A ‘Spy’ cartoon by Leslie Ward (1851–1922), caricaturing Sir John Bridge (1824–1900). Bridge was a lawyer who in 1872 took the job of a magistrate in Hammersmith, and gradually rose in his profession. Appointed a Bow Street magistrate in 1887, and three years later Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, he won for himself an enviable reputation and was knighted for his services. “In the exercise of his summary jurisdiction” wrote James McMullen Rigg (1855-1926) in The Dictionary of National Biography (1901) “he well knew how to temper justice with mercy. Few British magistrates have more happily combined dignity and firmness with judicious and unobtrusive benevolence.”
Introduction
In the early eighteenth century, some argued that those who enjoy the benefits of living in our society should accept that the authorities will police our spending, our behaviour and even our opinions as they think best. But the benefits of society do not come from having our liberties curtailed, objected John Trenchard MP. They come from having them protected.
BY Liberty, I understand the Power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys.
The Fruits of a Man’s honest Industry are the just Rewards of it, ascertain’d to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner he thinks fit: And thus, with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbiter of his own private Actions and Property — A Character of which no Man living can divest him but by Usurpation, or his own Consent.
The ent’ring into political Society, is so far from a Departure from this natural Right, that to preserve it, was the sole Reason why Men did so, and mutual Protection and Alliance is the only reasonable Purpose of all reasonable Societies.
Précis
John Trenchard, lead author of the Cato Letters, defined liberty as the right to do as you please with the fruits of your own labour, so long that you extend that same privilege to everyone else. Being a responsible member of wider society does not diminish that right: on the contrary, the very purpose of society is to secure it. (60 / 60 words)
John Trenchard, lead author of the Cato Letters, defined liberty as the right to do as you please with the fruits of your own labour, so long that you extend that same privilege to everyone else. Being a responsible member of wider society does not diminish that right: on the contrary, the very purpose of society is to secure it.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: although, because, if, just, may, must, or, until.
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