The Express.
London, England, 1857-04-21 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, APRIL 21.

TO OUB

A DOUBLE NUMBER of the EXPRESS will
b. published ON SATURDAYS a. usual, during
tie Parliamentary ream.

ONE of the best tests of the practical working
power of the new House of Commons will be its
ability to deal with those questions of Law Reform
left unsettled by its predecessor. It may not be
amiss to give a rapid sketch of some of the more im-
portant measures of this kind which are now await-
ing the decision of Parliament.
There is, first, the creation of a Department of
Public Justice. We give this plan the precedence,
as upon the adoption of a wise policy in this respect
most principally depend the possibility of a eye-
tematic and comprehensive prosecution of Law Re-
form by the British Legislature. The value of
mach a department consists mainly in this, that its
Head would be responsible for preparing and con-
ducting through Parliament those various measures
of law amendment which the progress of intelligence
and the changes of society imperatively require, and
which the existing law functionaries of the
Crown, even if they had the will, have not the time
to take charge of. A more convincing proof of the
necessity for such a functionary can scarcely be con-
mired than that furnished by the evidence recently
taken before the Committee for inquiring into the
Mariner and language of Current Legislation."
The great difficulty that met this Committee at
every turn was how to find a fitting medium of
. .

commwneation between the House and the
functionary appointed to revise and classify the
public bills of the session. With the introduction of
✓a Department of Public Justine all such dißealty
wait: team The two great sad important works
of teriaiag the language of cement iegielatkds low!
of expurgating, clarifying, and consolidating the
Statutes embodying past legislation, would go on
concurrently under separate officers, with appro-
priate staffs of assistants, in the one office of the
Minister of Public Justice, who would himself baths
medium of communicating the multi of their NM-
bincd labours to the House. The last House of
Commons carried an address to the QUM( foe the
creation of a Department of Public Justice : it rests
with the new House to follow up their work.

Turning from the constitution of a Department
charged to watch over the adminiatration sad
amendment of the law, to the particular siemens of
Law Reform lady to be brought up foe disenesion
before the new Parliament, we find that many
of them involve considerations of the gravest im-
portance, deeply affecting the social and moncesieel
interests of the country. The proposed elmagee is
the Law of Divorce, and in the law regulating the
Property of Married Women, will effect, if carried oat
in a liberal and enlightened spirit, a rut alteration
foe the better in the legal relations of husband and
wife. The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Rill of
last session will, indeed, require considerable modi-
fication before it can be accepted as an adequate
remedy for the existing evils. The abolition of the
action of erim. ems., and of the rule excluding the
festimemy of the wife, most form part of any mea-
MS CM this subject intended to be satisfactory.
The establishment of an effective Registration
of Titles to land, on the principles developed
in the admirable Report to which we have
recently had occasion more then awe to refer, would
work a vast improvement in the laws of laud.
Without in the slightest degree infringing on the
secrecy or security of titles, such a =snare would
emancipate the owner, of the soil from the enema
aseessity of submitting to a fresh investigation of
their rights of property on every fresh mender of
tremilm and would render dealings in Mod se
as inespeaeive, and ill SA as dealings in the public
tee& While the bonded gentry wadi thee he dread
film me ',the vent Omens 'Lampoonist lurdome
sew priming cm 124 the sonummlig et large mould
batik in at Most an egnel degree. The investment
▪ capital in the soil weld be eneseraged and pris-
m*/ The Elaltiplialy et lead Wee end had
sops wadi mere then make up to the lawyers
fix whet they wad lose by the almiitien at
the mem eaneleresu erten of manyancing.
A fair per centage isommiseiem en lend transfers 11
will pay them better and num eetiefaeterily then
the present method of reessamatim by skins sad
folios, by the number of maim Mope they can con-
trive to take, and of melon weeds they can contrive
to darken counsel withal.

Next, probably, in importance to these modifica-
tions of the laws affecting )ferriage and Land are
those relating to the jurisdiction over Wills of per-
sonalty. In what form the Testamentary Jurisdic-
tion Bill may be presented to the new Parliament it
is impossible to say. We may, at all events, be
allowed to hope that the measure which last session
mad forth such smaniamous disapprobation from all
duo mnineat lawysen is the Upper House will never
twin be submitted In the Legislature. On this
wear Parliament has a right to demand from the
law aim of Lord PAL,' za.grors Gasasvinfor a
'weaned working measure, not me a legiehtios
abortion as that whisk awned foe lard enatewoltem
assmiable a notoriety in the het Parliament.
Pamirs boss the deprinsent af Civil to that of
CsimMal Law, the quietism pending her decision,
both El be dm asindolgridien d the Paw and its
snlialaidimpsevidems. aw Of a imparlame that it
it dlllosit to over-estimate. Of alimstime in the
stanhanse of the crinsiard law, the most material is
that which proposes to make Breaches of Truet the

subject not of civil redress only but of penal re-
tribution : an alteration which has long been hope-
naively required, and which, as recent notorious in-
stances of mercantile profligacy prove, can no longer
be delayed without the gravest reproach to our
whole system of jurisprudence. Among the changes
in the administration of the criminal law, the insti-

tuition of Public Prosecutors, and the introduction of
mere available methods for the detection and inves-
tigation of crime, will probably again be brought
before the attention of Parliament. A far mom
momentous and more difficult class of questions in
connection with the subject of Penal Discipline
will undoubtedly occupy their attention. Dis-
cussions on the amendment of the Penal Servi-
tude Act, on the continuance or discon-
tinosnoe, the extension or abridgement of Transporta-
tion, will open up again the whole wide question
of secondary punishments. The cessation of the
ticket-otleave panic will facilitate the discussion of
this question in a calmer and more philosophical spirit
than was possible when it was last before Parlia-
ment, and we shall hope to see that the new House
will not, at all events, fall short of the old, in the
statesmanlike temper so essential for wise delibera-
tion on questions entirely remote from party
politics, and intimately affecting the most im-
portant interests of the community. As a branch
of the same great subject, the reformatory
treatment of juvenile criminals will of course
claim its share in the attention of the new
Home. Our recently elected legislators will find
full employment for the best exertion of their highest
faculties in accurately drawing the line between that
treatment of criminal and vagrant children which
the interests of humanity and civilisation demand,
and that which confers upon offending or predatory
poverty education and care which are denied to the
pauper child who has never qualified himself for
reformatory or industrial schools by 'beet vagrancy
or petty crime. Such is a rapid outline of some of
the more prominent measures of social reform more
or less connected with the amendment of the law
which await the consideration of the new Parlia-
ment. It may be that before the House meets we
may take the opportunity of recurring more in detail
to one or two of the number.