The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-25 00:00:00

redress as a private individual, or that the
process
by which the fact whether such redress be due is ascertained,—the true and proper province
of the jury,—which is now the same in both
instances, should be made diametrically opposite
in the two cases. Suppose the action of " Smith
v. Great Northern Railway Company" had,
under the very same circumstances, taken the
form of an indictment for manslaughter against
the driver of the train, why should the very
same issue of culpability or accident be decided
in the one case by a unanimous jury, in the other
by a majority of jurymen, which is not a jury
at all ?
Two trials of recent occurrence—that of Dr.
BERNARD, the evidence of whose complicity in
the attempted assassination of the French Em-
peror was far from inconclusive, and that of WEL-
LLNGTON GUERNSEY, to whom the unlawful ab-
straction, and equally unlawful publication, of a
secret State paper, was clearly brought home—
abundantly illustrate the uncomfortable fact
that, somehow or other, trial by jury does not
give to the gravest interests 'of society the pro-
tection which it was unquestionably intended to
afford, and which the oath taken by the jury
explicitly pledges them to give.
That a remedy is needed, we readily admit.
But what is that remedy to be ? It must, we
contend, be a remedy correcting certain vicious
habits which, of late years, juries have contracted,
and restoring them to a condition suited to their
original purpose, that of serving as efficient instru-
ments for the redress of all wrongs, whether
public or private. That remedy we believe to
be a very simple one ; and though it may not
cure the evil in a day, it will do so by degrees, if
assiduously and perseveringly employed. It is
in the hands of the judges themselves. Let
juries be more carefully instructed as to the
part assigned to them in the administration of
justice. Let them not be permitted to proceed
upon a vague and loose notion of " doing justice
in the case," which leaves a wide opening for the
importation into their decision of all their private
opinions on public matters, of their personal
notions and prejudices, their sympathies and
antipathies; let them be told that all they have
to do is to decide, regardless of legal conse-
quences, upon the evidence placed before them,
whether certain facts alleged on the one side,
denied on the other, are true or not, whether
they are facts or fictions. Let this be done con-
stantly, not only with great clearness, but with
a solemn reference to the obligations of their
oath, and it will soon become as rare to find a
jury disagree, as it is now to get one to agree
whenever any interests of more than ordinary
magnitude, public or private, are involved in the
issue of the trial. Juries have been a good deal
allowed to usurp the functions of the judge, like
vestrymen those of the bishop, and ten-pound
householders those of the legislator and states-
man. "Ne sutor ultra crepidam," is a prescrip-
tion which, properly made up and administered,
would cure a good many of the present distem-
pers of the body politic—that of which Lord
CAMPBELL complains among the rest—w ithout the
use of so rough a remedy as that proposed by the
Noble and Learned, but not always discreet, Lord
Chief Justice.

THE FRENCH ALLIANCE AND ITS
ASSAILANTS.

Iv Mr. GERARD STURT'S recent address to the
agriculturists of Sherborne does not pretend to
the attractions of oratory, it has at least the merit
of enlarging the sphere of debate, and of giving
to public attention a new and a singularly impor-
tant direction. After an off-hand slap or two
at Mr. BRIGHT, and a bow to Lord DERBY, Mr.
STURT proceeds to say :
_ _

" There's one more subject that I will lightly
touch upon—that is our relations with France.
I do not stand up for the Emperor in
the Montalembert or the Portuguese affair, but
it should be recollected that Frenchmen are not
like Englishmen. The Frenchman's motto is,
Anything for a row," while the Englishman's
motto is, "'Anything for a quiet life." French-
men are so excitable that, unless you rule
them with a rod of iron, you cannot keep them
quiet. Now, I think the Times and the Saturday
Review have been rather hard upon the