This is not the place to write a detailed account of Struensee's administration,[156] but a brief summary may be given of some of his principal reforms, because they throw a light upon the character and career of this extraordinary man. They were planned on the broad principle of "the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number," and nearly all of them aimed at benefiting the people at the expense of vested interests. To appreciate his reforms we have to remember that the government of Denmark was honeycombed with abuses, and the peasants were ground down to the level of beasts of burden. Only drastic measures could remedy this state of things, and those which Struensee proposed were so sweeping as to amount to a revolution. [156] Professor E. Holm of Copenhagen has dealt with it most admirably in his recent work, _Danmark-Norges Historie_, 1720-1814. Perhaps the most important reform he effected was in the administration of justice. It was decreed that henceforth all men, whatever their rank, were equal before the law; judges who had shown themselves corrupt or negligent in the performance of their duties were removed from their posts, and the delay in hearing trials was censured. A multiplicity of law courts existed in Copenhagen and the provinces, which caused great confusion and hindered the course of justice; these were all abolished, and in their stead a single jurisdiction was instituted. This reform gave great offence to lawyers, who lost many fees thereby, but it proved most effectual for the better administration of justice. The civic government of Copenhagen was reformed with a view to bettering the management of the city revenues and the carrying out of improvements. The streets were named and lighted, and the houses were numbered. These changes gave almost as much offence to the burghers as the abolition of festivals had given to the clergy, for they were regarded as encroachments on the rights and liberties which the city had obtained at various times from the Kings of Denmark. But Struensee did not heed, and routed the forces of bumbledom in the same way as he had routed those of bigotry. He even aimed a blow at Sabbatarianism, and forbade the police of Copenhagen to enter private houses without a warrant, and meddle with what might, or might not, be done by the inhabitants on Sundays. Heretofore if found working or indulging in "unseemly merriment" in their houses on Sundays, citizens were liable to fine or imprisonment--a system which led to gross abuses of the power of the police, but which was tenaciously upheld by the magistrates and clergy. Other reforms included the abolition of the censorship of the press, leaving it perfectly free; a regulation aimed at the fraudulence of trustees; and another to check the extravagant expense of funerals, which were often so costly as to entail ruin on the family of the deceased. No abuse seemed too small to escape the eagle eye of the reformer.