sent, as they appear to me. I am fully alive to the impolicy as well as the moral wrong of exaggerating present evils in comparison with those of former days; and I am aware that it is the natural tendency of our minds to do so. I would not be understood as expressing an opinion, that less regard is paid to an oath now than at any previous period of our history. In remote times I believe perjury was a very prevalent sin among us. Many interesting facts are recorded bearing directly on the point, and throwing some light upon distant pages of history*. The following address to King Henry the Sixth, by the prelates and clergy of the Province of Canterbury, assembled in convocation in the Cathedral of St. Paul, in the year 1439, when Chicheley was Archbishop, describes a very degraded and melancholy state of society. "Forasmuch as indictments in matters of trespass, rape, robbery, and other felonies, often be not used for conserving of law, to execution of justice, and to stablishing of peace in the people, but rather such indictments in these days be oftentime procured to extortion of sheriffs, and other officers, to lucre of maintainers of quarrels, and to enriching of jurors (which in these days in many * In Hicke's Dissertatio Epistolaris, we find not only the forms of many oaths prescribed in the times of the Saxons, but the value also of the oaths of different persons stated, varying according to their station and property. countries are withholden of fee) and clothing as men learned in the law; by occasion of the which misused indictments falleth many mischiefs in the King's people; for thence for lucre of officers, maintainers, and jurors, innocent people be wrongfully vexed and oppressed, many of the King's lieges be troubled by indictments, privily procured by malice of covetous men, when that is none action nor complaint having ground of the suit of party; many poor men which would live in rest and would be occupied in true labour, be compelled to live under tribute, and annual pensions of maintainers and jurors to eschew vexation of indictments; many folk that might get their living by occupation of lawful crafts and other true labours, cast up true business and rightful occupation, and intend in great part to get their living by bearing of false witness in inquests, and occupation of conspiracies. And thus by boldness of perjury in such falsely procured and used indictments, the dread of God's doom is forgotten, the law of God's precepts is damnably contraried and broken, while the name of God in such wrongfully-used indictments is wittingly taken to false witness, and the faith of Christ waxeth slack in such forsworn jurors, as though the rightful judgment of God should not punish the sin of such perjury; which misgovernance against the precept of God asketh vengeance of the people of the land, but if (unless) remedy be ordained against such mischiefs; please it our Sovereign Lord the King-to make all indictments null, unless the King be a party against the trespasser*." Some exceptions of murder, &c. are added. * Wilkins, Concilia, 1439. CHAPTER VII. DOES THE PRESENT SYSTEM WORK WELL? BEFORE I proceed to venture, as I am emboldened to do, upon an humble and respectful, but at the same time an open and undisguised appeal to the legislature as well as to the judges, and all others employed in the practical administration of the laws, it seems necessary to revert (for we have already alluded to the subject incidentally) to the practical effect of oaths as administered among us in securing the truth, where without them it would be withheld or distorted. Does the present system, however objectionable in other respects, work well in providing judges and magistrates with the real facts of the case on which they are called to adjudicate? If this be so, justice is so precious above all earthly good things which a community can enjoy (as a heathen says, "so fair is it and beautiful, as to exceed even the outgoings of the morning and evening in its loveliness"*), that, undoubtedly, if a system, however objectionable in its circumstances, is found practically to provide a kind of body-guard to her throne, we might well beware how we touched it with the tip even of a finger. But is this the fact? * Arist: Eth: Nic: v. 1. It is melancholy to reflect how clearly the evil propensities of our fallen nature show themselves, under similar temptations, through all the various degrees of religious darkness and light, and in every age and country of the world. In its worst tendencies, unregenerate nature is ever the same. And though the practices of one age and country may seem to the people of another, proofs of a state of immorality and folly, from which their own is free, yet the real difference often consists in a change, not from evil principles to good, but only from one modification of the same principle to another. How strikingly is this the case in the miserable expedients to which men have recourse, with a view to evade the guilt of perjury, and yet secure their own ends by falsehood! When we hear our Saviour remonstrating with his own countrymen on their folly in supposing that their wretched shifts could deceive the omniscient Searcher of hearts, we are ready to exclaim against the gross darkness which must have covered that people, "Woe unto you, ye blind guides, who say, whosoever shall swear by the temple it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple he is a debtor." But is this folly in itself by a single shade more degrading than the subterfuges by which too many of our countrymen now attempt to deceive both themselves and justice? It is notorious, for example, not only at the Old Bailey |