The Sun.
London, England, 1836-12-28 00:00:00

practical evidence of official returns, which showed a
diminution instead of an increase of the crime ; and the
voice of civic prejudice has not since raised itself on this
subject in opposition to the progress of civilised legis-
lation. We have left the admirers of exterminating law
without the shadow of a plausible pretence for appealing
to the selfishness or timidity of mankind in behalf of
their barbarous system. The prejudices which we had
to overcome in effecting the mitigation of the law of
forgery, and several other capital laws, were not greater
than those against which we had to contend in advo-
cating the equal and impartial administration of justice
between the Crown and the accused in cases of felony.
Again and again had we to impress upon the public
mind, by reiterated argument, the propriety of removing
the gross anomaly which withheld from persons charged
with felony the right of making a full defence by
Counsel, which was allowed in all cases of treason and
misdemeanor. The obvious injustice of permitting the
Counsel for the prosecution to address the Jury, and
to avail himself of all his resources of ingenuity or
eloquence to distort or colour circumstances in favour of
guilt, while the Counsel on the other side was not
allowed to address a word to the Jury in answer to the
most perverted reasoning, or highly-coloured state-
ments, ought never to have been part and parcel of the
judicial practice of a civilised people. Need we say
how many efforts were necessary, how long a struggle
was maintained, before a usage which sinned against
the first principles of justice was obliterated from the
administration of the law among us in the nineteenth
century ? The perseverance of Mr. Ewart in
one House of the Legislature, where he intro-
duced the Prisoners' Counsel Bill three or four times,
and the commanding talents of Lord Lyndhurst in
the other, who had taken up the measure after Lord
Brougham had been the means of defeating it, accom-
plished this victory ; but, as in the case of the forgery
laws, the victory of sound and rational justice has
hardly been achieved, when a systematic attempt is
made in certain quarters to prejudice the public mind
against this obvious improvement in the administration
of the law—obvious to all but the interested and the
ignorant—and to excite a feeling in favour of a return
to a practice so opposed to the principle of judicial
fairness and impartiality, that, if attempted to be in-
troduced into our Civil Courts, and applied to cases
of property, instead of being confined to questions
affecting liberty and life, it would be repudiated with
universal indignation. Some of our civic " Liberals,"
and some of the Magisterial Solons of the Metro-
politan counties, are, it appears, greatly alarmed by
the increased expense which is said to arise to both
city and county from the working of the Bill. In
questions of property, no expense is said to be too
great by which justice can be procured ; it is only
in cases which, in nine instances out of ten, affect
the dearest interests of the poor, that justice is
weighed in the scales of a Jewish calculation against
pelf. As to the civic " Liberals," when they express
an utter horror of indulging the poor with even-handed
justice at any expense to the corporate funds, let us
remind them how they assisted to carry that Central
Court Bill of Lord Brougham, which has extended
the criminal jurisdiction of the Corporation, as we have
contended, most unconstitutionally, over portions of
the counties of Surrey, Essex, and Kent. Previously
to that centralising experiment having become a law,
there was a 'Winter Assize on the Home Circuit, and
a great proportion of the prisoners—now tried at the
Central Criminal Court—were tried in the Assize
towns of their respective counties—they were tried by
the King's Judges, which few of them are at the
Central Court, and the expellees were paid by the
counties within the prisons of which they had been
committed. We observe—by a return lately pro-
duced by Sir Peter Laurie—that a considerable ad•
di tional expense was entailed upon the county of
Middlesex, in consequence of the increase of the
jurisdiction of the Old Bailey Sessions, by Lord
Brougham's Bill, or rather the Bill of Mr. Shelton,
which the Noble and Learned Lord had made his own
by adoption. It appears by the return to which we
have alluded that the expense of the Old Bailey
Sessions for one year, from November Sessions 1833,
to October Sessions, 1834. was in round numbers
