Even Abou Hassan, the most disinterested of all viceroys, forgot not,
during his caliphate of one day, to send a douceur of one thousand
pieces of gold to his own household; and the Scottish vicegerents,
raised to power by the strength of their faction, failed not to embrace
the same means of rewarding them.
The administration of justice, in particular, was infected by the most
gross partiality. A case of importance scarcely occurred in which there
was not some ground for bias or partiality on the part of the judges,
who were so little able to withstand the temptation that the adage,
"Show me the man, and I will show you the law," became as prevalent as
it was scandalous. One corruption led the way to others still mroe gross
and profligate. The judge who lent his sacred authority in one case to
support a friend, and in another to crush an enemy, and who decisions
were founded on family connexions or political relations, could not be
supposed inaccessible to direct personal motives; and the purse of the
wealthy was too often believed to be thrown into the scale to weigh
down the cause of the poor litigant.
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