The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-20 00:00:00

THE SUN,

calved, up to August 29, one widow and 12 cholera
orphans, whose maintenance, until they are able
to provide for themselves, will cost the parish,
according to the estinstite of a competent authority,
not less than 4201.; while a timely expenditure of 301.
in putting the court in a proper sanitary condition
would probably have prevented the occurrence of a single
case of cholera. The funerals of persons who have died
of cholera in the metropolis alone have already incurred
an expenditure of not less than 50,0001."
We can easily believe this, for we have known
similar results from the more common case of epi-
demic fever, engendered and diffused by poverty,
closeness, dirt, and other removable causes. All
neglect, whether private or public, is sure to be
retaliated. A pestilence is a call upon the public to
perform a common-duty ; and if that callore bseeriadoiss-
obeyed, we shall probably suffer a more
punishment than the drowsy rebukes of conscience.
Besides an increased danger of infection, we shall
have to support the wives and families of those whom
we now leave to die.
CHRONICLE.—We have much satisfaction in
learning from the postscript which Lord Brougham
has appended to the second edition of his recent letter
to Sir James Graham, that he intends, immediately
on the re-assembling of Parliament, to resume his
labours in relation to the impo.rtant Bills constituting
the Criminal Law Digest ; and it will, therefore, not
be without advantage to state briefly the history of
these measures, so that the public may be in a position
to judge for themselves as to what degree of value
ought to be attached to them. No sooner had Lord
Brougham, as Chancellor in the Reform Ministry,
been entrusted with the Great Seal than he determined
to carry out the enlightened scheme of digesting the
criminal law—a scheme which for many years had
occupied his thoughts and stimulated his ambition,
and the practicability and expediency of which had
been remarkably illustrated by the signal success of
the partial Consolidation Acts which, in 1827
and 1828, had been introduced and carried by Sir
Robert Peel and Lord Lansdowne. Accordingly, in
the summer of 1833, a Commission was issued, at the
special instance of the Chancellor, by which the fol-
lowing eminent lawyers—Messrs. Stark ie, Bellenden
Ker, Amos, Wightman, and Austin—were empowered
and directed "to digest into one statute all the
statutes and enactments touching crime and the trial
and punishment thereof; to digest into one other
statute all the provisions of the common or unwritten
law touching the same; and to inquire and report
how far it might be expedient to combine both
these statutes into one body of the criminal law,
repealing all other statutory provisions.'
In
1836 Mr. Jardine was nominated a Commissioner
in the place of Mr. Austin; and in October, 1.837,
the Commission, having expired upon the demise of
thy.
Ine
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rate Reports were annually made by the Commis-
sioners ; and, after urging numerous arguments, and
expressing a decided opinion in favour of embodying
in one digest both the written and the unwritten law
respecting crimes and punishments, and in another the
written and unwritten law of procedure in respect of
indictable offences, they proceeded to frame two Bills
in accordance with these views, and to offer sug-
gestions for such partial alterations in the law as
they considered to be necessary. In 1843—having in
the interval owed their continuance in office princi-
pally to the liberal and far. sighted policy of Sir
James Graham—they presented, in their Seventh
Report, the original draft of the Digest of Crimes
and Punishments; and in the following year a Bill,
founded upon this valuable Report, was laid before
the House of Peers by Lord Brougham. Lord Lynd-
hurst, then Chancellor, highly approved of the Bill ;
hut as it related to a subject of very great importance,
and was, moreover, from its very nature, incapable
of being duly scrutinized and corrected by the
Legislature, the Government deemed it expedient
that it should be referred to another Com-
mission, fir the purpose of being carefully re-
vised. A fresh Commission was consequently issued in
February, 1845, which empowered Messrs. Starkie
aed Bellenden Ker to finish the Digest of Criminal
Procedure—then on the eve of completion—and
directed them, in coejunction with Sir Edward
Ryan and Messrs. Vaughan Richards and Amos, to
reconsider the subject-matter and revise the language
of both Digests, and to report fully thereon. In ac-
cordance with these directions, the Learned Commis-
si nets proceeded to examine most minutely the Bill
of Crimes and Punishments, and the reports on
which it was founded ; and, aided as they were by
the criticisms of reviewers and by the suggestions of
many lawyers who felt an interest in the subject,
they w ere enabled to make many valuable altera-
tions in the structure of the Digest, and to present a
further report in 1847, in which it was embodied in
its revised form. The measure, having thus re-
ceived a very full consideration, was again brought
in by Lord Brougham during the session of 1848,
and was referred to a St•lect Committee of the Lords.
The mode in which the Bill has since been dealt
with is thus described by Lord Brougham, in his
letter to Sir James Graham. "As chairman of that
Committee, I addressed letters," he says, " to all the
Judges of the three kingdoms, requesting the obser-
vatioes upon the Diee,t, submitting it to them, to-
gether with copies of all the Reports upon which it
hid been founded. Waiting for the answers of those
learned persons, I postponed to the next session all
further proceedings with the Bill. Again, I presented
it at the very i,eginning of the session just ended;
again it was referred to the same Select Committee;
and again we anxiously expected the answers of the
Judges. The session has, however, passed away with-
out any answer whatever from any of the English
Judges—though valuable suggestions have been
communicated from those of the other tRo
kingdoms." Whether Lord Brougham is justified
in concludine from this circumstance, " that the
Judges of England are satisfied with the Digest,
and have no suggestions to offer," is a matter
respecting which opinions may well differ; but we
are much mistaken if there can be more than one
opinion respecting the inexpediency, not to say the
impr priety, of the conduct of these eminent and
/earned personages, in thus declining to assist the
House of Lords in its praiseworthy attempts to im-
prove the administration of justice. As the sworn
interpreters of the law, the Judges are obviously
capable, in a pre eminent degree, of giving sound
advice respecting the amendment of it; and we can-
not help feeling that in this instance they would have
best consulted their own real interest and dignity,
had they net treated with a silent disregard, which
may readily be mistaken for contempt, the expressed
wishes of the Second Estate of the realm. A minute
examination of the Digest was not asked, and could
not be expected from men whose time, during nine
months of the year, is amply occupied by judicial
duties ; but surely it was not very unrea-
sonable to imagine that those who live by
the law would willingly bestow some small
portion of their three months' leisure in form-
ing and expressing at least a general opinion on so
important a measure as the Bill of Crimes and
Punishments. Had they adopted this course, they
would assuredly have taken the most effectual steps
for securing to themselves the gratitude and respect
of their fellow-countrymen and of posterity. As it
was, they enjoyed, and we hope without alloy, the
uninterrupted idleness of a lawyer's long vacation

