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Untitled Article
nished by the obstruction of knowledge . Newspapers , periodicals , pamphlets , books , all may be so reduced in price , as to bring them within the reach of the great mass of the community . At present the enormous expense of advertising books , and the enormous capital required for newspapers , on the one hand , and the illegality of cheap publications on the other , interpose effectually
between the people at large , and men of talent and information best qualified to be their instructors . This state of things must be put an end to . It is only by newspapers that the public can watch their representatives , can be present in courts of justice , can be cognizant of the mode in which their affairs are administered ,, their rights secured or invaded , their interests advanced or injured . It is by newspapers that materials must be furnished
for the formation of a sound public opinion , and the safest of all vehicles provided for its expression . Let us have a free and popular press ; one which shall cease to be the divided monopoly of the capitalist and the demagogue , and we have the best of all securities against the return of a reign either of terror or corruption , and for the full discussion and progressive adoption of all real ameliorations in the working of the government and the condition of the people .
II . The Amelioration of our Code , both civil and criminal . —That no man should be allowed to enjoy property of any description while resisting the just demands of his creditors ; that no man should be unproductively and hopelessly incarcerated ; that no man should find it prudent to forego a just demand , or to accede to an unjust demand , on account of the expense of the process by which the one must be enforced and the other resisted ;
that no rules of evidence should be allowed to prevent a jury ' s ascertaining the whole truth of a case ; that proceedings should be divested of all needless complexity and delay ; that to prosecute an offender should not be a tax upon the sufferer ; that crime and punishment should be distinctly defined , and the law made generally known ; that punishments should , as far as practicable , be made reformatory on the criminal , and productive to the
community ; that in the awarding and inflicting punishment , as little as possible should be left to the discretion of the judge , or to the irresponsible determination of that secret tribunal , the Privy Council ; and that the punishment of death , which in its frequency only tends to harden criminals , and to corrupt and brutalize the crowds who assemble to witness its infliction—while , by
the disproportion between the number of sentences and of executions , the threatenings of the law are divested of their terrorsshould at least be restricted to the most atrocious crimes , and the sentence , when pronounced , be usually enforced . These are propositions , which scarcely any man of sense and humanity will dispute , but which show , that a reformed legislature has before it , in this department , a long and laborious , but a most necessary ,
Untitled Article
440 On Parliamentary ' Pledges .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1832, page 440, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1816/page/8/
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