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Report of the Library Committee of the House of Lords.-New Statutes.

2nd. That the Clerk of the Parliaments be requested to write to the Lords of the Treasury requesting them to take such steps as may be necessary to increase the accommodation for the books belonging to the House, by placing closed presses in the corridor adjoining the Library.

shall not be lawful for any member of the acknowledging her valuable gift, and informcommon council to subscribe such protest as ing her of the manner in which it is proposed aforesaid except within such period of six to dispose of the same. months: Provided also, that the person preferring such claim, if any member of the common council so require, upon receiving notice in writing signed by the town clerk, unless such person be himself town clerk, in which case no such notice shall be requisite, shall from time to time attend at any meeting or adjourned meeting of the common council for the investigation of such claim, and then and there, upon his oath or solemn affirmation, to be taken or made before the lord mayor (who is hereby authorised to administer the same), shall answer all such questions as shall be asked by any member of the common council touching the matters set forth in the statement subscribed by such person as aforesaid, and produce all books, papers, and writings in his possession, custody, or power relating thereto. 83. Compensation to be secured by bond under common seal.

84. Repeal of Acts, customs, and charters inconsistent with this Act.

85. When the day on which any meeting or Act is by this Act appointed to be holden or done happens to be Sunday, Good Friday, or Christmas Day, or a day appointed by Royal Proclamation as a day of solemn fast or a day of thanksgiving, the same shall be holden or done on the day next following which does not happen to be one of the days aforesaid.

86. Interpretation of terms:-"the city," "the corporation," "the common council," "lord mayor."

REPORT OF THE

LIBRARY COMMITTEE OF THE
HOUSE OF LORDS.

LORD TRURO'S LAW LIBRARY. By the Lords Committees appointed a Select Committee to consider of certain matters relative to the Library of this House, and to the Papers and Documents delivered for their Lordships' House; and to whom was also referred a Letter from Lady Truro, dated 6th March, 1856, offering to present to this House the Library of Law Books belonging to the late Lord Truro; and to report to the House; and to whom leave was given to report from time to time to the House ;Ordered to report,

That the Committee have met and have considered the subject-matter referred to them, and have agreed to the following resolutions; viz. :

1st. That the Committee thankfully accept for the House the collection; and in order to preserve the same in remembrance of the legal attainments of the late Lord Truro, recommend that it be placed together in one of the apartments of the Library, and that every book be marked as belonging to the Truro collection; and that the Marquis of Lansdowne be requested to write a letter to the Lady Truro, duly

3rd. That the copy of the "Brevets d' Invention," and Indexes thereto, in the Library of the House, be lent to the Commissioners of Patents for Inventions, to be placed by them in the Library of the Patent Office for the use of the Public.

14th April, 1856.

NEW STATUTES EFFECTING ALTE-
RATIONS IN THE LAW.

TURNPIKE TRUSTS ARRANGEMENTS. 19 VICT. c. 12.

THE preamble recites the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 38. Provisional orders in schedule confirmed; sect. 1.

The following are the Title and Section of the Act:

An Act to confirm certain Provisional Orders made under an Act of the Fifteenth Year of her present Majesty, to facilitate Arrangements for the relief of Turnpike Trusts.

[11th April, 1856.]

Whereas, in pursuance of the Act of the 15 Vict. c. 38, "to facilitate Arrangements for the Relief of Turnpike Trusts, and to make certain Provisions respecting Exemptions from Tolls," certain provisional orders have been made by the Right Honourable Sir George Grey, one of her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, for reducing the rate of interest, and for extinguishing in certain cases the arrears of interest, on the mortgaged debts charged or secured on the tolls or revenues of certain turnpike roads, and such orders have been published in the London Gazette, and in newspapers circulating in the neighbourhood of such roads, and the dates of such provisional orders, and the Acts under which the tolls or revenues on which such debts are charged or secured are levied or raised, together with the amount to which the rate of interest on such debts is to be reduced, and the day up to which the interest and arrears of interest on such debts are to be extinguished by such orders, are mentioned in the Schedule to this Act: And whereas it is expedient that the said provisional orders should be confirmed and made absolute: Be it therefore enacted as follows:

1. That the said provisional orders are hereby confirmed and made absolute, and shall be as binding and of the like force and effect as if the provisions thereof had been expressly enacted by Parliament.

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Marriel Women's Reversionary Interest Bill.-Review: Amos's Ruins of Time.