No sooner had the Commissioners revisedthe Bill of
Crimes and Punishments, than they gave their undi-
.._..

vided and earnest attention to the -Digest of Criminal
Procedure. The original draft of this Digest was

completed so long back as 1844—when it Was pre-
sented by the Commissioners in connexion with

an elabo-rate Report; and it was also ac-
companied by the highly valuable suggestions of
nearly a hundred practical lawyers, who had been
requested to state the results of their experience re-
specting criminal procedure, and to answer categori-
cally a series of questions on the subject, which were
contained in a paper prepared and circulated by the
Commissioners. The arduous task of revising this
second Digest was brought to a close only last July ;
and the two measures, forming together a complete
code of criminal law, are now ready to be submitted
for the approval of ithe Legislature. Our limits, of
course, preclude us from examining these measures in
detail ; but we can confidently assert that, from the
earliest period of the nation's history down to the
present day, no Bill has been prepared with one-tenth
part of the care which, during sixteen years, has
been unremittingly bestowed upon the Digests of the
Criminal Law.

TIMES.—The Carlisle agricultural anniversary
seems to have been a very genial affair. Its tone is
rather that of a harvest-home than a political reunion.
In all ages and countries the autumnal equinox has
been the time for such festivities, the labours of the
year being then over and mind and body equally ex-
hausted. The drama, races, and games of all sorts,
took their rise from the simple amusements of this
season. The tired husbandmen, with their wives
and their daughters, ate their new bread and drank
their new wine, and anointed themselves with new

oil ; killed the young of their flocks—the kids in
honour of Bacchus ; greased and inflated the skins,
certain
nmfthem—particularly
ur thewhichansteicesmswi
performed
dance, various
horn-
pipe on eggs—and vied with one another in extempore
th
original
verses and jokes of a rough description. The
Fescennine verses, as old probably as Italy itself,
were harvest home jokes, which it took a good many
centuries to refine into the satires of Horace or
Juvenal. Thespis used to begin his season in
September, muster his corps, mount his waggon,
and star through the villages with a success un-
known to his still ruder predecessors. The presiding
deity of the occasion all over the world was Bacchus,
under one name or another. The jolly god enjoyed a
large share of mortal affections, and though fun and
laughter, eating and drinking, and larking of all
sorts, seem to have been the substance of his worship,
was not to be trifled with, for he could and would in-
flict terrible vengeance on his contemners. Such is
the natural idea the world has always had of an agri-