On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (3)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    CRIMINAL TRIALS.

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    forth , as out of a rusty armoury , and furbished up for special occasions . It was , after ail his pains , not the man that he had laboriously educated , but the barrister . We paint from life . Education has a natural proclivity to decline into narrow class-channels , and to provide , in the loug run , for the mere trading or professional exigencies of the individual . Vulgar prejudice is , indeed , in favour of its being confined to these particular interests , and even thinks it dangerous that the should

    to Church and State , ami family comfort , young be inducted into knowledge supposed not to be suitable to the class to which they belong . Vulgar prejudice holds now , as it did in classical times , with the Sophists , and against Socrates . The great controversy was not decided by the hemlock-cup which the sage was compelled to drink , nor by the splendid dialogues which his pupils in his name were induced to write . Society still halts between the two opinions . Is it the man or the tradesman that we would educate ? If the former , has society provided occupation for him , or the means of living ?

    nothing but their pecuniary profit , when they ought to be taken in hand , and might be , most effectually , by those who have a sincere desire to aid the individual in his aspirations after the good and the true , and the search for aesthetic beauty . Properly considered , these are the most available means of education , and were known to be such by the ancients , who acted on this knowledge , and provided them for the people ; and the people were really elevated by the means thus provided . Classical literature exists as the witness of the good thus accomplished . Let us regard , then , these things , which we have been accustomed to despise , with a more serious eye , and contrive means for rendering them contributory to a more perfect scheme of Education .

    Now , it might not be difficult to sermonise , and prove logically that the best way of ensuring a man ' s success in this world is to educate him for another . But there is an equivoque ia the very word " success , " A man may succeed in his mission , and yetremam poor—his virtue may be its own reward , and he may even disdain any other . But this is not what is usually meant by the term . It is expected that virtue should lead to fortune , and if it may not , the natural mind is dissatisfied . There is , too , for this view a sufficient reason . The education of the man would , in fact , lead to both virtue and fortune , if all men were alike educated . But while one man is destined for an abstract and universal purpose , and another to a concrete and limited pursuit , and the emoluments of business pertain to the latter , the _ odds are against the individual who is educated in true principles , and in favour of him who is educated in false . It- is manifest ,

    moreover , that local and narrow appliances , will not alter the state of affairs . Schools and academies are inefficient ; for when these have done their best or their woret , the individual is thrown upon the vital forces of society at large , and is affected by a sphere of influences that escape ' all control . It is only such an institution as a FreePkess , and other similar institutions , capable of appealing- to the public conscience , that afford the slightest ground for hope . To the working of such an engine as the former the utmost facility should especially be given . But because the tendency of a Free Press is to work in the direction we have indicated , th erefore .-every-Attempt to enlarge its scale of operations is opposed by prejudice and authority . There are those ,

    in high places as well as in low , who dread the \ iltimate issue , and shrink from an agency the results of which must , as they ^ hink .-and _ pcijiapa-not _ . un ' iustly , entirely alter the existing order of things . The change , though for the better , is uitolerablFTo these speculatists , who would' stand in safety on the ancient ways , and conceive it perilous even to move . This , of course , is by reason of the darkness of their minds ; they see not which way they should go , and would not have their ignorance enlightened . They even delight to think that there may be a fatal precipice the very next step , since it furnishes an unanswerable excuse for their standing still . Such reasons as these probably

    lie at the root of the conduct of the House of Lords in rejecting Mr , Gladstone ' s measure for repealing the paper duty . Cheap literature throws some people , who are not even in Parliament at all , into serious states of alarm . If the shopkeeper fears it , why not even more the peer ? Nay , it may be doubted if any of us lias realized to his imagination the state of society that would ensue from a univeiail education that was properly grounded in the truth of things j and whether , with our present limited means of judgmentj we should be prepared to approve such results thoroughly ; whatever our Faith might aaaert as to the necessarily beneficial nature of the change , so far beyond our understanding

    and previous conception . Such education , at any rate , is inconsistent with any but the principles of freedom . It excludes coercion of all kinds ; the influences it implies must have the fullest liberty of co-working . Public means might , nevertheless , be adopted to assist their operations . Our press , for instance , substitutes the drama as it was in Elizabethan times . Plays then were what newspapers are now ; Were the Stage under proper regulation at this time , it might again be made one of the most effective means of general education . Tt would take next rank at least , with the Pulpit , 1

    and in > some respects would serve to correct theerrors into which Churchmen are opt to full . It would , for instance , oxpose hypocrisy , and perhaps prevent it , and , ; might illustrate , the boat doctrines by means of uction and character , in a mariner which unassisted eloquence would vainly attempt . Amusements of all kinds are capable of being applied to similar ends . The casino , the dancing platform , the concert , the singing saloon , are not at present rated at their true value . They are left to speculatists , who look to

