9.Whatever weakens the connexion between punishments and offences, operates in proportion as an encouragement to the commission of offences.It has the effect of a reward offered for their perpetration, for whether the inducement to commit offences be augmented, or the restraining motives debilitated, the result in both cases is the same.
Thus, a tax on justice is an indirect reward offered for injustice.The same is the case with respect to all technical rules by which, independently of the merits, nullities are introduced into contracts and into procedure---of every rule that excludes the evidence of a witness, the only depository of the fact upon which depends the due administration of justice.In a word, it is the same with every thing that tends to loosen the connexion between injury and compensation, between the violation of the law and punishment.
If we open our eyes, we shall behold the same legislators establishing rewards for informers, and taxes and fees upon law proceedings:
they desire that the first should induce men to render them services of which they stand in need, whilst the latter tend to weaken the natural disposition which is felt to render these same services.At the threshold of the tribunal of justice are placed a bait and a bugbear: the bait operates upon the few---the bugbear upon the multitude.
10.There are cases in which, to avoid greater inconvenience, it has been found necessary to dispose of the matter of reward in such manner as that it shall operate as a reward for the most atrocious crime; yet, in spite of the force of the temptation, this crime is almost unexampled.I allude to the rule established with respect to successions.Happily, whatever may be the force of the seductive motives in this case, the tutelary motives act in full concert with all their energy.
There are many men who for a trifling personal benefit, for an advance in rank, or even to gratify their spleen, would without scruple use their utmost exertions to produce a war that would cost the lives of two or three hundred thousand of their fellow creatures; while among these men there would not be found perhaps one, who, though he were set free from the dread of legal punishment, could be induced, for a much greater advantage, to attempt the life of a single individual, and still less the life of parent whose death would put him in possession of a fortune or a title.
But though laws cannot be framed for its complete removal, nothing which can be done without inconvenience ought to be left undone, towards the diminution of this danger.The persons most exposed to become its victims, are those who are necessarily placed under the controul of others, such as infants and women.It is under the guidance of this principle, that our laws in some cases have selected as guardians those persons upon whom no interest can devolve in the way of succession.Under the laws of Sweden, precautions of the same description are observed; and it has been elsewhere shown that this consideration furnishes one of the arguments in favour of the liberty of divorce.
Contracts relating to insurance furnish another instance of the same danger.These contracts, in other respects so beneficial, have given birth to a new species of crime.A man insures a ship or a house at a price greatly beyond its value, with the intention of setting fire to the house or causing the ship to be lost, and then, under pretence of compensation for the loss of which he is the author, claims the money for which the insurance is made.Thus one of the most beneficial inventions of civilized society is converted into a premium for dishonesty, and a punishment to virtuous industry.Had the commission of this crime been attended with less risk, or been less difficult to conceal, this most admirable contrivance for softening inevitable calamities must have been abandoned.
