The Sun.
London, England, 1827-01-05 00:00:00

ceedings in this country, more especially in the-provinces,
where witnesses must be taken to a great distance from
their homes, and kept at a great expellee for days and
even weeks at assize towns, are enormous. Our readers
may remember the case tried at Lancaster some time
ago, respecting a right to sell fish in a shop in Man-
chester, the costs of which trial were stated at 1,000/.
So much is man the slave of habit, and guided in his
opinions by the circumstances in which he is placed, that
the denial of justice Involved in the above statement, or
rather the making justice ancillary to the perpetration of
the most horrid injustice, is probably deemed by all our
Judges and Barristers in fall practice perfectly right
and proper. Who ever yet heard of a Judge com-
plaining thst the Libel Law was in any one
respect what it ought not to be ? Who ever heard a Judge
complaining that the barbarous-practice of deciding all the
cases of a large County twice a year in a few days at one
place, necessitating an enormous expellee in witnesses, &c.
was in the least reprehensible ? The vulgar are apt to be-
lieve that the Opinions which are irreconcileable- with
common sense arc not sincerely held. But it is impossible
to believe that the obliquity of understanding to which we
have alluded is affected—we believe it is genuine and
bona fide. The Arab who lien in wait for the traveller,
whom he robs and murders, has not the least suspicion that
he is doing Wrong; but were he to refuse hospitality to the
stranger who sought the door of his tent, he would consider
1/?.rsiself an object of abhorrence, The English Judge and
lawyer, in like manner, have not the slightest idea that
there is any thing wrong in robbing mercilessly of their
property all who seek justice' from them. They cannot
Oneeive any- other state of things, for it is what they have
been used to all their lives. A brielless Barrister,who,
from mixing in the world more than with his brethren, and
hearing people frequently express their astonishment that
justice should be profitable only to those who distribute it,
may stumble on the suspicion that there is something
wrong in the system, and feel his conscience give way.—
But a thorough-bred Lawyer is as hard as an ass's hide.
There are men born with two thumbs on one hand, just as
there are Africans with white skins ; and, therefore, we do
not pretend to say that, in the course of an age, there may
not be found a Lawyer with some sense of justice. The
late Sir Samuel Romilly was one of these anomalies. Fre-
derick of Prussia, after much trouble discovered one
Lawyer, Chancellor Von Carmer, who disapproved of the
injustice perpetrated in the rame of Law. Lord Bacon,
too, caught from his other pursuits some odd notions re-
specting Law. But we may be sure that the consciences
of Lawyers, are generally formed by their profession, and
that they look with endearment on what even excites hor-
ror in all others. It would be as reasonable to expect that
plans for annihilating Brigandage should be formed in
Calabria or Apulia, as that Law Reforms should ever ori-
ginate with the Gentlemen of the Long Robe. It is cer-
tainly curious, however, to find but one opinion expresSed
throughout all the cultivated classes in company, Books,
Reviews, Magazines, and Newspapers, respecting the Law
of Libel, and to hear- the eulogies bestowed on it in our
Courts of Law.—lbid.

