The Sun. — 1844-05-14 (London, England)

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 14, 1844.  lidating the state of the law of property. He (Lord Brougham) had spoken of cligesting not only the statutary law, but the common law, and thought the statement he had made of the dilfuied condition of the statute law was sufficient to show that the common law ought not to be exclude.: froei the operat:on of his Motion. The dictum was that a:I LICTi should obey this law. yet it was embodied in no less than 150,000 closely Printed pages, which was elucidated by an index with no less than 1,150 pages. He thought it was a most painful thing to judges to have to depend, in deciding upon those cases; upon eir own discretion ; what he wanted was to have some fixed rule by which judges were to decide, because he was 'confident that the crimes of murder, arson, treasoa, and such like, were the same now as during the days of coke. A judge should be alone influenced by what was the actual law as declared by the Legislature, end not be induced to declare what law was. Let their Lordships suppose a case wherein a judge had to decide a,,question in relevance to which no statute law had been enacted. What was his position ? Why, ho 11131:d to consult the reports of all the decisions which re the slightest analogy to that particular case, and there he was left to grope in the dark through all those eases, in order that he might find something like that which .was under his consideration: The eimsequence of all this was inextricable disPules ,and difficulties. During fifteen years of his life, he had had opportunities of being impressed viith the cogency of those arguments; and, in making this assertion he was fully borne out by M. Dupin, the celebrated French writer upon criminal jurisprudence. The Noble and Learned Lord then read a quotation from MeDupin's pamphlet, in 'which he stated that the greatest benefit had resulted from the formation of a criminal code in France.) This gentleman, it must be remembered ".as ‘‘‘.sas•aiaoriginally far from being enamoured of. sceptic on the sel'eject. Experience, .:lf:teve.f.h. ad taught him better. To show the necessity code,-hethe would inform their Lordships that Criminal Law Commissioners had collected no less .11:11 thirteen definitions of the crime of theft.. There Zerie 1540 statutes in force, 658 repealed, or supposed to itoorajed- There were 142 repealed, or repealed by an ; 234 of. what was called obsolete statutes, altogeth-te",,s/Pilea; being 3,354. Acts of Parliament rePealcd s4e-' °!t, of those repealed, or supposed to be ten weeiireet.atel s. .142' were doubtful. No man could There was, for -14,2 were or were not repealed. ete, as, for instance the 3d and 4th Edward VI., "*P• Wbiele,„ 0 SOn •to have . made 'it a very. grave offence for a per111,4nspoesession images taken, from a church, are. - -er.—ercnul provision, ,"-except Noble Lords, who ire 4ints"--(Latigliter)-,ser that if he (Lord e laughttin were to buy an image which came out of_ a ealls...tinder. this statute, which was not repealed, he --wit be • • Then there was an • Act in exat.' P11(11544. • fah ee.„ellbe Which provided punishment or fund and p an L.741(1 're' p.` ts..to stir up faction." This Act might be re'ught'evv ithfOrce against Many of their Lordships.— ( rite ughtei.) There were Acts, 26th Henry