many other acts, all having the same ameliorating tendency; the improvements relating to the terms and returns of writs, to judgment and execution, and the examination of witnesses, all these belong to the first year of this reign. The second was still more memorable for the reform act; for the establishment of the Bankruptcy Court; the game act, which abolished the necessity of qualification and improved the law on this subject; the uniformity of process act, and the act which established a limitation of elaims for tithes. The third year of his late majesty's reign is distinguished by the act which established a limitation to all claims to incorporeal hereditaments; by the anatomy act, which has effectually put a stop to the practice of selling dead bodies and the horrible crimes to which it gave rise. The fourth year was, so far as the law was concerned, the most important of all. In this, some of the fruits of the law commissions which were appointed in the preceding reign were reaped. A new statute of limitation of actions relating to real property was passed; the court of Chancery was regulated; fines and recoveries were abolished; the law of inheritance and dower improved; real estate was made subject to every species of debts; the alienation of property was facilitated, and the just rights of creditors extended. I should also mention that in this year were passed the important act by which slavery was abolished and apprenticeship substituted for a limited period, the act which opened the East India trade, and the Bank of England act, which made a material alteration in the usury laws. In the next year the new poor-law was carried,— -a measure sufficiently well known,-and the Central Criminal Court was established, which has greatly tended to the improvement of the administration of criminal justice. The other important alterations of this reign were the municipal corporation act, the tithe-commutation act, which has already nearly superseded the intricate and confused law of tithes, the act for the registration of births, deaths, and marriages, and the act for allowing counsel to prisoners. Many smaller amendments were also passed, which have been already noticed in their proper places: and altogether the reign of William the Fourth is as memorable for the important alterations which took place within its limits as that of any other monarch who ever sat on the English throne.

The reign of her present majesty has already been distinguished by some important juridical reforms. The law relating to wills and testaments has been simplified and rendered uniform; imprisonment for debt on mesne process has been entirely abolished, and the power of creditors over the property of their debtors has been greatly extended; the number of capital punishments has been still further diminished, every species of the crimen falsi [Forgery] being relieved from it, thus establishing on a firm footing the important principle that no crime unattended with actual violence to the person shall be punished with death; and still more recently, by what may turn out to be a more questionable alteration, the crime of rape has ceased to be a capital offence; the law requiring the qualifications of members of parliament to proceed exclusively from real estates has been abolished; the mode of trial of election-petitions has been much improved; the power of the crown to grant pensions has been considerably curtailed and placed within limits; and the rates of postage for letters have been so materially reduced as to place the power of communication by this means within the reach of all classes of her majesty's subjects. The privilege of parliament to publish whatever it may please has been fully recognized; the revenues of the Church of England have been more equally distributed, the blessings of that admirable establishment more widely diffused; some blemishes which had crept in in the course of time have been wiped off, and a more wholesome zeal and energy have thus been awakened among the whole body of the clergy; the administration of justice in equity, bankruptcy, and lunacy has been improved, and already the more crying grievances of the court of Chancery have been remedied; considerable facilities have been given to the enfranchisement of copyholds; the term of copyright in books has been extended to designs in articles of manufacture; the law as to the registration of voters has been amended and placed on a better footing; the law of libel has been greatly improved, and the old rules excluding evidence on the ground of the interest or crime of the witnesses, and thus frequently preventing the truth from being elicited, have been almost entirely repealed; and, lastly, slavery, in reality as well as in name, has ceased to exist in every part of the British dominions.

But, much as has already been done for the reform of the law, still more remains to do; and there is every reason to believe that in the long reign to which, according to all human foresight, her majesty and her subjects may reasonably look forward, the cause of temperate and judicious reform in the law will be greatly advanced. In a speech which her majesty made on meeting her first parliament, she declared that "the better and more effectual administration of justice was amongst the first duties of a sovereign;" and this sentiment has been cordially responded to by the other branches of the legislature. The amendment of the law is no longer the rallying cry of a faction: the desire to promote it is shared by the most eminent men of all parties in the state; and, under such auspices, I may be permitted to hope that the present reign, already so distinguished in arms, will be at least as memorable for improvements in the juridical institutions of the country.

