The Express.
London, England, 1858-04-19 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 19.

THI verdict of the Jury in the cue of the Bishops'
was • protest against the attempt of • domestic
bigot and despot to wrest from Englishmen their
hereditary liberties. The verdicts of the Juries is
the cases of Titatwm.t., HARDT, Sig Hoist Tooen
were protests against the attempt of servile and
bigotted courtiers to arrest the English people in
their progress towards the attainment of extended
liberties. The verdict of the Jury in the cue of
Savoie]) is a pretest agai•st the attempt of a
foreign usurper end despot to intimidate a weak
and unpriacipled English Cabinet (we speak of the
late Ministry) into a surrender of English liberty.

The result of the trial of Dr. Blaze Ain is the natural
and necessary consequence of the adoption of Trial
by Jury in political canoes. .1 Jury when trying.
question of debt not paid, or of obligation not fulfilled,
will respect the declaration of the presiding Judge,
that the law has laid down such or such a rule, that
they ►ave nothing to do with the abstract equity of
the cser, and that they have only to declare whether
the law has or has not been obeyed. A Jury, when
trying a question of assault and battery, or of
slander, will equally conform its verdict to the
technical requisitions of the law. Bat when a poli-
tical ;oration is submitted to a Jury, the Jurors
feel instinctively that they have a higher duty
to perform than merely to declare whether
the letter of the written or consuetudi-
nary law has been violated. They feel that
they are called upon to discharge a duty to
society at large which may bring their convictions
into conflict with the mere formal prescripts of the
law ; that they must weigh in an impartial balance
the merits and demerits of all the parties to the
case ; that in striving at their decision they must
remember the existence of a law of higher and holier
origin, of a wider reach, and of more universal compre-
hensivenera than that which is inscribed is the
Statute Book, or in the records of the Judgments of
Our Courts. Juries in political eases have to decide
questions of cmstitutional policy as well ea of mere
law. They who are disposed to quarrel with
the verdict of the Jury in BERNARD'S case world
have quarrelled. had they lived in those times, with
the verdicts of the Juries in the cams of the
Bishops, of HARDY, Taziwst.l., and HORNE TOORR,
It is of the men« of Trial by Jury in political
cum, that the Jurors, in framing their verdict,
should allow weight to moral and political in addi-
tion to mere legal considerations; and whoever objects
to this practice ought logically to object altogether to
Trial by Jury in political cases. The object of em-
panelling a Jury in such cases is to take them out of
the jurisdiction of tie mere technical lawyer, with
a view to assert the liberties of the citizen, if need
be, even against the formalities and technicalities of
the Law itself.

In mu lag this it is not our meaning to concede
that the verdict of the Jury in DiceLAAILII.B can was
contrary to, or unwarranted by, the testimony ad-
duced. There were broken links in the chain of evi•
deuce. The Belgian witnesses expressed strong doubts
of the identity of the grenade produced with any of
those which they had seen and handled. The letters
produced were addressed to BERNARD, not written
by him ; and the interpretation put upon their words
with a view to infer the expression of a guilty intent-
times the part of the writers was palpably forced
and strained. The position of one of the principal
witnesses--the wife of RUDTO—in the uncertainty
of his fate, was sufficient to discredit her testimony.
The evidence of the railway clerk—the friendly in-
formant of the French Embassy—that BE.ltaltD
had expressed a confident expectation of the speedy
return of the Ease/nice to this country, was irrecon-
cileable with the idea that BERNARD contemplated
the assassination of the EMPRIOR. The evidence of
Ousixt's housekeeper as to BEINARD'e incredulity
when he Bret heard of the attempt in the Rae
Lepelletier, and of his unequivocal astonishment
when doubt was no longer possible, confirms in the
strongest manner the inference to which the evi-
dence of the railway clerk necessarily leads. With
these oonaiderations pressing upon them, we do not
see what other verdict could possibly have been re-
turned, even though the Jurors had fettered them-
selves by a strict regard to the purely technical requi-
sitions of the Law.

But we will not affect to believe that the verdict
was tootived by such considerations alone. There can
be no doubt that the moral sense of the Jurors re-
Totted against the essential falsehood of the indict-
ment. They saw clearly that BERNARD was prose-
cuted not because he was believed to be accessory
to the deaths of the individuals who received fatal
wounds in the Rue Lepelletier, but because he was
believed to have conspired to assassinate the Emperor
of the Fitestn. Their honest, Jour Box indig-
nation was roused by the attempt to make them
accessaries to the falsehood of a judicial juggle.
Again, their sympathies were touched by the pecu-
liar position of the prisoner. They sew before them
a man, poor as regards worldly wealth, alone and un-
supported save by a few private individuals who
were personally strangers to him. They saw
the two most powerful Governments in Europe
persevering for months in a large expenditure, avail-
ing themselves of the indefatigable exertions of two
completely organised and not over-scrupulous bodies
of police, to ensure the destruction of this poor and
almost friendless man. In such circumstances
it was not in human nature to escape a certain bias
in favour of the weaker party. Yet again, the per-
tinacity with which the presiding Judge again and
again obtruded upon them the declaration that in
the event of a verdict of guilty being returned the
law of the case would be discussed by the fifteen
Judges, showed the Jurors that it was intended by
a legal quibble to remove the cue of BERNARD from
their jurisdiction, and to have it virtually decided
by the Judges, unaided nr unchecked by a Jury. It
is the established right of an English Jury to decide
both on the law and the facts of the cases sub-
mitted to them. The Judge, it is true, expounds the
law to them; but when he hu done so, it is their
duty and their right not only to decide what
facts have been proved, but in what manner the
law as expounded from the Bench bears upon them.
Lord CAMPBELL anxiously and pertinaciously en-
deavoured to impress upon the minds of the Jury
that they ought to confine themselves to questions of
evidence alone, and to leave the application of the
law to the Judges in the Court of Criminal Appeal.