"On The Printing Press"

[frill 2277]

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“On the Print-Press”

OR
The Necessity of Public Knowledge of Law

In Praise of Jack McCain

 

As penned by Lesser Magistrate Eidr Haraqqa, proud Freeman of Ves.

As printed by the Worshipful Guild of Writers of the Golden City of Ves.

AS SO FUNDED by the patrons-of-art of the Worshipful Guild of Writers.

SCRIPTA MANENT

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11^th  of The Deep Cold, 1718.

 

 

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It is common knowledge that giving the lay-man ability to interpret the laws as freely as decided is an implacable evil and a subversion of the norms of our land. We must therefore conclude that obscurity of the written laws is also an evil, as it is a consequence of misinterpretation. If it were not for the laws being written in the common tongue, those ignorant of their actions and the subsequent consequences would be thralls to those learned interpreters of the laws who, as law-men and notaries, render the full knowledge of the laws that each men are bound a wholly private product. With a common knowledge of the simplified, basal laws of this land, crimes will be lesser - the laws more universally understood and known by the common-classes. There is no doubt that the proclivity of some men for the breaching of Imperial and Johannian law is but assisted by ignorance of the laws they so very break.

 

Through both the publishing of acts and amendments, and the avenue of print-houses filling the most cosmopolitan of settlements, the codified laws of the lands are transformed into a public product not known solely to the defenders of the laws. The cabal of jurists and notaries governing the very actions men so enact is dispelled by the diffusing of the literature of the Imperial codes. To men such as the print-house operator turned political savant Jack McCain, it is owing that the prospective tyranny ignorance of the law is such a rarity in the Imperial lands. A man acquainted with history, it is facile for him to observe that benevolence and humanity have sprung forth with the rise of the legal-culture of the common folk, these tender virtues are but from his own kindling. It is but for this man’s staunch encouragement that I wrote, and write, on subjects juristic and political.

 

It is no secret of the prevalence of corruption and degeneracy in our age, but it is but by virtue of men such as good Mr McCain and the consistent published reform of the Emperor that such cruelty and oppression are but quarantined to less civilised halls of these lands.

 

GOD bless men like Jack McCain.

 

Eidr Haraqqa.

 

[Esterlen 4499]

Jack McCain reads the writing with some surprise, adjusting a pair of round eye-glasses perched upon the bridge of his nose. The Harrenite cannot help but feel flattered by the Farfolk, Haraccus’ words – indeed, he emits a grumble of excitement at the mere idea that the old Whiggish Harrenite philosophies are gaining traction within his countrymen in Ves. If only his friend Alfred still drew breath to witness such a thing!