Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift (beach read book .TXT) 📗

I assured his honor that law was a science in which I was little conversant, having only such knowledge of it as I had obtained by employing advocates, in vain, upon some injustices that had been done me, and by conversing with others who by the same method had first lost their substance and then left their country under the mortification of such disappointments. However, I would give him all the satisfaction I was able.

I said that those who professed this science were exceedingly numerous, being almost equal to the caterpillars in number; they were of diverse degrees, distinctions, and denominations. Their number was such that the fair and justifiable advantage and income of the profession was not sufficient for the decent and handsome maintenance of multitudes who followed it. The result was that it was found needful to supply that by artifice and cunning which could not be procured by just and honest methods; the better to bring which about, there was among us a society of men bred 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. The greatness of the assurance of these men, and the boldness of their pretensions, gained the adherence of the mass of the people, of whom in a manner they made slaves, and got into their hands much the largest share of the practice of their profession. These practitioners were by men of discernment called pettifoggers (that is, confounders, or rather, destroyers of right), and it was my ill luck as well as the misfortune of my acquaintances, to have been at the mercy of this species of the profession. I desired his honor to understand the description I had to give, and the ruin I had complained of, related to these sectaries only, and the means by which the misfortunes we met had been brought upon us by these men might be more easily conceived by explaining to him their method of proceeding, which could not better be done than by giving him an example.

I will suppose that my neighbor has a mind to my cow; he hires one of these advocates 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 shall be allowed to speak for himself. Now, in this case, I who am the right owner, lie under two great disadvantages. First, my advocate, being practiced almost from the cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of his element when he would argue for right, which, being unnatural to him, he attempts with great awkwardness, if not with ill will. The second disadvantage is that my advocate must proceed with great caution, for since the maintenance of so many depends on the practice of law not being lessened by too summary proceedings, even should he fail to incur the displeasure of the judges he is sure to gain the ill will and hatred of his brethren. This being the case, I have but two methods to preserve my cow. The first is to gain over my adversary’s advocate with a double fee, his education being such that it is reasonable to expect he can be induced to betray his client and let the balance fall on my side. The second way is for my advocate to refrain from insisting on the justice of my cause, by allowing the cow to belong to my adversary; and this, if it be skillfully done, will go a long way toward obtaining a favorable verdict, it having been found by careful observation of issues and events, that under the management of such practitioners, the wrong side has the fairer chance of success, more especially if it should happen, as it did in my own and my friend’s case, that the person appointed to decide all controversies concerning property as well as to try criminals, who should be chosen from among the most learned and wise of his profession, is by the recommendation of a great favorite or court mistress taken from the sect before mentioned, and so having been strongly biased all his life against equity and fair dealing, lies, as it were, under a fatal necessity of favoring, double dealing and oppression, and besides, through age, infirmity, and distemper having become lazy and inattentive, he is almost incapacitated from doing anything becoming the duty of his office. The decisions of men so bred and qualified may with reason be expected to be on the wrong side of the cause, for it is little wonder that those who can take harangue and noise (if pursued with warmth and drawn out to great length) for reasoning, will infer the weight of the argument from the heaviness of the pleading.

It is a maxim among these men that whatever has been done before may legally be done again, and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made, even those which have through ignorance or corruption contradicted the rules of common justice. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities, and thereby endeavor to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and they are so lucky in this practice that they rarely fail to secure decrees according to their expectation.

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. For instance, in the case already mentioned, they never desire to know what claim or title my adversary has to my cow; but whether the said cow were red or black; her horns long or short; whether the field I grazed her in be round or square; whether she was milked at home or abroad; what diseases she is subject to, and the like; after which they consult precedents, adjourn the cause from time to time, and in ten, twenty, or thirty years come to an issue.

It is likewise to be observed, that this society has a peculiar cant and jargon of their own, that no other mortal can understand, and wherein all their laws are written, which they take special care to multiply; whereby they have gone near to confound the very essence of truth and falsehood, of right and wrong; so that it may take thirty years to decide whether the field, left me by my ancestors for six generations, belongs to me or to a stranger three hundred miles off.

In the trial of persons accused for crimes against the state, the method is much more short and commendable: for if those in power, who know well how to select instruments fit to carry out their purpose, are careful to recommend a proper person, his course of education and method of practice make it easy for him, when his patron’s disposition is understood, without difficulty either to condemn or acquit the criminal and at the same time strictly preserve all due forms of law.

Here my master interposing said it was a pity that creatures endowed with such prodigious abilities of mind as these advocates by the description of them must certainly be, were not rather encouraged to be instructors of others in wisdom and knowledge. In answer to which I assured his honor that the business and study of their own profession so took up all their thoughts and time, that they attended to nothing else, and therefore in all points out of their own trade many of them were so ignorant and stupid that it would be difficult to pick out of any profession a generation of men more despicable in common conversation or so much looked upon as avowed enemies of all knowledge and learning, and equally disposed to pervert the general reasons of mankind in every other subject of discourse, as in that of their own calling.