MARRIED WOMEN'S REVERSION

ARY INTEREST BILL.

singular title for a law book, but it seems to have been chosen by the learned Author to indicate the vast changes which have THE Bill of Mr. Malins (see 51 L. O. 381), taken place in the Criminal Law of England for enabling married women to dispose of re- from the time of Sir Matthew Hale, and versionary interests in personal estate, appears the publication of his great standard work, to amount to this:-Every married women mayThe History of the Pleas of the Crown." dispose of every future or reversionary interest,

in any personal estate, as effectually as if she Mr. Amos states his object to be that of were a feme sole; except such as may have contributing a few results of experience and been settled on her by any settlement or agree-reflection towards the adoption of a Code ment made on the occasion of her marriage. of Criminal Law, by which is meant "a This would enable a married woman to dis- consolidation conjointly of the Commcn pose of any reversionary interest in personalty Law and of the Statute Law, with its judevolving on her by will, whatever the testric- dicial constructions, according to a scientific tions on alienation or anticipation might be. This would be highly dangerous! Take, as of arrangement, terminating all controverted frequent occurrence, the case of a testator be- questions, and expressed in a manner suitqueathing stock to trustees, for his wife, for able to the legislation of the present day; life; then for his married daughter, for her together with such amendments as are obvilife, strictly without power to alien or antici- ously dictated by justice and expediency." pate; and then to her testamentary appointees; and for want of such, to her children. All her father's anxious efforts to secure her against the evils of poverty may be frustrated; the intended Statute exposing her to the hazard, bordering on certainty, that her husband, if worthless, will squander her father's provision; or, probably, depriving her of the power of providing for herself and (if worthy and unfortunate) her husband also.

The original intention to assimilate reversions in personalty to reversions in realty, was judicious; but the making of them dissimilar, and personalty in reversion (which seldom realises its value) more alienable than personalty in possession, in numberless cases will prove a positive cruelty,-such as the worthy member who proposed it would surely grieve to inflict

The objection to the proposed enactment might be removed by substituting (section 1) for the words "if she were a feme sole," the words "if the same were real estate; " or by substituting for Clause 4 a Clause to the following effect:

"Provided always, that anything in this Act contained shall not empower any married woman to part with, incumber, or anticipate any reversionary interest in any property subject to specific restrictions, further than she could do if the same were an interest in possession and subject to the like restrictions."

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

Ruins of Time exemplified in Sir Matthew Hale's History of the Pleas of the Crown. By ANDREW AMOS, Esq., Downing Professor of the Laws of England in the University of Cambridge, and late Member of the Supreme Council of India. London: Stevens and Norton; Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, & Co. 1856. Pp. 268.

The Author has thus addressed his readers on the history and present state of the Criminal Law, in order that the labours of the Legislature may be directed to that part of the subject, which seems practicable within a moderate period, instead of wasting time on a project that may occupy a century or more to carry into effect.

The work is remarkable, not only for its legal research, learning, and acuteness, but its literary merit and scientific arrangement. It is peculiarly valuable at the present time amidst the various plans for consolidating

the Statutes.

Mr. Amos observes, that

"The indefinite and unnecessary delay of tarrying for a consolidation of the entire Statute-Book, is rendered more disheartening in prospect, by a reflection on the principles according to which it is intended that the work shall be executed. It is proposed to cut off all provocatives to controversy, by giving the Legislature back its own ipsissima verba: and leaving undetermined all questions that may have divided the legal world, and are stumbling-blocks to the community. But to substance of the principal decisions of the republish Statutes, without incorporating the Courts, whereby their obscurities have been cleared up, or may have been made the subjects of unsettled controversy, or whereby their texts may have been eaten out, narrowed, enlarged, or distorted, is not to promulgate the

Statute Law in force, but a delusive shadow.

Enactments may be repealed indirectly as well as expressly, and, after being expressly repealed, may, according to some opinions, have been resuscitated by the repeal of a repealing Act; besides which there are to be found what King James called 'cross and cuffing Statutes;'-knots which the Legisla

ture has cut in the case of the Criminal Statutes. What then becomes of the boast of

"THE Ruins of Time" is a somewhat any consolidator, that he will present to Par

Review: Amos's Ruins of Time.

