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• Scotch Reform; Considered With Reference to the Plan Proposed In the Late Parliament, For the Regulation of the Courts and the Administration of Justice In Scotland: With Illustrations From English Non-reform: In the Course of Which, Divers Imperfectio
• Advertisement.
• Letters to Lord Grenville, On the Proposed Reform In the Administration of Civil Justice In Scotland.
• Letter I.
• Letter II.: Proposed Division of the Court of Session.
• Letter III.: Proposed System of Pleading.
• Letter IV.: Proposed Trial By Jury.
• Letter V.: On the Bill Called Lord Eldon’s.
• Summary View of the Plan of a Judicatory, Under the Name of the Court of Lords’ Delegates, Proposed For the Exercise of Those Judicial Functions, the Adequate Discharge of Which By the Whole House Has, For These Six Or Seven Years, Been Rendered Confe
• The Elements of the Art of Packing, As Applied to Special Juries, Particularly In Cases of Libel Law.
• Advertisement to the First Edition.
• Part I.
• Chapter I.: Occasion of This Work.
• Chapter II.: Juries—their Use As a Check to Judges.
• Chapter III.: The Check How Done Away By Influence.
• Chapter IV.: Special Juries, a Special Engine of Corruption.
• Chapter V.: Jury Unanimity Increases the Corruption.
• Chapter VI.: Purposes to Which Influence On Juries May Be Made Subservient.
• Chapter VII.: Chief Purpose, Crushing the Liberty of the Press.
• Chapter VIII.: The Exchequer Packing Office Suffices.
• Chapter IX.: Instruments For Crushing the Liberty of the Press.
• Chapter X.: Want of Adequate Obsequiousness Morally Impossible.
• Chapter XI.: Such Juries Worse Than None.
• Part II.: State of the Packing System, Anno 1808.
• Chapter I.: Introduction—two Reforming Shrievalties.
• Chapter II.: The Sheriff to the Lord Chief Baron—notices.
• Chapter III.: Lord Chief Baron to Sheriff Sir Richard Phillips—avowries and Defences.
• Chapter IV.: Observations On the Lord Chief Baron’s Defences.
• Chapter V.: Special Jury Corruption—devices By Which It Was Protected.
• Chapter VI.: Learned Advice From the Temple.
• Chapter VII.: Advice From Lincoln’s-inn.
• Chapter VIII.: Maxims Concerning Reform, Deduced From the Above Letter.
• Chapter IX.: Transactions At the Remembrancer’s.
• Part III.: State of the Packing System, Anno 1809.
• Chapter I.: Commons’ Debate, 24 Th April 1809. Packing and Cutting.
• Chapter II.: Double-fee Abuse, Plain and Embroidered.
• Part IV.—: Remedies Proposed. *
• Chapter I.: Humble Proposal For Restoring the Constitution In Regard to Juries.
• Chapter II.: State of Jury Package In Scotland.
• Chapter III.: Humble Proposal For Restoring the Authority of Parliament.
• “swear Not At All:” Containing an Exposure of the Needlessness and Mischievousness, As Well As Anti-christianity of the Ceremony of an Oath: a View of the Parliamentary Recognition of Its Needlessness, Implied In the Practice of Both Houses; a
• Advertisement.
• Editor’s Note
• Swear Not At All. Mat. V. 34.
• Section 1.: Oath. Incongruity of the Assumption, On Which Its Supposed Beneficial Efficiency Is Grounded.
• Section 2.: Mischievousness of This Instrument Considered In a General Point of View.
• Section 3.: Its Inefficiency In the Character of a Security Against Deceptious Incorrectness and Incompleteness In Evidence.
• Section 4.: Recognition of Its Inutility By Lords and Commons.
• Section 5.: Mischiefs —1. Contributing to the Mendacity-licence Granted By Judges.
• Section 6.: Mischief 2— Weakening In Various Ways the Efficiency of the Laws.
• Section 7.: Mischief 3— Bewildering and Enslaving the Consciences of Jurymen.
• Section 8.: Mischief 4— Giving Aid and Force to the Enterprises of Malefactors.
• Section 9.: Mischief 5— Furnishing Pretence For Misrule By Abuse of Prerogative.
• Section 10.: Misrule, How to Perpetuate—coronation Oaths Amended.
• Section 11.: Mischief 6— Corrupting the National Morals and Understanding—oxford University Oaths.
• Section 12.: Mischief 6 Continued. —ii. Cambridge Oaths.
• Section 13.: Practice of Receiving Judicial Oaths, Its Repugnancy to the Precepts of Jesus.
• Section 14.: Succedanea—true Securities Substitutible to This False One.
• Section 15.: Cause and Origin of the Practice In Regard to Oaths.
• Appendix.
• Truth Versus Ashhurst; Or, Law As It Is, Contrasted With What It Is Said to Be.
• The King Against Edmonds and Others: Set Down For Trial, At Warwick, On the 29 Th of March 1820.
• The King Against Sir Charles Wolseley, Baronet, and Joseph Harrison, Schoolmaster, Set Down For Trial, At Chester, On the 4 Th of April 1820.
• Official Aptitude Maximized; Expense Minimized: As Shown In the Several Papers Comprised In This Volume.
• Paper I.—
• Paper II.—: Introductory View, &c.
• Paper III.—: Extract From the Proposed Constitutional Code; Entitled, Official Aptitude Maximized—expense Minimized. By Jeremy Bentham, Esq. Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn.
• Paper IV.—: Supplement to the Above Extract.
• Paper V.—: Defence of Economy Against the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.
• Paper VI.—: Defence of Economy Against the Right Honourable George Rose.
• Paper VII.: Observations On Mr. Secretary Peel’s House of Commons Speech, 21 St March 1825, Introducing His Police Magistrates’ Salary Raising Bill, ( Date of Order For Printing, 24 Th March 1825.)
• Paper VIII.: Indications Respecting Lord Eldon, Including History of the Pending Judges’-salary-raising Measure.
• Paper IX.—: On the Militia.
• Paper X.: On Public Account Keeping.
• Paper XI.: Constitutional Code—table of Contents As Shown By Titles of Chapter and Sections.
• Commentary On Mr. Humphreys’ Real Property Code, By Jeremy Bentham. From the Westminster Review, No. XII., For October 1826.
• *∗* the Following Note Was Prefixed to the Article By the Editor of the Westminster Review: —
• Commentary On Humphreys’ Real Property Code.
• I.: Deed of Sale.
• II.: Deed of Mortgage. 1
• III.: Marriage Settlement Deed.
• Outline of a Plan of a General Register of Real Property: Contained In a Communication to the Commissioners Appointed Under Letters Patent, of Date the 6 Th June 1828, to Inquire Into the Law of England Respecting Real Property, and First Printed I
• Justice and Codification Petitions: Being Forms Proposed For Signature By All Persons Whose Desire It Is to See Justice No Longer Sold, Delayed, Or Denied: and to Obtain a Possibility of That Knowledge of the Law, In Proportion to the Want of Which T
• Justice and Codification Petitions.
• Advertisement.
• Preliminary Explanations Necessary to Be First Read.
• Petition For Justice.
• Abridged Petition For Justice.
• More Abridged Petition For Justice.
• Supplement, Which May Be Added Or Not to Any One of the Three Or Any Other Proposed Petition.
• Petition For Codification.
• Lord Brougham Displayed: Including I. Boa Constrictor, Alias Helluo Curiarum; II. Observations On the Bankruptcy Court Bill, Now Ripened Into an Act; III. Extracts From Proposed Constitutional Code.

