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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow SECTION XVII.: MUTUAL SECURITY FOR FORTHCOMINGNESS OF PERSONS AND THINGS. ‡ - The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3

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SECTION XVII.: MUTUAL SECURITY FOR FORTHCOMINGNESS OF PERSONS AND THINGS. ‡ - 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 XVII.

MUTUAL SECURITY FOR FORTHCOMINGNESS OF PERSONS AND THINGS.

Expositive.

Art. 1. An act of bondsmanship is any act by which any person subjects himself to the obligation of rendering to any other any sort of service.

Art. 2. An act of subsidiary bondsmanship is any act by which any one person, for the benefit of another person, binds himself to render service in certain shape to a third.

Art. 3. An act of bondsmanship in general, and subsidiary bondsmanship in particular, is either judicial or extrajudicial.

Art. 4. By the service which it is capable of having for the subject-matter of the promise, the party benefited may be a party on the pursuer’s side, or a party on the defendant’s side.

It may be any sort of service from which the party is capable of receiving benefit in any shape, in the course or on the occasion of the suit.

It may happen to it to be rendered gratuitously or for a price.

Expositive.—Enactive.

Art. 5. To the requisition or admission of it by the Judge, the concurrence of these conditional circumstances is necessary: and when these concur, he will require it or admit it accordingly.

Note.—Now as to excuses* excuses for non-appearance—excuses for non-appearance of a party—the party defendant in a suit at law.—Rummage the modern books of practice (such is the name given by practisers to books of procedure)—rummage over the whole library of them from beginning to end,—no such word as excuse, nor any mention of the thing itself, will you find. Turn to the earliest law book extant, in which any thing occurs on the subject of such practice, scarcely of anything but excuses will you find anything said. Strange enough the difference to a first glance; altogether natural to a further glance. On the part of an individual, on whom the burthen of attendance at a distance from home was sought to be imposed,—and this for no other purpose than that of imposing on him another burthen to an indefinite degree greater,—for throwing off both burthens, and if possible making his escape from them altogether, ingenuity would of course be upon the rack:—abundant would be the excuses; proportionably so, what would be to be said of them in the books. So much for practice in its ancient form. On the other hand, on the part of a man in whose instance the taking on him the burthen was never other than an operation voluntary and well paid for,—no such sensation as that of reluctance being possible, no such operation as that of making excuses can ever be performed: consequently, on the subject of this operation, nothing in any book written on this same subject would there ever be to be said. So much for practice in its modern form.

In the view given by Glanville, of the course of procedure as carried on in that day by that same Glanville, Chief Justiciary under Henry II. in his work intituled de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliæ—under the name of Essoignes or Exoines in law-French—in law-Latin Essonia (plural of essonium )—a list is given of excuses, received in those days in lieu of attendance.

Good (says the inquisitive reader:) so much for this incidental topic. But of the principal matter what is said? The subject-matter of controversy being (suppose) title to a piece of land, what is said of the efficient cause of the demandant’s alleged right or title to this same land? What is said? Why, next to nothing. The parties being once fairly brought together in the presence of each other and the Judge, the question, who was entitled to it, was a question which, it was assumed, would presently be settled: just as at present a demand is, which in a Small-Debt Court is made by a baker on a customer for a dozen of quartern loaves:—on which occasion, employment might be given to an action of ejectment, with a few years of delay and a few hundred pounds of expense, with about as much propriety and use as, at present, employment is given to an action of the sort so denominated on the occasion of a dispute about the property of a piece of land. As to efficient causes of title,—of any such matter, incidentally only, in the way of allusion, and under a different head, is mention made, namely, of about five or six of them, in Book XIII. Chap. II.

Nor altogether without reason was this same assumption, this assumption of promptitude, made; strange as it may seem to those whose ideas of real-property law have no more instruction, nor other source, than that system of procedure which has had for its object and occupation the maximizing the insecurity of that same property, and the dilatoriness of all law proceedings, in relation to it, for the benefit of its pretended guardians.