503

liament something which may be assented to pilation would require amendments, addiwithout discussion or delay, as being merely tions, modifications, exceptions, and qualifia faithful copy of its own enactments in a new cations, so that the work would be neverorder? He modestly declines to undertake ending. This very admirable history of the the obvious duties of a jurist or statesman, Pleas of the Crown by Sir Matthew Hale, whilst he fearlessly tenders his individual conclusions for the adoption of Parliament, upon legal quillets touching the repeal of statutory enactments which have perplexed and set by the ears the astutest of mankind.

and this learned record of the "Ruins of Time" by Mr. Amos, prove to demonstration that the labour of compiling a Code, either of Civil or Criminal Law, is beyond the power of human beings, unless the Laws of England were like the Laws of the Medes and Persians, which "alter not," but which by consequence improve not.

Mr. Amos observes, that

"Further, if the Legislature, in the reign of Queen Victoria, enunciate clauses culled out of Statutes of all periods, without largely altering their diction or idioms, it will often not convey to modern ears their correct import, or conform to that interpretation which they have invariably received. It often matters much as "It is true, that any Consolidation of the to the sense in which Parliaments, as well as Common Law of crimes, or of any other individuals, are to be understood, according branch of Common Law, must give rise to dias they may have spoken in one or another versities of opinion; but such diversities will century. To give the present Legislature not be sensibly diminished by a previous Contongues of so many reigns, is to attribute to it solidation of the Statute Law, supposing that a mode of expression natural only in the Wan- were not already un fait accompli in regard to dering Jew. Ancient Statutes were framed on Criminal Statutes. The stress which has been different principles of draughting from those laid on the argument quot homines tot sententiæ of modern date; and, accordingly, different as applied to the consolidation of the Common rules of construction have been commonly ap- Law, is an admission, that few lawyers can plied to them; as for example, that of the agree upon what the Common Law is by which Equity of Statutes, which Plowden calls their we are governed. No marvel, indeed, if disakernel, the law intended for the vulgar eye greement should prevail concerning what is being only the shell of a nut. So the construc-flexible and variable; though requiring to be tion of enactments of every period is much in- fixed the more in proportion as the difficulty of fluenced by other enactments of the same stereotyping it resembles that of which Pope Statute, or, as it is said, ex visceribus Actús, complains in drawing the characters of Women. or of other contemporary Statutes on the same "Come, then, the colours and the ground prepare? subject, or, what is called in pari materiá; or Dip in the rainbow, trick her off in air, by the antecedent state of the Common Law, or Choose a firm cloud before it fall, and, in it, by Preambles, or other aids, which Lord Coke designates as keys to unlock the doors and windows to enlighten the chambers of Statutes. To huddle together, then, enactments of the Plantagenets, and Tudors, with those of later dynasties, and to divest them all of their natural appliances of elucidation, is like the practice of Napoleon I., who consolidated in the Louvre the altar-pieces and other chef-d'œuvres of eminent artists, which he had dissevered from the religious lights and shades, and holy associations with a view to which they had been imagined and contrived."

Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of this minute. "It is not surprising, that the resolutions of many should be sicklied over with the pale cast of thought, at a contemplation of the heroic process of consolidating the entire Common Law, comprised, as it is, not in a book of some fifty volumes like the Statute-Book, but in a library of indefinite extent, or, as the AttorneyGeneral said, in a late debate, consisting of hundreds upon hundreds of volumes.' But the inference seems illogical, that even the most timorous should, on that account, suffer

themselves to be diverted from an enterprise of such pith and universal concernment, and one so comparatively limited, and, after the lucubrations and toil already bestowed upon it, so comparatively easy, as the consolidation of the Criminal Common Law."

We cannot agree with Mr. Amos, that the learned gentlemen who are or may be entrusted with the emendation of our Statute Book, should put their shoulders to the wheel and attempt the construction of a Code, meaning thereby the incorporation of The Author devotes his introductory the rules and principles of the Common or unwritten Law with the Statute or written chapter to general observations on Sir Matthew Hale's History of the Pleas of the Law. Not that we object to a Code, if it could be satisfactorily framed; but because Crown, which he describes as having "no rival among Treatises on the Criminal Law we deem any approach to the perfection of of England for authority, influence, and such a work as altogether impracticable. It would at least occupy a whole generation reputation." Sir Matthew, however, says to prepare anything like a complete Code, and by the time it received the sanction of the Legislature, various parts of the com

of his own work

"In the first book I will consider of capital offences, treasons, and felonies; which book

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Review: Amos's Ruins of Time.

