The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-02 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JANUARY 2,1858

in evidence which, though consistent with the prisoner's
innocence, leave no doubt at all in the minds of those who
bear of them as to his guilt, the evidence does as much,
produces as great an effect, and is therefore eiperimentally
proved to he as strong as if they hail been inconsistent with
his innocence.

" Where there is no remorse, my son, there
" can bo no guilt," said " the excellent chap-
" lain" to Mr. George de Barnwell. This is
an excellent instance of valuing a thing " by
" the state of mind which it produces." No
doubt if we took the case of an acknowledged
good man—conscientious,just, and pure —who
felt no re►norse after the commission of an
offence against the law, we should be inclined
to suspect that there was " no guilt," and that
his alleged crime had been justifiable. But
in ninety-nine oases out of every hundred the
absence of remorse simply arises from a pre-
disposing condition of depravity. And
so with the verdict of a jury. There is
usually a " state of mind" among these twelve
men predisposing them either to an acquittal
or a conviction ; and though, no doubt, as a
matter of fact, this predisposition is found in
most instances to march with the truth, yet
we ought never to lose sight of the possible
exceptions—never to forego those securities
which may render a prejudiced verdict nuga-
tory. But, even setting aside the question of
prejudice, we have to make the same demand
before we can trust to the presence of convic-
tion as a proof of guilt as we have to make
Wore we can trust to the absence of remorse
as a proof of innocence. Fiat experimentani
in corpore OPTIMO. We must he certain that
the person or persons to whom the evidence
is addressed are not unduly credulous or igno-
rant, have a power of deciding between con•
theta-1g statements, and other qualifications
which might perhaps meet together in a jury
of Halla►ns or Humes, but one not usually
found in the category of virtues which adorn
the British shopkeeper. We do not mean to
endorse the opinion here quoted for condem-
nation :

That a conviction upon what is called circumstantial
evidence is not justifiable unless the circumstances proved
are inconsistent with the prisoner's innocence.

We only express our opinion that Mr.
Stephen's own argument is weak. Before
quitting this essay we may observe, as a piece
(It carelessness, that in relating the story of
Mr. Barnard and the Duke of Marlborough
(p. 37) Mr. Stephen ba,7 omitted to tell
us the most important point of all—i.e., what
was the verdict.
The article upon Porson is meagre and
slovenly, and stands in veil unfavourable con-
trast with 1)e Quincy's article upon Bentley.
In the present paper we have proper names
introduced in one page, and an explanation of
who they were in the next—as Mr. Norris (p.
1281—and gaps in the Professor's career, which
ought to have been filled up. At what period
of his life, for instance, did Porson get his
scholarship. We find him leaving Eton with
a very second rate reputation, but almost im-
mediately taking a good position at Cambridge,
and in his third year carrying off the Craven
Scholarship. Of course, in two or three years
a man like Person can work wonders. But it
is so rare that a boy leaving school without
that special kind of scholarship in which Por-
son was deficient when he left Eton ever
acquires it afterwards, that some account of
the process by which this great scholar made
himself an exception would have been very
welcome to the public. The preference of
Person to Bentley as a scholar is probably,
accoraing to the modern use of the term,
correct. Porson would perhaps have beaten
Bentley in an examination for the Craven or
the Ireland. He was, we should think, a more
critically exact as well as a more elegant
scholar. While Bentley's " Horace," and
Bentley's " Terence" have long since passed
into the index expurgatoria, Person's " four
plays," and Porson's preface, are unrivalled as
text-hooks, and bid fair to continue unassail-
able.
We hope we do Mr. Buxton no injustice
when we say that the article on India seems
to have been written rather because it was felt
necessary to have an article on India, than
I because he had anything very new to tell us.
With Mr. Buxton's account of the Indian army,
and his difficulties on the subject of caste, the
reader will do well to compare the work upon

17

India lately published by Lieutenant-General
Briggs (p. 1), in which he will find that the
strength of our old native armies were the
aborigines of India, and not Hindoos at all.
With regard also to the great improvements
and public works effected there by our rulers,
the same authority will be found a useful
check upon Mr. Buxton, whose vague flou-
rishes about railroads, roads, and canals, are
far from borne out by that officer's practical
experience.