To this dead and for so many hundred years buried topic, resurrection will now be given: and, as to the name essoign, it still lives, remaining attached to one of the days reckoned from, in lawyers’ gibberish, when putting to use the fixt days’ device.—(See Petition for Justice.)

Number of these excuses, according to the above-mentioned Grand Justiciary, four. Wretchedly inadequate this list, regard even had to the scanty exigencies of the state of society for which it was given. For giving it completeness, common sense, applied to the common exigencies of society in its present state, will now suffice. For securing verity to the affirmation, observable care at that time employed, none: at this time, on this occasion, the same care will be employed in this case, as in all others.

Of apposite excuses, a list, as complete as may be, will have been locked up and authorized by law. Existing mendacity licence will have been cancelled; responsibility substituted: substituted as effectually, as by punishment for perjury, under the existing system, it is vainly.

The individual by whom the excuse is sent in, will be either he whose attendance it is that is commanded,—say the mandatee, or another individual for him: if the mandatee, the non-compliance to be accounted for will be the non-attendance. But in each of three cases—that is to say, death, non-information of the summons, and physical inability to make response—not only will compliance, but excusation, or say assignment of the cause of non-compliance, that is to say of his non-appearance, be on his part impossible. Here then is provision to be made of a vicarious excuse given, or say excusator, or apologist, by whom affirmation will be to be made (which may be by LETTER post) of the fact, by which the non-responsion in conjunction with the non-attendance was produced. Here, then, will be two species of eventual excusator—excusator proper, and excusator vicarious—to whom, on the cover, every mandate for attendance will be directed: eventual mandatee vicarious, a person uncertain, any person (to wit) at that time seen by the messenger (the postman) in the house: to which functionary the requisite instruction, for the performance of his duty, will in and by the particular Code belonging to his office have been communicated.

By malâ fide litigants, and their solicitors and attorneys, for staving off the termination of the suit, and consequently for evading proof of the receipt of the mandate, devices, as many and effective as human ingenuity can contrive, will of course be contrived: all these the tenor of the law will have used its endeavour to obviate.

Under the existing system, in the local field of procedure, a sort of hunt has at all times been carried on, and at all times under every possible system, so long as man is man, will continue to be carried on: carried on, on the part of each apparent hunter, with or without intention to catch, according to circumstances. To the species of game, which is the subject-matter of this hunt, no name has as yet been assigned: yet, name assigned to it there must be, or no directions as to the catching it can be given. Call it, then, a summonee; and on this particular occasion, a summonee for attendance: and, attached to every summonee proper for attendance and response both, will be a summonee vicarious for response alone, as above. Thus it is, that for the purpose of this logical species of hunt, the huntees require to be put in couples in all cases; as, in the natural species of hunt, do the hunters in some cases.

In regard to permission and obligation as to attendance, provision will have been made by law for interest in all its several established modifications: self-regarding interest, trusteeship, and partnership, which is a compound of both: trusteeship in all the several forms in which the relation between the trustee and the intended benefitee manifests itself. Examples these:—1. Guardian and ward: 2. Husband and wife; 3. Agent and principal; 4. Chairman or secretary, or other nominees of a joint-stock company, and the rest of the members; and so on. (See Section XIV. art. 4.)

[][Under this head, reference is made by the Author to his Procedure Code; the matter of this section not having been written. See also Section VII. Prehensors, &c. The following matter on Bondmanship or Surety is found in this place: as also a note bearing more immediate relation to the particular subject of the present section.Ed.]

[* ]Excuses.] House of Commons Votes, 2d March 1830, No. 2: “And the names of Mr. * * * * * being called, and excuses being offered for them, they were ordered to attend the Ballot on Tuesday, 16th March.”—No. 6: “Cork City Election. Order for the attendance of Mr. R. read; Mr. W. his medical attendant, called in and stated on oath, . . . . . . Mr. R. excused . . . discharged from further attendance.”