Judicial Establishment (Bowring, vol. II, p
33. Tmih versus Ashhurst ; or Law as it is, contrasted with what it is said to be (written in dec. 1792, first pubiished in 1823). Bowring, vol. Y, pp. 233 sqq. — Ashhurst afiQrme 1« qu'il n'y a pas d'homme si humble qui ne soit sous la protection de la loi. — Et les frais de justice ? demande Bentham. — 2* Que le droit anglais n'impose de restrictions aux actions des individus que celles qui sont nécessaires à la sécurité et au bon ordre de la société en général. — Et les game-laws ? Et le libel law ? — 3* Que nous ne sommes liés par aucunes lois si ce n'est condamnés par le consentement virtuel du royaume entier — Vir/uc/ .^ qu'est-ce à dire "} réel ou imaginaire "f — 4** Que nous ne sommes liés par aucunes lois que tout homme n'ait le moyen de connaître. — Malheureusement il se trouve que la loi commune est inconnaissable par définition.
34. Bentham, View ofthe Hard Labour Bill; Bowring, vol. IV, p. 5.
35. View of the Hard Labour Bill; being an abstract of a pamphlet, intituled, « draught of a biU, to punish by imprisonment and hard labour certain ofiTenders ; and to eslablish proper places for their réception •» : interspersed with observations relative to the subject of the above draught in particular, and to pénal jurisprudence in gênerai, 1778. — Voir la Préface (Bowring, vol. IV, p. 3) : « When the proposed Bill, of which the ensuing sheets are designed to give a view, first fell inlo my hands, I was employed in finishing a work of some bulk, in which I bave been treating the subject ot punishment more at large On this account,
had 1 beon at liberly witli respect to time, I should rallier hâve wished to hâve published the whole together first, before I had detached from il thèse scattered fragments. The publication, however, of the proposed bill in question, with the intelligence that accompanied it, effectually precluded
any such option When I had read Mr. Howard's book on Prisons,
one fruit of it was a wish still more earnest than what 1 had been led to entertain from theory, to see some gênerai plan of punishment adopted, in which solitary confinement might be combined with labour ». — John Howard, State of the Prisons in England and Wales, with Preliminary Observations and an Account of some Foreign Prisons, 1777, Warrington, — L^opuscule de Bentham est signalé en France par Brissot, Théorie des lois criminelleSj vol. I, p. 182 : c 11 parait qu^on s'occupe très sérieusement en Angleterre du soin d'adoucir le sort des criminels ; on a passé un bill qui a pour but de punir par Temprisonnement et le travail certains coupables, et d'établir des places propres pour les recevoir. — Jérémie Bentham, Anglais, a pul)lié en 1779 des observations sur ce bill, Il y en a d'excellentes, il y en a de ridicules. L'emploi de la musique, qu'il conseille les jours de dimanche, me parait une voie non pas tout à fait capable d'épurer une âme gangrenée, mais au moins d'adoucir peu à peu la férocité d'un scélérat. L'influence de la musique, telle que l'ont décrite les anciens, n'est qu'une fable ; mais l'influence de la musique sur nos sens, et celle de nos sens sur notre âme sont également incontestables : le législateur peut donc l'employer. — Howard était un ami de Bentham : v. Bowring, vol. XI, p. 93 : Howard was bis intimate friend — a friend delighted alike to find and to acknowledge in him a superior beneficent genius. — Cf. Bentham à Stewart, 27 juin 1783 (Bowring, vol. X,
pp. 129, 131) : ... our excellent friend Mr. Howard I look the liberty,
as you may perhaps remember, of claiming kin to you and Mr. Howard as a kind of brother of the trade, which I certainly am, as far as endeavours go, at least, however inferior in point of means. — George Wilson à Bentham, 24 sept. 1786 (Bowring, vol. X, p. 164) : You will see by the papers that there is a large subscription to erect a statue to your friend Howard, who is now makihg a tour of the Lazarettos for the plague in the Levant. Jonas Hanway another of your fellow-labourers, but at some distance, is dead. — V. le bel éloge de Howard, Panopticon. Postcript, Part II, Principles and plan of management. Section I. Leading positions (Bowring, vol. IV, p. 121) : ... A regular System of prison management... is... still is exécute. 3Ir. Howard's publications présent no such work. They afford a rich fund of materials; but a quarry is not a house. My vénérable friend was much better employed than in arranging words and sentences. Instead of doing what so many could do if they would, what he did for the service of mankind, was what scarce any man could hâve done, and no man would do but hiniself. In the scale of moral désert, the labours of the legislator and the writer are as far below bis, as earth is below heaven. His was the truly Christian choice; the lot, in which istobe
330 NOTES. (Pp. 146-149)
found the least of that which scliish nature covets, and tlie most of wliat it shrinks from. His Kingdom ^asofa better world he dieda martyr, after living an apostle.
36. Constiuaumal Code; Bowring, toI. IK, p. 605; cf. Bowring, ràL X» p. 86.
37. Snr le Panopticon, t. Bowring, vol. IV, p. 37 sqq. : PanopHot w or the Inspection Bouse ; containing the idéal of a new principle of conatmetion applicable to any sort of establishment, in which persoos of aay description are to be kept under inspection ; and in particular to penitenlia rj- bouses, prisons, houses of industry, work-houses, poor-houses, manufactories, mad houses, lazarettos, hospitals and schools : with a plan of management adapted to tbe principle : in a séries of letters, written in hc year 1787, from Crecheff in white Russ«a, to a friend in England. (1787-1791 ) — et les opuscules postérieurs : Panopiicon versus New South Waies (x-ol. IV, pp. 173 sqq.); A plea for the Constitution (vol. IV, pp. ÎW sqq.). — Cî, Dans les Traités : PanopHquey mémoire sur un nouveau principe pour construire des maisons dMnspection et nommément des maisons de force (c'est le mémoire envoyé par Bentham en 1791 à TAssemblée législative de France, et imprimé sur Tordre de la légis* lative. — Le mémoire est sommaire, le traité original est confus : la théorie des fins d'un système pénitentiaire (Bowring, vol. IV, p. 46 : saië cnstody, labour. — Vol. IV, p. 47: confinement, punishment, reformatîon, pecuniary economy, — plus de détails dans le Post-Scriptum, vol. IV, pp. 122-123) est indécise et ^Tiriable. — Pour une expression rigoureuse des principes, voir James Mill, l'article Prisons and Prison Ditciplinê du V» supplément de TEncyclopédie britannique.
