On this
head Bentham said that concubinage regulated by civil laws would
be less mischievous than that which the law does not recognise but
cannot prevent.--Cheap and easy law is a preventive of crimes and
offences against public order, the person and property, as I have
already said.--The ancient Italian institution of Advocate of the
Poor, if substituted for the present illusory assistance by the
courts, would prevent many acts of revenge. So also would a
strict and speedy indemnity for the victims of other men's crimes,
intrusted to a public minister when the injured person is not able
to resort to the law; for as I have maintained, with the approval
of sundry criminal sociologists, civil responsibility for crime
ought to be as much a social obligation as penal
responsibility, and not a mere private concern.--Simplification of
the law would prevent a large number of frauds, contraventions,
&c., for, apart from the metaphysical and ironical assertion that
ignorance of the law excuses no man, it is certain that our forest
of codes, laws, decrees, regulations and so forth, leads to
endless misapprehensions and mistakes, and therefore to
contraventions and offences.
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