82
Well, how does it go on? To nominate sureties on an undertaking to pay in full the amount in which he was indebted. Here again he has stolen away the right of the sacred funds to a tenfold payment, and one-half of the claim of the civil treasury, in cases where double payment is required by law. And how does he manage that? By writing the amount instead of the penalty, and in which he was indebted instead of which has accrued.
83
The difference is this: if he had proposed that sureties should be appointed to guarantee the payment of the accruing penalty, he would have embraced in his enactment the statutes under which certain debts are doubled, and others multiplied by ten; and so the debtor would have been obliged not only to pay in full the amount of the debt as recorded, but also to liquidate the penal payments legally added thereto. As it is, by the words nominate sureties on an undertaking to pay in full the amount in which he was indebted, he makes the payment depend on the plaint and the documents upon which the several delinquents were brought to trial; and in those documents only the original amount of the debt is recorded.
84
Again, after making such a big hole in the laws by juggling with words, he adds: the CommissionersSee Dem. 24.22 above. are required to put the question whensoever any debtor wishes to nominate sureties, for right through his law he thinks it his business to rescue the criminal who has been convicted in this court. By allowing the nomination of sureties to take place at the pleasure of the delinquent, he puts it into his power never to pay, and never to go to prison.