I.

Deed of Sale.

Author’s Draught.(No Topics given.)

“Proposed Form of a Conveyance to a Purchaser*

“This deed madeathe 25th day of March 1926, Between Andrew Allen, ofNA of the one part,b and Benedict Butler, of NA of the other part, Witnesseth, that, in consideration of £1,000 sterlingc by the said Benedict Butler, now paid to the said Andrew Allen, for the absolute purchased of the property hereinafter mentioned. The said Andrew Allen Doth selle and conven unto the said Benedict Butler, All thatf message with the out-buildings, garden, and other appurtenancesg thereto belonging, And all those several parcels of arable meadow and pasture land therewith held, which premises contain in the whole five hundred acres, and are situate in the parish of Weston, in the county of Salop, and are now occupied by William Woodrow, And the same do together form a Farm usually called the Hope Farm, All which messuages and lands are particularly described in the Schedule heretoh annext by the names, quantities, qualities situations and other circumstances necessary for the distinction thereof.”

[* ]The words regarded as superfluous are distinguished by the black letter; but in some instances simple elimination may not be sufficient: substitution may be necessary: as to these, see notes on Reviewer’s Draught. The words employable in a blank form are in Roman characters; those which must be different on each individual occasion, in italics. So likewise in the deed of mortgage. To the marriage settlement, for reasons mentioned in note (1) thereto, these differences in the type do not extend, except as to the black letter in a few parts.

