear you.
Society would not hold together, even in as the loose
way we see it hold it does at present, if the same workshop
which furnishes the folly did not furnish a fraud
here and there, to defeat it. By Quelling this
rebellion would besides that shut moreover, have the further good effect of closing up a man of perjury.
Were the reward payable for causing conviction to be made to the man on whose
testimony conviction is to depend, it would be in
vain for him to swear that he had no expectation
of receiving it – the perjury would be too
palpable: but as it is to be paid made payable to the informer
that is to a man of straw who⊞ ⊞ according to the nature of the prosecution knows nothing of
the matter is employ'd to tell the story by hearing
or simply to suffer his name to be made use of,
this proof of perjury does not exist is got rid of: yet if
the witness upon being asked whether he expects to get has any expectation of
profiting any thing by for his testimony did not deny it he
would be rejected: yet if it had it were that
he had no such expectation – that is if he had
not come resolved to perjure himself, he never
would have come at all.

Should it be asked, how is it that under such rules
of time thus framed, society can subsist? The answer is –
purely because they destroy one another, but principally
because they are unknown.

Were it possible
that the body of the
laws being what it is
could be universally
known and being universally known
for what it is could re
continue unamended remain unchanged, so
sure as it were thus known,
so sure would society be
deplored. destroyed.

Identifier: | JB/149/052/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 149.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	149	Main Headings	poor law
Folio number	052	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles	note
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	d7
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	g&ep 1794
Marginals		Paper Producer	fr3
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year	1794
Notes public	[[notes_public::"quere or inserendum" [note in bentham's hand]]]	ID Number	49906
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