Glaser's objection that government
pressure is impossible, have no need to give special instructions,
of a more or less compromising character, in order to exercise a
special influence in any particular case. There is no necessity
for anything beyond the conservative spirit natural to every
institution of the State, or the principle of authority which is a
special form of it, apart from the less respectable motives of
interested subservience to such as are in office and dispense
promotion.
Hence it will be useful, in initiating criminal proceedings, to
add to the action of a Public Prosecutor (but not to substitute
for him) the action of private persons.
Criminal proceedings by citizens may take two forms, according as
they are put in operation only by the injured person or by any
individual.
The first mode, already allowed in every civilised nation, needs
amendment in various ways, especially in regard to the
subordination of the penal action to the plaint of the injured
person, which ought to be restrained, and even abolished. In
fact, whereas this right has hitherto been regulated by law only
in view of the legal and material gravity of the offence, it
should in future be made to depend on the perversity of the
offender; for society has a much greater interest in defending
itself against the author of a slight offence if he is a born
criminal or a criminal lunatic, than in defending itself against
the author of a more serious crime, if he is an occasional
criminal or a criminal of passion.
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