This hope, expressed nearly nine years ago, has now (1854) been abundantly realized, -the legislature having proved fully sensible of the wants and desires of the country in this respect: so that it will be admitted that the present age will be distinguished, not only by its attempts, but its success, in amending the law, the best evidence of which is to be found in the course of this work. Justice is now cheaply, and in many respects efficiently, administered in local tribunals, and is thus brought to every man's door, while the whole procedure of the superior courts has been greatly simplified and improved; useless forms and technicalities are now discountenanced as well by the practitioners of the law as the judges of the courts; and a sincere desire is manifested by all classes to promote in this way the benefit of the nation and the social welfare of the community.

Some improvement has also been made in facilitating the transfer of land. Commons have been enclosed, tithes commuted, and copyholds may now, under certain circumstances, be enfranchised compulsorily either by lord or tenant. Indeed, a strong wish has been shown that, while the present moderate law of entail should be preserved, land should be more easily and cheaply dealt with, and that the law relating to it should be more suited to the wants of a great commercial country.- STEWART.

Nearly a century has elapsed since the Commentaries of Sir William Blackstone were first published. Much as the learned and enthusiastic commentator had cause for exultation in the improvements which had been introduced in his own times and those immediately preceding, he would have found matter for still warmer panegyric had he lived in our days. The events of the last hundred years have changed the face of Europe; and although our own country has not sustained those disastrous shocks which have been felt from time to time by most of the continental nations, it has not remained a stranger to the general progressive tendency which has been discernible more or less over the whole civilized world. On the contrary, the state of continuous healthy progress, which seems to be almost peculiar to our own institutions, has perhaps carried us further in the direction of political and social freedom than any other nation in the world.

Among the first and most important constitutional changes to be mentioned was the union of the British and Irish legislatures,-an event which may be regarded as the foundation of that genuine union of interest and feeling between two nations intimately allied by geographical position, common language, and similar institutions, which, if not yet completely attained, seems now at least in a fair way of becoming permanently established. The statute amending the representation of the people in the Commons House of Parliament, popularly known as the Reform Act, introduced no new principle into the constitution, but simply restored to the great body of the people that ancient right of self-government which they had derived from their Saxon ancestors. Another statute of almost equal importance, of which the professed object was the restoration of an ancient institution, was that which remodelled the municipal corporations and removed the many abuses which had gradually crept into these bodies. Several statutes have also been passed for preventing corrupt practices in the election of members to serve in parliament, and for disfranchising the boroughs where such practices were found to prevail.

Our civil liberties have been further secured by that amendment of the law of libel which has vested in the jury the right in such cases of deciding as well upon the law as upon the fact, and by the statutory recognition of the privilege of parliament to publish whatever it pleases. The boundaries of religious liberty have been extended by the repeal of the test and corporation acts,-a measure which has enabled that numerous and influential portion of our fellow-citizens who object to the discipline or dissent from the doctrines of the Established Church to participate in those political rights from which they had been before excluded; whilst the Catholic Emancipation Act has relieved those who adhere to the Church of Rome from the civil disabilities and penalties to which they were previously subject. The national church has probably taken strength from the commutation of tithes, and still more from those statutes which have been passed for the abolition of pluralities and for compelling the residence of the beneficed clergy. Large and comprehensive measures have also been adopted for the better management and application of the cathedral-revenues, and for the subdivision of large and populous parishes, the formation of new parochial districts, and the extension of the church and its institutions. A committee of the privy council has been formed for the distribution of the large sums which have for many years been annually voted by parliament for promoting education among the poorer classes of the people.

The statutes amending the law of marriage, while requiring this important ceremony to be accompanied by certain circumstances of publicity and notoriety, have, at the same time, enabled every individual to enter into this solemn contract in the mode which he considers necessary or proper, and have thus removed an unreasonable restriction under which a large portion of the community previously labored.

The abolition of colonial slavery, accomplished at a very great pecuniary sacrifice, is an event in our history never to be forgotten. The spirit of philanthropy which dictated this measure is a very prominent feature of our age, and has displayed itself in a variety

of other enactments, particularly those modifying the severity of the laws relating to unfortunate traders and debtors, securing the proper care and treatment of lunatics, ameading the discipline of prisons, and providing reformatory institutions for all criminals who seek an opportunity of regaining their lost position. The laws for the relief of the poor have been remodelled; the numerous charities which are to be found in every part of the kingdom have been placed under the regulation and control of a body of commissioners, whose sole duty it is to see that the funds of these institutions are properly applied; the laws relating to game-always a fertile source of crime-have been so far modified that we may anticipate an early repeal of all penal enactments on the subject; and several statutes have been passed having for their object the improvement of the sanitary condition of populous places and the preservation of the public health. The interests of trade, commerce, and manufactures have been unceasingly studied and promoted since the restoration of peace in 1815. This is not the place, however, in which to attempt any enumeration of the various statutes which have been from time to time passed for regulating these matters, the legislation relating to which has been often affected and controlled by financial necessities or by the conflicting views of political economists. It may be enough to allude to the statutes throwing open the trade to the East Indies, to the consolidation of the laws relating to the mercantile marine, and the repeal of the navigation acts; all tending towards establishing a system of commerce, free from all restraints other than those which the collection of the public revenue and the machinery required for that purpose render indispensable. The laws with regard to bankrupts have been consolidated and amended and courts established for the relief of all insolvent debtors whatever; real property has been subjected to the payment of debts; the rights of authors and inventors have been extended and secured; and the formation of joint-stock companies has been simplified and cheapened, the most ample regulations being made at the same time for the guidance of these bodies. The operations of the mercantile classes have been facilitated by several statutes having reference exclusively to commercial affairs, and protected to some extent by other enactments, which have made breaches of trust committed by bankers, factors, agents, and servants generally severely punishable.

In regard to landed property and its transmission the most important improvements have taken place. The alteration of the law of descent, the limitation of the time within which actions for the recovery of real estate may be brought, the shortening of the time of prescription of legal memory, the abolition of those complex modes of assurance, fines, and recoveries, the modification of the wife's claim of dower, the annihilation of satisfied terms,-these, among other things, have tended greatly to facilitate the transfer of property, have got rid of endless doubts and difficulties which perpetually arose upon titles, and have materially shortened conveyances. A great improvement has also been introduced into the law of wills; and there is less danger now than formerly of the wishes of a testator being frustrated. An attempt has been made to get rid of copyhold tenures, and repeated efforts-hitherto without effect, however-to introduce a system of registration of the titles to real estates.

The administration of private justice has been greatly simplified by the numerous alterations which have been made in the procedure of the superior courts of law and equity. The abolition of real actions and of the many fictions which formerly encumbered suits at law was an important and beneficial change, but not so advantageous to the suitor as more recent improvements in the practice of the courts at Westminster. Even these alterations have been less beneficial to the great mass of the community, however, than the establishment of the new county courts,-a measure warmly recommended by Sir William Blackstone, and to some extent a return to the ancient Saxon system, restored, if not established, by king Alfred, for securing the administration of justice at every man's door. The old rules of law, excluding the evidence of the parties to the suit, and prohibiting persons who are considered disqualified either by reason of interest or by crime from being witnesses, have been repealed, and all practical difficulties in eliciting the truth removed.

The proceedings in the court of Chancery have been simplified and shortened; the increase in the number of judges has prevented the possibility of delay in the hearing of causes in that court; and there seems to be no reason why in ordinary cases the obtaining of justice in a court of equity should not be a speedy and not ruinously. expensive process.

The criminal law has been, as to many of its branches, amended and consolidated, and the severity of punishments at the same time much softened and adapted more carefully than formerly to the nature and magnitude of the offence. The barbarous sufferings prescribed for those attainted of treason no longer stain the statute-book; and the punishment of innocent parties for ancestral guilt, which often resulted from the doctrine of corruption of blood, can no longer happen; while the offences involving capital punishment, which the convict only escaped by claiming the benefit of clergy, have been gradually reduced in number, until the extreme penalty of the law has become in practice confined to the frightful crime of murder. The trial by battle and the mode

of proceeding by appeal have been formally abolished; the law relating to principal and accessary has been divested of its niceties, and the forms of the proceedings in the criminal courts so far simplified and improved that offenders who have now the advantage of being defended by counsel rarely escape punishment on purely technical objections. -KERR.

It were to be wished that the changes in our laws effected during the last twenty years, and throwing into the shade those of several centuries recorded in our annals, could have been reviewed by an eye so discriminating and delineated by a pen so masterly as those of Sir William Blackstone. There is a special reason for exhibiting a faithful picture of legislation during this interval:-that it follows and is largely due to the energy and activity infused into the legislature by the acts passed in the year 1832 for amending the representation of the people. As in all great changes, the one in question was inaugurated with sanguine predictions of good and confident forebodings of evil. It is for the impartial chronicler of our laws and institutions to afford an opportunity for judging how far events have justified the hopes and fears of those respectively favoring and deprecating so great and sudden a strengthening of the democratic element in our constitution. The change in question has already gone far towards verifying the prediction of one of its responsible promoters (Hansard, vol. ii. col. 1318, 1319, (3d ser.,) Viscount Palmerston) that it must influence the character of the government and the legislature in all future times, and impress its influence on the whole frame of society." A consideration of what has been done and attempted since the year 1832 suffices to remind us that activity and energy in the legislature must be associated with prudence, moderation, and forethought in order to secure the enduring results of bold and beneficial legislation.

Glancing for a moment abroad, we behold acts continually passed by our legislature for the purpose of carrying into effect conventions with FOREIGN STATES for suppressing the slave-trade, and with France and the United States of America, for apprehending, in any of the three countries respectively, persons charged with murder, attempts to murder, robbery, piracy, forgery, or fraudulent bankruptcy. Other acts are for consecrating British subjects or foreigners to be bishops in foreign countries, securing to some extent the benefit of international copyright, facilitating the marriage of British subjects in foreign countries, and the naturalization of foreigners here. Her majesty has also been empowered to establish and maintain diplomatic relation and to hold diplomatic intercourse with the Pope, but not through the intervention of a person in holy orders in the Church of Rome, or a Jesuit or member of any Romish order or society bound by monastic or religious vows; and it is also expressly provided that nothing in that act is in any way to repeal, weaken, or affect the royal supremacy, civil and ecclesiastical. Our commercial relations with foreign countries have undergone a total change by the great relaxation of our system of prohibitory and protective duties, especially in respect of the importation of animal and vegetable produce from foreign countries; the abandonment of our navigation-laws, so long deemed the bulwark of our national greatness, and the admission of foreign shipping to the privileges of our own, even to the coasting-trade; while an attempt has been made to secure corresponding advantages from foreign states, by arming her majesty with retaliatory powers, to be exercised when it may be deemed expedient.

Our COLONIAL relations are the subject of constant solicitude to the mother-country, with a view of conferring on our colonies the rights and privileges of self-government, the representative system, and free institutions, under such conditions as may be thought likely to preserve and perpetuate, on terms consistent with the dignity and advantage of both, the connection between the two. For this purpose the imperial legislature is often occupied in framing and remodelling the constitution of her colonies in accordance with novel exigencies, as in Australia. Yielding to the urgent and reasonable objections of some of the more distant to being continued penal settlements, we have greatly diminished the number of offenders liable to transportation, substituting princi pally, in such cases, penal servitude at home or elsewhere. Importing counterfeit coin into the colonies has been made heavily punishable. Persons charged with treason or felony, in either the mother-country or the colonies, and escaping from one to the other, may now be apprehended in either, and secured for transmission to the scene of the of fence, there to be dealt with according to law. Unsworn evidence has been made admissible in divers colonial courts from necessity, in the case of neighboring barbarous and uncivilized people, ignorant of the existence of God or a future state. A great multitude of acts have been passed for regulating the commercial intercourse between ourselves and our colonies; local courts of appeal have been established in some of the West India colonies, and facilities afforded for sale, in others of them, of encumbered estates. But, above all, the legislature has evinced a benign anxiety to extend the blessings of the United Church of England and Ireland to our colonies whenever an opportunity is afforded. There are now established twenty-nine bishoprics in our colonies; and provision is made for strengthening and consolidating ecclesiastical arrangements throughout our widespread dominions. The government of our stupendous Indian possessions

has lately been placed upon a new footing, and the legislature is continually striving to promote education, secular and religious, and reform the laws and improve the administration of justice there.

Returning to the United Kingdom, we shall find changes of great importance effected in every department of our DOMESTIC ECONOMY. The links which bind the three kingdoms together are constantly strengthened and multiplied by acts having for their object to assimilate as far as practicable the laws in force in each. The great measure for facilitating the sale of encumbered estates in Ireland is one of the boldest legislative interferences with rights of private property ever attempted in this country, by which the land of Ireland has been rendered again freely alienable and a great portion of it has changed owners.

Foremost among acts of high interest and importance are those, at the commencement of the present reign, for the support of her majesty's household and of the honor and dignity of her crown, by which, following the example of her immediate predecessors, she caused her hereditary revenues to be unreservedly carried to and made part of the consolidated fund. And in the fifth year of her reign her majesty graciously signified to parliament her wish to submit her royal income to the burden of the income-tax imposed on her subjects. Other acts effected the naturalization of, and made provision for, her royal consort, and for his filling the office of regent should the necessity arise. It also became necessary to provide for the further security and protection of her majesty's person, in consequence of some outrages perpetrated by half-crazed candidates for notoriety; and for the better security of the crown and government of the United Kingdom, because of certain public disturbances of a malignant character, to be nevertheless punishable, not as treason, but felonies, with transportation or imprisonment. Great improvements have been made in the laws relating to the CONSTITUTION OF PARLIAMENT, the time and mode of assembling it. A third principal and a third under-secretary of state are now empowered to sit and vote in the house of commons, but not more than three of the former and three of the latter at the same time. Stat. 18 & 19 Vict. c. 10, March 16, 1855. An entirely new code of laws has been enacted for conducting elections and putting down bribery, corruption, and undue influence. Other acts allow members to qualify in respect of either real or personal property, or both; repeal certain severe penalties and disabilities; appoint the court of common pleas,-the tribunal for finally determining questions of disputed election-law; greatly improve the constitution of election-committees; and reduce restrictions on the exercise of the franchise. Acts of parliament have been simplified and shorn of much verbiage; parliamentary proceedings are diffused widely throughout the empire at a very small cost; and certain immunities granted to parliament, by way of privilege, in respect of such as may happen to involve matters challengeable in respect of its libellous character.

Our NAVAL AND MILITARY laws have been improved in various ways, - particularly by limiting the period of enlistment and service, and making liberal and salutary provisions in respect of bounty and extra pay, in order to increase the inducements for entering the public service. The militia-laws have been revised, consolidated, and placed, in some respects, on a new footing.

The interests of RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY have received a large share of the anxious solicitude of the legislature. It has made powerful and unwearied efforts to diffuse religious knowledge; to develop the vast capabilities of the United Church of England and Ireland; building churches and chapels in spiritually-destitute districts; altering ecclesiastical districts; remodelling dioceses; uniting and severing benefices; redistributing revenues, episcopal and capitular; establishing stipendiary curacies; abolishing commendams; vesting the patronage of deaneries in the crown; creating a new tribunal for enforcing church-discipline among the clergy; prohibiting the desecration of churches by holding in them vestry-meetings or for any other than religious purposes, and the reading of public secular proclamations or notices during divine service; for which are substituted printed or written copies attached to the outer door. The sanctity of the Sabbath has been promoted by prohibiting the opening of houses and places of public resort and public houses on Sunday, except within certain hours, throughout England and Wales, and in Scotland during the whole of Sunday, except for the accommodation of lodgers and travellers. In consequence of the Pope's affecting, in the year 1850, to parcel out this kingdom into provinces and dioceses and appoint archbishops and bishops, which occasioned an extraordinary ferment, the assumption, unauthorized by law, of the name of archbishop, bishop, or dean, of any place in the United Kingdom, is prohibited; briefs, rescripts, and letters-apostolical, from the See of Rome, are declared void; and those publishing and assuming to act under them for the purpose of constituting such offices, provinces, sees, or dioceses, are liable to penalties. A great number of statutes inflicting disabilities, penalties, and forfeitures on Roman Catholics, Jews, and Dissenters, but which had long ceased to be enforced, have been repealed, and many enactments passed facilitating the exercise of their religious rights and stringently guarding against any invasion of them. Dissenters, and, indeed, all persons professing to entertain conscientious objections, of a religious nature, to taking oaths, may now, in