Sec. 384. Bawds not competent witnesses. "Tim. Hold up, you sluts, Your aprons mountant: You are not oathable,- Timon tells Phrynia and Timandra, that because of their infamous lives, they are not competent witnesses; that they are not oathable or legally competent to testify. Infamous persons were not competent witnesses, at common law and all persons who did not regard the binding effect of an oath, such as persons who were convicted of dissolute, immoral lives, could not take an oath, in court.2 In most countries, a general reputation for lack of chastity, in male or female, affects the competency of the witness. for credibility, but not otherwise. However, Timon tells these infamous women what the law was correctly, for their lives were so notorious that their oaths would not have been received in a court of justice. to the arbitrary exercise of legal authority in taxation and similar exactions; the laws, though they restrain and punish petty thieves, like you, nevertheless, by the might that makes right, plunder without restraint." Then he adds: "I have met with no comment on the passage, and can suggest no other explanation of it, but I have little doubt that this is the meaning," and of this, it seems puerile to add, that I have reached the same conclusion. Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene III. 1 Greenleaf Evid., 373, 374; 3 Bacon's Abr., 486, 507. At common law, the objections to a witness were such as were absolute or such as applied only between particular persons. Of the former kinds were "an infamous person, as an usurer, or one condemned by a public judgment; a perjured person; a woman who was, or had been a common prostitute and all persons who were stigmatized by the secular laws." (IV Reeve's History Eng. Law, p. 80.) Sec. 385. Pleading false titles. "Tim. Crack the lawyers voice, That he may never more false title plead, This verse is one frequently quoted by lawyers. Pleading for one's title to property is one of the ordinary functions of the lawyer. The Poet here uses satire to show that the lawyer is accustomed to plead for false titles as well for those which are true. He asks that his voice may be cracked, so that he may be compelled to stop this practice and of sounding his "quillets shrilly." Of course, professionally, if one has a title at all, whether it is the best title to property or not, he is entitled to have his right thereto passed on by a competent court, for until this is done, it cannot be determined what his rights in the premises were. In other words, every asserted right is entitled to a representative and the fact that a lawyer speaks in a losing cause, is not always evidence that his cause was wrong. But, of course, Timon was soured, in a measure on the world, and that is why he urged such satire against the lawyer. Sec. 386. The scope of Justice.— "Alcib. the time Till now you have gone on and fill'd With all licentious measure, making your wills Have wander'd with our travers'd arms and breath'd Justice has been defined as "the constant and perpetual will to render unto every man his own." This generous and altruistic idea of the virtue is an essential for its Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene III. 2 Timon of Athens, Act V, Scene IV. Touillier, Droit, Civ. Fr. tit. prel. n. 5. enjoyment, for otherwise, expediency too often will overcome justice and prevent its attainment. While true that the individual or general interest of mankind largely determines justice, in a given case, and the prevalent sense of justice is encumbered with the hypothesis of innate notions of the virtue generally, it is not true, in civilized states that the expedient or selfish always controls or shapes the ideas of justice which obtain, but the virtue is generally cherished from the innate love of our fellowmen, and incidentally of his rights, without which our own are liable to suffer, as our own ideals of justice propagate a disregard for this virtue. The contrast between the just and the expedient is apparent, when it exists, and the natural love of mankind for his fellows, coupled with the primal idea of self-preservation, and the necessity of recognizing justice, as the groundwork of our existence, makes the recognition of justice such a moral necessity that no society can do other than exalt the proper ideals of justice and equality, which hopes to prosper. Hence, it is that Alcibiades, in his address to the Senators, pointed out a peril at the very basis of the Government, when he called their attention to the fact that their idea of justice had been confined into altogether too narrow a limit and that the rights of others were subverted to whatever they choose to recognize, by their wills. In these observations, the Poet was striking at the foundation of society and expressed the philosophy which underlies civilization. Shall pass his quarter, or offend the stream Timon of Athens, Act V, Scene V. Alcibiades here promises that the criminal or public laws, for the redress of public wrongs within the municipality of Athens, shall be rigorously enforced. That the "stream of regular justice," shall not be interfered with, but that it shall be permitted to flow as formerly and without let or hindrance so far as he is concerned. "1 Cit. repeal daily and wholesome act established against the rich; and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us." A statute is generally defined as a law enacted by the legislative power, or a written expression of the legislative will, in the form necessary to make it the law of the state or country where it is to obtain. The Poet many times speaks of "biting statutes" and "piercing statutes," showing that he had the lawyers' regard for such strict legislative provisions as made it hard upon the individual citizen, when enforced, with the Poet's sympathy for the individual in any hardship that he suffered, even though it resulted from the enforcement of the law. Speaking of the repeal of such statutes as were enacted for the benefit of the poor, the idea is that such acts were rendered nugatory by inconsistent provisions, by which an implied re 'Coriolanus, Act I, Scene I. Bacon, Abr., Statutes; Coke, 2' Inst., 200; Bouvier's Law Dict. |