will be divided into two parts. 1. The enume- did not live to witness the passing of the ration of the kinds of treasons and felonies, as Habeas Corpus Act. Improved provisions well by Common Law, as by Acts of Parlia- have been wanted to obviate the packing of ment. 2. The whole method of proceeding in juries, to ensure their immunity, and to define or upon them. The second book will treat of their legitimate powers; England, at Hale's matters criminal, that are not capital,' (these decease, had yet to admire her second Hampincluded, in Hale's time, perjury, libel, con- den in a Bushell, and champions of her jury spiracy, nuisance, riot, cum multis aliis). The in Erskine, Camden, and Fox. The injustice third book will be touching franchises and and inconveniences have been felt of those liberties.' Sir M. Hale did not execute more makeshifts of infantile jurisprudence, Conthan the first book; the second was, as con- structive Offences. The hurried execution of veyancers have written, in nubibus, or in gremio prisoners convicted of murder has been found auctoris. Hawkins apologises for writing his to illustrate, by fatal experience, the policy of esteemed work on Criminal Law upon the the ruleground that he did not presume to beautify Hale's fabric, or merely fill it with modern furniture, but added new compartments which Hale designed, and for which he was collecting materials till his dying day, but which he did

not live to build."

Mr. Amos well points out the causes which have operated since Sir M. Hale's time, in obliterating or re-modelling our ancient Criminal Laws:

"In the first place, as laws are the handmaids of national improvement, they have been

"Nulla unquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa. The evasion of justice, arising from an overtechnical procedure, has obtained a remedy,for Hale tells us that half the prisoners indicted in his time escaped owing to flaws. It has been deemed unreasonable and impolitic that prosecutors and witnesses should, as Hale himself lamented, go without compensation, and thus be aggrieved for their services to criminal justice. Among numerous other abuses that one which first lighted the flame of phiwhich have been judged to need correction, is lanthropy in the bosom of Howard, the dragorder to satisfy the fees of gaolers. The law of ging back acquitted prisoners to their cells, in witnesses, whether incapacitated from interest Hale said that he could not perceive the reason), or infamy, or unsworn for a prisoner (for which and other usages of criminal trials, particularly the denial of full defence by counsel to priment, where their obvious tendency has been, soners accused of felony, have required amendfor centuries, to distort or exclude truth."

accommodated to the habits and wants of a people quadrupled in population since the reign of Charles II.; enriched by the marvels of manufactures, whose great achievers were born a century after Hale; and by the inclosure of lighthouse-lighted wastes and feudal forests, in his time infested by outlaws; also by the growth, during two centuries, of a commerce unparalleled in the history of the world; and together with augmented wealth, possess ing powers of action and intercourse multiplied by steam and electricity. Our Criminal Laws The Author concludes his introductory have, moreover, yielded to the genial influence chapter by observing, that if Sir M. Hale's of civil and religious liberty, which dawned Treatise, a production of the reign of Charles with the setting of that dynasty under which the Second, did not abound with Ruins in Hale lived; they have participated in the un- that of Victoria, it would be a solecism in remitting progress of every science, moral and natural; their severity has been mitigated by the history of human science, and Sir M. the general diffusion of religious and humane Hale himself, in his Tract on the Amendgentiments, which have been manifested in ment of the Law, sayssympathy with the poor and ignorant, aversion to needless suffering, horror at cruel and barbarous punishments, and an anxious solicitude for human life.

"Secondly, our ancient Criminal Laws have, in many instances, mouldered away since Hale's time, owing to that enlarged experience in the science of jurisprudence itself, which has been gathered during an interval of 200 years. The impolicy of capital punishments in almost all, if not all cases, of stigmatising punishments universally, has been recognised. The mischiefs arising from the Sovereign retaining a personal interest in confiscations have been inculcated by dear-bought lessons. The injustice has been felt of the Benefit of Clergy, making one law for priests, another for peers, another for commoners, and another, severer than the rest, for women. The freedom of the subject has been found to demand stricter securities against secret or protracted imprisonment; for Hale

steered by the same laws in every kind, as it "He that thinks that a State can be exactly was two or three hundred years since, may as when he was a child, should serve him when well imagine that the clothes that fitted him changeth the custom; the contracts the comhe was grown up as a man. The matter pers of men and societies change in a long merce; the dispositions, educations, and temtract of time; and so must their laws in some for their state and condition. And, besides all measure be changed, or they will not be useful this, Time is the wisest thing under heaven."

We shall probably have occasion to return to this learned and interesting volume; but must for the present conclude by stating briefly its contents. They are as follow:“General matters relating to Crimes. 1. Ignorance of Law.