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55
Letter 12th
Letter XII. Contractor's checks.
The point then being settled, what trades the people
may be employed in, another question my Contractor will ask
is, what powers he is to have put in his hands, as a means of
persuading them to betake themselves to those trades? The shortest way
of answering this question will be, to tell him what powers he shall
not have. not In the first place then, he shall not starve them.
What then! you will say perhaps, do you think it likely that he
would"? — To speak the truth, for my own part I have no great
fear of it. But others perhaps might. Besides my notion is,
that the Law, inguarded guarding itself against men, ought to do just the
contrary of what the Judge should do in trying them: especially
where there is nothing to be lost by it. The business, you know, of
the Judge is to presume them all honest till he is forced to suspect
the contrary: the business of the law is, to conclude them all without
exception, to be the greatest knaves and Villains that can be imagined.
My Contractor, therefore, I make myself sure, would starve them, a
good many of them at least, if he were let alone. He would starve, of
course, all whom he could not make pay for their board, together with
something for his trouble. But, as I should get nothing by this
economy, and might lose some credit by it, I have no mind
it should take place. Bread, though as bad as wholesome bread
can be, they shall have then in plenty: this and water and nothing
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Identifier: | JB/550/176/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 550.
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550 |
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001 |
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