[a ]This deed made.] Pregnant—always with ambiguity, frequently with falsehood, sometimes with deception and unexpected loss—loss to the amount of the whole value of the property, is this word made. Made? To which of a number of persons in quality of maker or makers, does this participle make implied reference? The draughtsman by whom preparation, or the parties by whom adoption and authentication are given to it? I say to which:—for, seldom does it happen that the two so different operations, are the work of the same day: not unfrequently days, weeks, or months—not to say years—must, in the nature of the case, intervene between the performance of the draughtsman’s part, and the performance or performances of the part or parts of the party or parties; in particular, on the purchaser’s side. On each side of the transaction, what may happen is—that parties in any number may be separated from each other by any interval in the field of space; and, in consequence, the acts by any interval in the field of time. Moreover, in the case of any one or more of them, payment may be divided amongst times in any number; it may be made, as the phrase is, by instalments.

Here, then, is a gordian knot, which, somewhere or other, and somehow or other, Judge and Co. must have cut by their instrument of all-work—falsehood. Of the statement here in question, the truth has, somewhere or other, been pronounced immaterial. But—in the nature of the case, far indeed is it from being so: it is of no small importance. While without prejudice to the currency of the instrument, a false place of signature or a false time, or both, may be inserted,—a forgerer is comparatively at his ease:—not so where place and time are, each of them, required to be individualized. In, for example, the house asserted in the instrument,—on the day asserted in the instrument,—was the party, in fact, actually present? In these questions may be seen an obvious subject-matter, for an inquiry,—the searchingness of which, a forgery will be in no common degree fortunate, if it abides.

[b ]Part.] In the correspondent place in the mortgage deed, this word is omitted, supposed by error of the press.

[c ]£1000 sterling.] Sums should be expressed rather in words than in figures. Example: draughts on bankers. Reason: in figures, danger of ambiguous delineation, and subsequent falsification: accordingly, in the author’s deed, words are employed. Sterling? In these days, is there any use in this word? Yes; to distinguish English, not only from Scottish pounds, but from the pounds of several other nations: in Ireland and the distant dependencies, to distinguish real money, from fictitious—called currency.

[d ]Absolute purchase.] Of this term,—to render it clear of ambiguity and obscurity,—in the eyes of parties, if lay-gents, not to speak of lawyers,—fixation and explanation,—authoritative, appropriate, and adequate—would be altogether needful. Nowhere at present is any such explanation to be found. No otherwise can it be brought into existence than by a code. Supposing it thus brought into existence, reference to the text of the code is among the references which would require to be made from, and inserted in, the draught. As for judge-made, alias common law,—it fixes nothing; it keeps everything afloat: it explains nothing; it keeps every thing involved in clouds: it is a tissue of self-contradictions: a sage of the law gives no clear view of anything: nemo dat quod non habet; at the head of them sits and rules a judge, who—(as everybody knows)—knows less than any of them how to do what he is employed to do—to decide,—and knows not how to do anything but the reverse of what he is employed to do—anything but how to raise and introduce, instead of dispelling and excluding, doubts.

[e ]Sell.] By this one word sell, reference is made to two distinct topics: 1. The quantity of interest disposed of; 2. The absence or presence of an equivalent: only in so far as regards the quantity of interest, does this topic coincide with that to which reference is made by the words purchase of the absolute property, as per note b:—benefit of transmission, to successors determined by the choice of parties, included.

As to what concerns equivalents,—the transfer may be, as here, with and for an equivalent, or without one: if with and for, the equivalent may be either, as here, of money (call it in this case pecuniary)—or of money’s worth, in any other shape (call it in this case, quasi-pecuniary): if without equivalent,—the transfer is gratuitous; the transaction may be termed a gift; the instrument a deed of gift.*Grantor is a term which—where the transfer is not gratuitous, but for money—our learned draughtsman, I observe, employs on several occasions. It has, however, the inconvenience of presenting to view the idea of gratuitousness. Disposer, a term having for its conjugates the verb to dispose, and the substantive disposition—a term in familiar use—would have the convenience of including the three transactions, sale, mortgage, and marriage-settlement. For a correlative to it, an obvious term is disposee: and this same termination ee is indeed used in the same sense in the word mortgagee, and in many other words. But, it has the disadvantage of presenting to view the subject-matter disposed of; in which case no person is, unless he has the misfortune of being a slave. Accordingly, if it depended on me to choose a word,—a word I would rather employ is receptor: receiver—the word already in use—having the disadvantage of presenting, exclusively, the idea of a person, whose interest in the subject-matter is only that of a trustee. In the case of an immoveable subject-matter of property, as here,—gratuitous transmission, as everybody sees, is not, by a great deal, so frequent as in the case of a moveable; obvious cause of the difference, the difference in respect of value. Nor yet (as everybody knows) is gift of an estate—absolutely without example. This, therefore, is a mode of transfer, or say transmission, for which also provision will require to be made. In the arrangements proper to be made in the code for the two cases,—one difference, there is, which is highly important, and not unobvious. In the case where an equivalent is received,—the eventual obligation designated by the word warranty, presents itself as being prescribed by established principles: not so, in the case where no equivalent is received. In both cases, this word warranty presents itself as an obligation, of which,—either in the draught or in the code, with reference to it from the draught,—express mention should be made: and of which it should accordingly be said, either that it is, or that it is not, intended to have place.

