The Labor enquirer., 1884-02-09
A Contributor Takes One of
Colorado's Legal Lords
to Task.
The Magma Charta, Which is Said
to be a Great and Glorious
Instrument,
Shown to bel Means to Oppression,
Theft and Heartless Perse-
outions.
Concluded from Last Week

| Concluded from Last Week,
Editor Labor Enquirer.
have dwelt at greater length upon
the uses and abuses of the charter than
had originally intended, and will now,
with your permission, submit few re-
marks upon another English law-the
law of conspiracy.
Conspiracy at common law, we are
told, is an agreement between two or
more persons to do any unlawful act, or
to do any lawful act by unlawful means.
The whole extent of the crime turns on
the word unlawful. Frederick Harrison,
London barrister at law, in very able
article to the London Times, some years
ago, says: "The word, in truth, has not a
little embarrassed lawyers. 1t undoubt-
edly includes everything that is crimi-
nal, and good deal more that is not"
According to Stephens edition of Ros-
GOES Digest of Criminal Evidence, con-
spiracy is thus defined:
/. A combination to commit any crime
| is an lnQlctaDle conspiracy.
2. A combination to commit civil in
| jury is an indictable conspiracy in many,
though it is impossible to say precisely
in what cases. =
3. Combinations to do acts which the
courts regarded as outrages on morality
and decency, or as dangerous to the pub
lie peace or injurious to the public inter-
est, have in many cases been held to be
conspiracies.
The vagueness of the second and third
of these propositions is quite transpar-
ent, and leaves for the courts to decide
what is morally wrong or dangerous to
the public peace.
F. Harrison, in the article already re- ,
ferred to, says: 1T leaves the real char
acter of conspiracy thing to be deter
mined by the mind of the judge-as the
old lawyers said, by the length of the
judges foot"
In his annual address, Judge Stone
says of the law: MANY of its terms and
phases will always jar upon the unlearn-
ed ear"
Had he left out the word "unlearned"
the statement would have been more
correct, for some of the most learned
men, and among them the ablest lawyers
of the day, hold different views and
draw different conclusions from the same
law, and on that basis, if upon no other,
consider myself justified in declaring
the existing law disgrace to the intel
ligence of the nineteenth century.
Some years ago labor congress at
Leeds, England, denounced in unmis-
taxable terms the law of conspiracy.
This congress represented 100000 work.
men, principally mechanics, and had
amongst them such men as the late
Alexander Mcdonald, M. P. and H.
Broadhurst, a stonecutter, at present a
member of parliament. This body of
men, who knew the law as well as Judge
Markham, and who are better acquaint-
ed with the administration and working
of it than his honor and good sense
would permit him to pretend to be, pro-
nounced it fraud and composition of
meaningless jargon," and declared it
as almost invariably administered against
the industrial classes and their progress.
i've movements.
l. Commenting still further on the law
rof conspiracy, F. Harrison says: $50
long as it is confined to cases of fraud,
of personal malice, or public disorder,
this vague power is eminently useful.
When it is brought to bear on class and
trade disputes, when it rests on certain
doctrines about society, industry and
capital, it is not so just. Open" he says,
'any one Of the legal controversies re-
lating to trade conspiracies las in Chief
Justice Erle's book, and you will find
yourself in jungle of economic dogmas
which large classes of mankind declare
to be fallaces. Surely an indictable
crime should be defined in language
more like that of statute and less like
that of an essay"
And this is one of the laws Judge
Markham points to in his opening ad-
dress before the bar association as being
$50 perfect, 80 sublime" that it is incor-
porated into the laws Of almost every
state in this union. Then, 1 say, a
plague on your legislation that would in
corporate such laws Of the purity of
this English law which shallwe believe,
100000 British workmen, who know and
have experienced the law, or shall we
believe Judge Markham, who has no
experience of it, and, therefore, knows
nothing of it except paper knowledge
Put aside the workmen and place the
opinion of the London barrister against
that of the judge, and / leave the public
to decide. ss ~
| Does Judge Markham know it was
little over hundred years ago that
slavery was abolished from the British
Isles? Does he know that until 177
the Scotch colliers and salters weadlE.
Continued on Page q Teeth
4. Only $40