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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow SECTION XVI.: APPROPRIATE INTERCOURSE, CONSTANT AND UNIVERSAL, SECURED. - The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3

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SECTION XVI.: APPROPRIATE INTERCOURSE, CONSTANT AND UNIVERSAL, SECURED. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 3.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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SECTION XVI.

APPROPRIATE INTERCOURSE, CONSTANT AND UNIVERSAL, SECURED.

Enactive.—Ratiocinative.

Art. 1. For securing intercourse, at all times, between all parties concerned,—Judge and his subordinates on the one part, individuals in the several capacities of parties litigant and extraneous witnesses on the other,—it is thus enacted:—

Art. 2. No person who has once made his appearance in the Justice-Chamber in the presence of the Judge, shall be suffered to depart until he has given sufficient security for his eventual attendance therein, unless and except in so far as for special cause left at liberty by the Judge.

Expositive.—Ratiocinative.

Art. 3. On this as on every other occasion, would you avoid making choice of the greatest instead of the least evil? Then, whatever you do under the notion of compelling the party to do what ought to be done by him, take care that he has notice of it: that is to say, that the virtual mandate on which you profess to rely as that by which his inducement to compliance is constituted, be really present to his mind: in a word that the notice may be real, not merely nominal; that he may really have notice, not merely be said to know. For this purpose it is that the above provision is made.*

Enactive.

Art. 4. From every examinee, at the first time of his attendance on the occasion of the suit in question, antecedently to his departure, the Judge will require and exact the indication of his House of Call; that is to say, a house at which letters sent by the LETTER post will, accidents excepted, be sure to reach him; and at which, for the purposes of notice, it will be presumed that such letters will have been delivered at the times at which by the post in question letters are customarily delivered.

Art. 5. For and during the time during which it may happen that, for the purposes of the suit in question, need of his attendance may have place, such presumption will continue.

[* ]Turn now to the existing system, in regard to notice.

1. For the giving of notice on each individual occasion, the Judge of the Dispatch Court is provided with adequate means,—namely, those which common sense, when there is no sinister purpose to answer, employs of course; those means being suited to the particular circumstances of each individual case; and having nothing to get by avoiding to employ them, his employing them, and to the best advantage, is a matter of course.

2. Under the existing system, the Equity Judge, as well as every other Judge, having much to get by these as well as all other notices not being received, takes care accordingly to avoid being provided with the means proper for causing them to be received: the place to which he sends the information is any place other than that at which at the time in question the man is, in relation to whom the pretended wish is that he shall receive it. Uttered by word of mouth, it is uttered by proclamation in some place in which at the time it is sure that he will not be. Uttered in black and white, it is caused to be printed in some paper—London Gazette, for instance—on which it is sure he will not cast an eye: and as these modes of avoiding to communicate information will serve in equal perfection in one case as in another, hence the advantage of doing the thing by general rules.

3. As to the use derived by the learned marksman from thus missing the mark, it lies not assuredly very deep below the surface. Were the party to know what it is that is required of him, he might do it: in which case, those good things would not be got which are got by his not doing it. Not knowing what it is that is required of him—meaning always what is pretended to be required of him—he omits doing it. Thereupon, if he has land, you lay hold upon his land; and good things in plenty you find means to make out of it: if he has no land, when the worst comes to the worst, he has at any rate a body; and if along with this body of his, he has money, or money’s worth, at command, the more and the longer you plague him, the more money out of him you get.

4. If and when thus punished for not doing that which care was taken it should not be in his power to do, of course for the chance of seeing his suffering put an end to, then in the appointed form comes an application from him for relief. By the punishment, he was tormented; by the costs of this application, his torment is augmented: but in proportion as he is tormented, the learned tormentors are comforted.

5. Meantime, whatever be that good which the Dispatch Court Judge can do without doing needless evil to the suitor, he will, as above, do in every case at once, instead of endeavouring to plague the suitor for the chance of forcing him to do it. On every occasion, he will go directly to the object, because nothing is to be got by him from going zig-zag. Under the existing system, the ground being strewed with fees, turnings and windings are multiplied, because the larger the course, the greater the number of fees that are capable of being picked up on it.

[]House of Call.] In Buonaparte’s Code Civile, Election de domicile is the locution employed to denote what is here denoted by the locution House of Call. But compared with those here proposed, the provision made by the arrangements there employed will be seen to fall short of being adequate. As to house of call, the phrase is already in familiar use: to fit it for its present purpose, all that it wanted was to have its import appropriately directed and fixed.