PRESENTS. 91 



judicial functions when solicited by favourites, tempted by 

 bribery, or stimulated by cupidity and avarice/ 7 And on 

 reading that in early Norman times &quot; the first step in the 

 process of obtaining redress was to sue out, or purchase, 

 by paying the stated fees,&quot; the king s original writ, re 

 quiring the defendant to appear before him, we may suspect 

 that the amount paid for this document represented what 

 had originally been the present to the king for giving his 

 judicial aid. There is support for this inference. Black- 

 stone says: &quot; Now, indeed, even the royal writs are held to 

 be demandable of common right, on paying the usual fees: &quot; 

 implying a preceding time in which the granting of them 

 was a matter of royal favour obtained by propitiation. 



Naturally, then, when judicial and other functions 

 come to be deputed, gifts will similarly be made to obtain 

 the services of the functionaries; and these, originally vol 

 untary, will become compulsory. Ancient records yield 

 evidence. Amos ii. 6, implies that judges received presents; 

 as are said to do the Turkish magistrates in the same regions 

 down to our day ; and on finding that habitually among the 

 Kirghis, &quot; the judge takes presents from both sides,&quot; we see 

 that the assumption of the prophet, and of the modern ob 

 server, that this usage arose by a corruption, adds one to 

 those many cases in which survival of a lower state is mis 

 taken for degradation of a higher. In France, the king in 

 1256 imposed on his judicial officials, &quot; high and subal 

 terns, an oath to make or receive no present, to administer 

 justice without regard to persons.&quot; Nevertheless gifts con 

 tinued. Judges received &quot; spices &quot; as a mark of gratitude 

 from those who had won a cause. By 1369, if not before, 

 these were converted into money; and in 1402 they were 

 recognized as dues. In our own history the case of Bacon 

 exemplifies not a special and late practice, but an old and 

 usual one. Local records show the habitual making of gifts 

 to officers of justice and their attendants; and &quot; no approach 

 to a great man, a magistrate, or courtier, was ever made 



