[Footnote 113: This is a Certificate which may be assigned _once_, exempting the person who receives it, or his immediate assignee, from all offices within the parish or ward where the felony was committed. In some parishes it will sell from 25_l._ to 30_l._ In others it is not worth above 15_l._ to 18_l._ according to local situation.] These rewards apply to ten different offences, and ought, no doubt, to be a considerable spur to Officers to do their duty; but it may be doubted whether this measure has not, in some degree, tended to the increase of a multitude of smaller crimes which are pregnant with the greatest mischiefs to Society.--It is by deterring men from the commission of _smaller_ crimes (says the Marquis Beccaria) that _greater_ ones are prevented. If small rewards were given in cases of _Grand Larceny_, (now very numerous,) as well as of several other felonies, frauds, and misdemeanors, a species of activity would enter into the system of detection, which has not heretofore been experienced. While rewards are limited to higher offences, and CONVICTION _is the indispensable condition upon which they are granted_, it is much to be feared that lesser crimes are overlooked; and the Public subjected, in many instances, to the intermediate depredations of a rogue, from his first starting upon the town until he shall be worth 40_l._ This system of giving high rewards only on conviction, also tends to weaken evidence: since it is obvious that the Counsel for all Prisoners, whose offences entitle the Prosecutors and Officers to a reward, generally endeavour to impress upon the minds of the Jury an idea, that witnesses, who have a pecuniary interest in the conviction of any offender standing upon trial, are not, on all occasions, deserving of full credit, unless strongly corroborated by other evidence; and thus many notorious offenders often escape justice. By altering the system entirely, and leaving it in the breast of the Judge who tries the offence, to determine what reward shall be allowed, with a power to _grant_ or _withhold_, or to _limit_ and _increase the same_, according to circumstances connected with the trouble and risk of the parties, _whether there is a conviction or not_, a fairer measure of recompence would be dealt out;--the public money would be more beneficially distributed,[114] so as to excite general activity in checking every species of criminality;--and the objections, now urged against Officers and Prosecutors as interested witnesses, would, by this arrangement, be completely obviated. [Footnote 114: The expence to the Public for rewards paid by the Sheriffs of the different Counties for 12 years, from 1786 to 1797 inclusive, appears from the Appendix of the 28th Report of the Select Committee on Finance, page 104, to stand thus: