Perhaps it is instructive (in the context of
the Squeak license) to some people, who are
somewhat naive about the law and its common practice, to read the following wise
words from Captain Lemuel Gulliver, whose biography was written by Jonathan
Swift. I quote from the fifth chapter of the fourth book of "Gulliver's
Travels":
-- quote
"There was another point which a little
perplexed him at present. I had said that some of our crew left their country on
account of being ruined by law; that I had already explained the meaning
of the word; but he was at loss how it should come to pass that the law
which was intended for every man's preservation, should be any man's
ruin. Therefore he desired to be farther satisfied by what I meant by law,
and the dispensers thereof, according to the present practice in my country;
because he taught Nature and Reason were sufficient guides for a reasonable
animal, as we pretended to be, in showing us what we ought to do, and what to
avoid. (..)
I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art
of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black
is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest are slaves.
For example, if my neighbour hath a mind to my cow, he hires a lawyer to prove
that he ought to have my cow from me. I must then hire another to defend my
right, it being against all rules of law that any man should speak for himself.
Now in this case, I who am the true owner lie under two great disadvantages.
First, my lawyer, being practised almost from the cradle in defending falsehood,
is quite out of his element when he should be an advocate for justice, which as
an office unnatural, he always attempts with great awkwardness, if not with
ill-will. The second disadvantage is, that a lawyer must proceed with great
caution, or else he will be reprimanded by the Judges, and abhorred by his
brethren, as one who would lessen the practice of the law. (..)
Now, your Honour is to know that these Judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trials of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers who are grown old or lazy, and having been biassed all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known several of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the Faculty [the profession] by doing anything unbecoming their nature or their office.
It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the Judges never fail to direct accordingly.
In pleading, they studiously avoid entering
into the merits of the cause; but are loud, violent and tedious in
dwelling upon all circumstances which are not to the purpose. (..)
It is likewise to be observed that this society hath a peculiar cant and jargon
of their own, that no mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are
written, which they take special care to multiply; whereby they have wholly
confounded the the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong; so
that it will take thirty years to decide whether the field, left me by my
ancestors for six generations, belong to me or to a stranger three hundred miles
off. (..)
Here my master, interposing, said it was a pity, that creatures endowed with
such prodigious abilities of mind as these lawyers, by the description I gave of
them, must certainly be, were not rather encouraged to be the instructors of
others in wisdom and knowledge. In answer to which, I assured his Honour, that
in all points out of their own trade they were usually the most ignorant and
stupid generation among us, the most despicable in common conversation, avowed
enemies to all knowledge and learning, and equally disposed to pervert the
general reason of mankind in every other object of discourse, as in that of
their own profession."
-- unquote
Comment: Of course, Jonathan Swift was a misanthrope, a satirist, and he is long
and safely dead. I have heard and read more recent other opinions on the law and
its practice, by lawyers and/or politicians, which did not seem to me better
informed, and that certainly did not have fewer illusions or a better style.
Back to license.