4,8001., and that the expenses of the Central Criminal
Court for one year, before the Prisoners' Counsel Bill
had become a law, was 5,4701. Of course with this
increase the Prisoners' Counsel Bill could have had
nothing to do. And there is no doubt that as to pri-
soners for theft, technically called larceny, a consider-
able increase of crime, and of course of expense, has
been occasioned by another measure of which Lord
Brougham, if not the original author, was the most
zealous and energetic advocate—we allude to the Poor
Law Amendment Act, which, if in a few places it
has saved something upon the poor rate by reducing
the pauper allowance to a famine scale, has as certainly
throughout the kingdom increased the expense of
prosecutions, by driving great numbers of destitute
persons to rob and steal. The recent increase of
robbery in the highway—still a capital crime—can
only be accounted for by the operation of the Poor Law
Amendment Act. We say to the save-all patriots—
the men who measure justice to the poor by a pocket-
rule, as Mr. Spring Rice measures knowledge by su-
perficial inches—we say to those spurious Reformers,
and to the Middlesex Solons, apply to Parliament for
the repeal of the Whig Poor Law Amendment Act,
and also for that thorough reform of the criminal code
which the Whigs have so long promised, and so long
evaded ; and the consequence of succeeding in those
applications will be a considerable diminution of crime,
and of the expense on its prosecution. Besides, we un-
derstand that, until recently, a practice prevailed at
the Old Bailey Court, which does not prevail else-
where, of not allowing for the fees of Counsel in the
expense of prosecutions. This was different from the
practice in all other counties but Middlesex, as
in all but that county the fees of Counsel were,
like the other items of expense, thrown upon the
county-rate ; but in Middlesex the prosecutor him-
self paid the Counsel's fees. Latterly the fees of Coun-
sel have been charged upon the county, which so
far makes an apparent, but not a real, increase of the
expenses of prosecutions. There are other points con-
nected with the opposition given to the Prisoners'
Counsel Bill, which we shall notice at a future oppor-
tunity—especially the illiberal attacks made by two or
three Barristers on this Bill, whose opinions have cer-
tainly met with no countenance from the ablest and
most learned men in the profession. To suppose that
any attempt to go back to the old system of one-sided
justice could be successful is perfectly ridiculous.
Why is it that the practice which has obtained from
ancient time in Scotland, of allowing prisoners
charged with felony to make their full defence by
Counsel, causes no complaint in that part of the
United Kingdom ? Let the advocates of mutilated
and one-sided justice on this side of the Tweed tell us
the reason if they can—or " for ever hold their
peace."—Morning Herald.
The Popish Parliament now sitting in Dublin has
been occupied for some time in the discussion of a
motion brought forward by Mr. O'Malley. It will be
remembered that its members have recently resolved
that, though they will take from the Protestant Church
whatever portion of its revenues they may, from time
to time, be able to abstract, they will be satisfied with
nothing short of the entire destruction of the Esta-
blishment. Mr. O'Malley now proposes that the en-
tire property of the Protestant Church, which his com-
peers have thus determined to plunder, shall be devoted
to the relief of, the Irish poor. Upon the principle of
Mr.
'Malley scheme we have already offered some
comments, and we shall hereafter return to the consi-
deration of it. But we mean to-day to deal only with
the fashion in which the leading agitators of Ire-
land have met this interference with their preroga-
tive. Mr. O'Malley recommends robbery in the first
place, and charity in the second ; he would plunder
religion, and he would relieve penury. Mr. O'Con-
nell applauds the first half of the plan, but vehe-
mently condemns the second. He is ready to strip
a Bishop, but reluctant to feed a beggar. He is an
accomplice with any man who will steal a chalice from
a Church, and an informer against any man who will
put a loaf into a cabin. Spoliation Is to him plain
duty—clear right ; but charity involves subtle ques-
tions, intrinsic difficulties, deep metaphysics, political
economy. Mr. O'Connell, however, was beaten by
Mr. O'Malley. The Popish Parliament having con-
fiscated Church property, appeared disposed to make