I commend the whole of the following letter to the reader’s most
serious consideration:—
Broxbourn, Herts, 11th June, 1874.
My dear Sir,—You are so tolerant of correspondents with grievances,
that I venture to say a few more words, in reply to your note about
Law Reform. In November next the Judicature Bill will come into
operation. The preamble recites this incontestable fact, “that it
is expedient to make provision for the better administration of
justice in England.” Now, the two salient features of the incessant
clamour for Law Reform are these—1st, an increased conviction of
the sanctity of property; 2nd, a proportionate decrease in the
estimate of human life. For years past the English people have
spent incalculable money and talk in trying to induce Parliament to
give them safe titles to their land, and sharp and instant means of
getting in their debts: the Land Transfer Bill is in answer to this
first demand, and the Judicature Bill to the second. Meanwhile the
Criminal Code may shift for itself; and here we have, as the
outcome of centuries of vulgar national flourish about Magna
Charta, Habeas Corpus, and much else, the present infamous system
of punishing crime by pecuniary penalties. Now the spirit of this
evil system is simply this: “A crime is an offence against society.
Making the criminal suffer pain won’t materially benefit society,
but making him suffer in his pocket will;” and so society elects to
be battered about, and variously maltreated, on a sliding scale of
charges, adjusted more on medical than moral principles. No doubt
it is very desirable to have a title-deed to your thousand acres,
no bigger than the palm of your hand, to be able to put it in a
box, and sit upon it, and defy all the lawyers in the land to pick
a flaw in your title; quite a millenium-like state of things, but
liable to be somewhat marred if your next door neighbour may knock
you off your box, stab you with a small pocket-knife, and jump on
your stomach, all with grievous damage to you, but comparative
immunity to himself. We are one day to have cheap law, meanwhile we
have such cheap crime that injuries to the person are now within
the reach of all. I may be a villain of the first water, if I have
a few spare pounds in my pocket. From a careful survey of lately
reported cases, I find I can run away with my neighbour’s wife,
seduce his daughter, half poison his household with adulterated
food, and finally stab him with a pocket-knife, for rather less
than £1000. Stabbing is so ridiculously cheap that I can indulge in
it for a trifling penalty of £1. (See Southall’s case.) But woe be
to me if I dare to encroach on my neighbour’s land, prejudice his
trade, or touch his pocket; then the law has remedies, vast and
many, and I shall not only incur pecuniary penalties that are to
all effects and purpose limitless, but I shall be made to suffer in
person also. These two things are exactly indicative of the gradual
decay of the national mind under the influence of two schools. The
first teaches that man’s primary object in life is to “get on in
the world;” hence we have this exaggerated estimate of the value
and sanctity of property. The second school teaches that love can
exist without reverence, mercy without justice, and liberty without
obedience; and as the logical result of such teaching, we have lost
all clear and healthy knowledge of what justice really is, and
invent a system of punishments which is not even really punitive,
and without any element of retribution at all. Let us have instead
a justice that not only condones the crime, but also makes a profit
out of the criminal. And we get her; but note the irony of Fate:
when our modern goddess does pluck up heart to be angry, she seems
doomed to be angry in the wrong way, and with the wrong people.
Here is a late instance (the printed report of which I send you):—
William Hawkes, a blind man and very infirm, was brought up,
having been committed from Marlborough Street, to be dealt with
as a rogue and vagabond.
On being placed in the dock,
Mr. Montagu Williams, as amicus curiæ, said he had known the
prisoner for years, from seeing him sitting on Waterloo Bridge
tracing his fingers over a book designed for the blind to read,
and in no instance had he seen him beg from those who passed
by, so that he was practically doing no harm, and some time ago
the late Sir William Bodkin had dealt very mercifully with him.
Something ought to be done for him.
Mr. Harris said he could corroborate all that his learned
friend had stated.
The Assistant-Judge said he had been convicted by the
magistrate, and was sent here to be sentenced as a rogue and
vagabond, but the Court would not deal hardly with him.
Horsford, chief officer of the Mendicity Society, said the
prisoner had been frequently convicted for begging.
The Assistant-Judge sentenced him to be imprisoned for four
months.—May, 1874.
The other day I was reading a beautiful Eastern story of a certain
blind man who sat by the wayside begging; clearly a very
importunate and troublesome blind man, who would by no means hold
his peace, but who, nevertheless, had his heart’s desire granted
unto him at last. And yesterday I was also reading a very unlovely
Western story of another blind man, who was “very infirm,” not at
all importunate, did not even beg; only sat there by the roadside
and read out of a certain Book that has a great deal to say about
justice and mercy. The sequel of the two stories varies
considerably: in this latter one our civilized English Law clutches
the old blind man by the throat, tells him he is a rogue and a
vagabond, and flings him into prison for four months!