    Untitled Article

    W E have recently had occasion to refer to some very extraordinary criminal trials . Indeed , within the last three years we have had more which deserve the name than during any ten years preceding that period . And this circumstance has had its natural effect . In ordinary cases , the ordinary machinery of justice does well enough . Evidence is generally satisfactory , either one way or the other , and the jury may be tolerably certain that they have come to a right decision . It is probable that very few incorrect -verdicts are delivered in this country ; and these are more commonly in civil than in criminal Cases . But when an instance occurs in " which a singularly calm and dispassionate judgment i » required , in which all prejudice must be foregone , and care and pains taken lest any should creep in unawares , then a jury , as juries are now constituted , displays its fallibility , and gives rise to the

    feeling , unhappily much on the increase , that a ju'lge without ; a jury would form a preferable court . Indeed , culd we be ^ sure always to have a Massfieid , aDenman , a Cockburn , or an Erle on the Bench , we believe there is no man who would . not . trust liberty , fortune , or life in the hands of . such ; men , rather than commit them to the judgment of twelve -small tradesmen , however respectable in their walk of life . The fact is that the common jury is not what it was in the times of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors , tt is one of those institutions of which the form ' remains intact , while the spirit has largely evaporated . If it be intended to bring it into of its foundationand th

    accordance ^ at a ) nce with the object , e exigencies of the times ; it must undergo no small change . The great principle for which the jury was established , was that every maii should be tried by his peers . Now , this does notjuiply that a farmer should be tried by farmers , a surgeon by - surgeons , and a costermonger by coster mongers ; hut that no man should be tried by a class of man below him . The higher the condition and position of both judge and jury , the better lor the person to be tried The more educated the juror , the more is he qualified to sift and examine evidence , the more free from prejudice , and , generally , the more humane and just in his feelings and conduct .

    and still lower section ' of the people . We ai-e told Flint there is a straightforward practical common sense in the mass of the nation , which makes it a matter of very little consequence from which layer we take our jurors ; but while we grant the premises , we altogether deny the consequence . It may not mutter in the ninety and nine commonplace trials j but in the remaining one , the result is frequently most pernicious . Let a professional man be on one side , and a tradesman on the other , and the old leaven of class feeling will be almost sure to break out . We have seen' tables , constructed with greut care , in which the decisions of petty juries in such cases have been recorded , and it is astonishing how much the small jealousy alluded to has been able to overcome all the considerations of common sense an well as common justice . Legal anecdote abounds with sneers at petty juries . of

    We all know tho . story of the two famous Taunton juries . One these found a prisoner guilty , but recommended him to mercy ; , and being asked on what ground they based their recommendation ^ they replied , " If it please you , my Lord , we believe he didn ' t do it 1 " The other acquitted their prisoner , and added a caution that they hoped he would never do it again ! But these stories are harmless j mere incompetency is not often found , and whei ' e a common jury go wrong , it is usually either because there was an extreme difficulty in the ease , and which furnishes their excuse , or because there whs something more and something worse tlmn mere incompetency at the bottom of the error . It is now hy no means of rare occurrence to hear the observation , " If I were accused of crime , I nhonld be very sorry to be tried by a common jury . " Over and over again it was said with respect to tho trial of Mr . Hatch—the first trial , the result of which lias been reversed by the recent verdict— " Had he

    been a small tradesman / he must hayq boon acquitted . Reflections such aa the « e arc in the highest degree to be lamented . Trial by jury jb indeed one of the ujrent safeguard * of the English popular liber tv , and whatever ( tends to bringifc i « tc > conte ^ wpt tends to , tho downfall of our Constitution . And < yet it is manifest that the objections which we have named must increase rather than decrease , unless some measures are taken to obviate tl » e evils out ol' w / iich they * riso . Thegouerul tendency of . recent legislation ot \ the subject lias been rathor against the prii > oijp )« on whjch trial'by j ury was based than in favour of it . Lord . Campbell— a good man , no doubt , but tho most unconstitutional lawyer that has w , t in tho Houso of Lords since Jbffrucs—has openly avowed his desire that

    ¦ In the Anglo-Saxon times , jurors were taken from a much higher class thau they are now ; and we regret to observe that there is a growing tendency to impnnnel juries from a lower

    Untitled Article

    T * 492 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . IM ay 26 , I 860 .

    Criminal Trials.

    CRIMINAL TRIALS .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 26, 1860, page 492, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2349/page/8/