Note 129 — CHAP. XVI.
Reading edition
The benefit of Clergy originated in injustice and inhumanity, and can only be palliated by the rude state of society, when so disgraceful a privilege was legalized and interwoven in the criminal code.—It partakes of the nature of a compromise with villainy.—It perplexes the system of criminal jurisprudence; and since its sting is taken away it would be an improvement to discontinue it totally.