But our enlightened British Public is too busy clamouring for short
deeds and cheap means of litigation, ever to give thought or time
to mere “sentimental grievances.” Have you seen the strange comment
on Carlyle’s letter of some months ago, in which he prophesied evil
things to come, if England still persisted in doing her work “ill,
swiftly, and mendaciously”? Our export trade, for the first five
months of this year, shows a decrease of just eight millions! The
newspapers note, with a horrified amazement, that the continental
nations decline dealing any longer at the “old shop,” and fall back
on home products, and try to explain it by reference to the Capital
and Labour question. Carlyle foresaw Germany’s future, and told us
plainly of it; he foresees England’s decadence, and warns us just
as plainly of that; and the price we have already paid, in this
year of grace 1874, for telling him to hold his tongue, is just
eight millions.
Yours sincerely,
Next, or next but one, to the Fors for the squires, will come that for
the lawyers. In the meantime, can any correspondent inform me,
approximately, what the income and earnings of the legal profession are
annually in England, and what sum is spent in collateral expenses for
juries, witnesses, etc.? The ‘Times’ for May 18th of this year gives
the following estimate of the cost of the Tichborne trial, which seems
to me very moderate:—
The Trial of the Tichborne Claimant.—On Saturday a return to the
House of Commons, obtained by Mr. W. H. Smith, was printed, showing
the amount expended upon the prosecution in the case of “Regina v.
Castro, otherwise Orton, otherwise Tichborne,” and the probable
amount still remaining to be paid out of the vote of Parliament for
“this service.” The probable cost of the trial is stated at £55,315
17s. 1d., of which £49,815 17s. 1d. had been paid up to the 11th
ult., and on the 11th of May inst. £5,500 remained unpaid. In
1872–3 counsels’ fees were £1,146 16s. 6d., and in 1873–4 counsels’
fees were £22,495 18s. 4d. The jury were paid £3,780, and the
shorthand writers £3,493 3s. The other expenses were witnesses,
agents, etc., and law stationers and printing. Of the sum to be
paid, £4,000 is for the Australian and Chili witnesses.—Times, May
18th, 1874.
II. I reprint the following letter as it was originally published. I
meant to have inquired into the facts a little farther, but have not
had time.
21, Mincing Lane, London, E.C.,
19th March, 1874.
Dear Sirs,—On the 27th March, 1872, we directed your attention to
this subject of Usury in a paper headed “Choose you this day whom
ye will serve.” We have since published our correspondence with the
Rev. Dr. Cumming, and we take his silence as an acknowledgment of
his inability to justify his teaching upon this subject. We have
also publicly protested against the apathy of the Bishops and
Clergy of the Established Church regarding this national sin. We
now append an extract from the ‘Hampshire Independent’ of the 11th
instant, which has been forwarded to us:—
“The Church of England in South Australia is in active competition
with the money changers and those who sell doves. The Church
Office, Leigh Street, Adelaide, advertises that ‘it is prepared to
lend money at current rates—no commission or brokerage charged,’
which is really liberal on the part of the Church of England, and
may serve to distinguish it as a lender from the frequenters of the
synagogues. [50] It has been suggested that the Church Office
should hang out the triple symbol of the Lombards, and that at the
next examination of candidates for holy orders a few apposite
questions might be asked, such as—‘State concisely the best method
of obtaining the highest rate of interest for Church moneys.
Demonstrate how a system of Church money-lending was approved by
the founder of Christianity.’”
As such perverseness can only end in sudden and overwhelming
calamity, we make no apology for again urging you to assist us in
our endeavours to banish the accursed element at least from our own
trade.
Your obedient servants,
J. C. Sillar and Co.
I put in large print—it would be almost worth capital letters—the
following statement of the principle of interest as “necessary to the
existence of money.” I suppose it is impossible to embody the modern
view more distinctly:—
“Money, the representation and measure of value, has also the power
to accumulate value by interest (italics not mine). This
accumulative power is essential to the existence of money, for no
one will exchange productive property for money that does not
represent production. The laws making gold and silver a public
tender impart to dead masses of metal, as it were, life and
animation. They give them powers which without legal enactment they
could not possess, and which enable their owner to obtain for their
use what other men must earn by their labour. One piece of gold
receives a legal capability to earn for its owner, in a given time,
another piece of gold as large as itself; or in other words, the
legal power of money to accumulate by interest compels the borrower
in a given period, according to the rate of interest, to mine and
coin, or to procure by the sale of his labour or products, another
lump of gold as large as the first, and give it, together with the
first, to the lender.”—Kellogg on Labour and Capital, New York,
1849.