Of the five persons ordered for execution on Tuesday
last, three were mercifully withdrawn from undergoing
their awful sentence upon that occasion—one permanently,
and the other two to afford time, we presume, for inquir-
ing into circumstances connected with their offence.;---
Every. person must admire and applaud the tendernesi of
human life which is thus exhibited in the ready and anxious
attention of the amiable and enlightened Secretary of
State for the Home Department, to any circumstances of
alleviation which are presented to his notice, even after the
Cases of wretched culprits have undergone the apparently
final decision of the Privy Council, aided by the judgment
Of the great Law. Officers; but, highly.as the circumstance
calls for our approbation, and desirous 'as every friend to
humanity and justice must be to see the infliction of capi-
tal punishments spared wherever it can be, we are, at the
same time, not without our fears that the frequent recur-
ence of occasions for it, show that there must be, some-
thing radically wrong in the previous stages of the Pro-
iTedings which can thus render their revision so frequently
necessary. God forbid that any fear of proving Judges or
Juries to be wrong, should weigh for
.one moment in the
revision of any of such cases as those which we allude to!
and we would instantly lay down the pen, could we ima-
gine that there would be any one among our readers
who would attribute to our remarks any such motive
or effect. But it must strike every one as extraordinary,
that these cases of apparent- decision, indecision, and
redicision, are almost wholly confined to the metropolis;
and that, with the exception of a late instance at
Hertford, and, at the most, of one or two more, there is
not such a thing known as an innocent person, or of one
even of doubtful guilt, undergoing the extreme rigour of
the law, or being left for execution, on any one of the Cir-
cuits- It is not very easy to prove, or even to conjecture-
where the error, if there be one, really rests : but if the
'criminal proceedings at the Assizes be better and more accu-
rately conduCted than those at the Oldßailey, it would seem
obvious that the more the latter are assimilated to the
former, the more likely they would be to produce a simi;
laxly satisfactory result. Now the most marked differences
between these proceedings consist in the very different
'description., for the most part, of the persons constituting
the Grand Juries, of their want of any assistance or even
communication with the Judges ; and that a great and
-overwhelming majority of the prisoners in London, West-
minster, and Middlesex, are not tried by the same learned
and venerable persons who preside at the Assizes. W'he-
'ther these circumstances make any difference in the results
'it is not for us to say ; but in the absence of other reasons,
it may be permitted us to conjecture that they do; and
'we do not think that a revision and alteration of these
matters would be at all unworthy of Mr. Peel's attention
while engaged in other legal reforms. What we would
suggest
is, .that the Grand Juries of Middlesex should be
assimilated to those on the circuits ; that it should not be
the province of one Grand Jury alone to have its atten-
tion distracted, and the minds and bodies of its members'
worn out, with a Crowd of cases. from the highest to the
loNvest-deseription ; that the consideration of capital cases
should be separatedfrom those of a minor nature ; that a
distinct Grand Jury for that purpose should be expressly
empannelled; that such Jury should be charged by the
Judges, as at .the Assizes ; and that no capital charge
should be tried by any other person than one of' the twelve
Judges. In addition to these, some improvements might
probably take place in the previous proceedings before
Magistrates; though it should be remembered, that there
is no error of the Magistrate which can cause the convic-
tion of an innocent person, if due attention and scrutiny is
applied to the subsequent proceedings.—Moraing Herald.

In the -extracts from the Etoile, given in our Paper of
yesterday, our readers would observe a notice of proceed-
ings to be instituted against the Onstitutionnet, in conse-
quence of certain observations in which the latter hael in-
dulged, on the projet for the regulation Of the Press. Such
a notice bestows upon these observations an interest, which
they might Otherwise have failed in exciting; and we have,
therefore, given-a translation of the article in another co-
lumn, to show what the legal authorities of France deno-
ininate libellous. The professed object of the projet is to
save the Press from its • own excesses. But the way in
which this is to be effected is by no means obvious. We
may accumulate penalties as 'much as we please; this is
not to prevent excess, but to punish it. We may establish
a censorship ; but this is merely to exchange the judgment
of one set of men for the judgment of another. There is
no way of diminishing the number of libels—or- what
Judges and Juries may choose to term libels—but by limit-
ing publication; and this, a tax -on publication will effect,
but it will effect nothing else. While, however, it nar-
rows the dissemination of falsehood, it narrows also the dis-
semination of truth. If a Ministry will have fewer revilers,
it must content itself with fewer panegyrists. The Press,
in short, like every thing else in this imperfect world, has
its good and' its evil indissolubly combined : we must take
both or neither. At the same time, the good, as usual,
greatly predominates. For one alleged libel, the Press
gives us ten thousand pieces of useful information; and