[f ]All that.] As to the insufficiency and consequent inutility and redundancy of the necessarily incomplete particularization, of which these words form the commencement,—see above, in the observations as to all those deeds considered together.

[g ]Appurtenances.] Appurtenances? No, not I: if I were Mr. Benedict Butler, no such things would I have. Needless, useless, and, unless inoperative, mischievous,—would be this word. Look at the books: the only definition of it you will find warranted is—anything, and everything which, in virtue of some other word in the deed, would pass without being mentioned in it: but if so, then to what use mention it? Not to Miss Campbell, not to Mr. Butler, no, not even to Squire Allen—would information in any shape be presented by it: nothing better than appalment and perplexity. Not that imagination could present them with anything like the uncertainty and consequent mischief it is pregnant with. Look for it in the books, though it were no further than Jacob’s dictionary, you will find that outhouses are appurtenances to messuages; messuages to messuages, not. Orchards and gardens are appurtenant to messuages; lands, not: whereby you will learn that orchards and gardens are not lands. See now one effect of it in these same formulæ. In this same deed of sale, mention is made of it; in the mortgage deed, in the family settlement, not. A tyro conveyancer—what might not his sagacity infer from this? that, in the case of a sale, appurtenances, whatever they were, would not pass without express mention made of them; in the two other cases, yes; a tolerably good sample this of the effects of surplusage. If, to any mind, this word presents any idea more definite than the above, it must be that, for giving expression to which, our author employs the Rome-bred law-word, servitude—mention of which may require to be made further on.

[h ]Annext.] This word is here inserted, as having (obviously by error of the press) been, or the equivalent of it, omitted out of the letter press.

[e ]Sell.] By this one word sell, reference is made to two distinct topics: 1. The quantity of interest disposed of; 2. The absence or presence of an equivalent: only in so far as regards the quantity of interest, does this topic coincide with that to which reference is made by the words purchase of the absolute property, as per note b:—benefit of transmission, to successors determined by the choice of parties, included.

As to what concerns equivalents,—the transfer may be, as here, with and for an equivalent, or without one: if with and for, the equivalent may be either, as here, of money (call it in this case pecuniary)—or of money’s worth, in any other shape (call it in this case, quasi-pecuniary): if without equivalent,—the transfer is gratuitous; the transaction may be termed a gift; the instrument a deed of gift.*Grantor is a term which—where the transfer is not gratuitous, but for money—our learned draughtsman, I observe, employs on several occasions. It has, however, the inconvenience of presenting to view the idea of gratuitousness. Disposer, a term having for its conjugates the verb to dispose, and the substantive disposition—a term in familiar use—would have the convenience of including the three transactions, sale, mortgage, and marriage-settlement. For a correlative to it, an obvious term is disposee: and this same termination ee is indeed used in the same sense in the word mortgagee, and in many other words. But, it has the disadvantage of presenting to view the subject-matter disposed of; in which case no person is, unless he has the misfortune of being a slave. Accordingly, if it depended on me to choose a word,—a word I would rather employ is receptor: receiver—the word already in use—having the disadvantage of presenting, exclusively, the idea of a person, whose interest in the subject-matter is only that of a trustee. In the case of an immoveable subject-matter of property, as here,—gratuitous transmission, as everybody sees, is not, by a great deal, so frequent as in the case of a moveable; obvious cause of the difference, the difference in respect of value. Nor yet (as everybody knows) is gift of an estate—absolutely without example. This, therefore, is a mode of transfer, or say transmission, for which also provision will require to be made. In the arrangements proper to be made in the code for the two cases,—one difference, there is, which is highly important, and not unobvious. In the case where an equivalent is received,—the eventual obligation designated by the word warranty, presents itself as being prescribed by established principles: not so, in the case where no equivalent is received. In both cases, this word warranty presents itself as an obligation, of which,—either in the draught or in the code, with reference to it from the draught,—express mention should be made: and of which it should accordingly be said, either that it is, or that it is not, intended to have place.

[* ]Gift.]—To obviate ambiguity, the use made of this word in the technical sense, should, in the Code, be abolished.