would extend to ordering payment of these costs where a bill is thrown out by the grand jury, in which case the indictment has not been tried. At all events, where an indictment is removed by certiorari immediately it is found, there appears to be a very great difficulty in seeing how these costs can be awarded either by the court where the bill is found or by the Court of Queen's Bench under the defendant's recognizance, which is generally taken to extend only to costs incurred subsequently to the removal.

A set of clauses follow, which provide for regulations as to the rates and scales of costs, &c., being in future made by the Secretary of State instead of by the quarter sessions, and all allowances made by any court under this or any former act are to be ascertained with reference to these new regulations when so made. These new scales of expenses are not, however, to interfere with the power of any court to order payments to be made to persons who have shown any extraordinary courage, diligence or exertion in apprehending offenders, and the provisions of the 7 Geo. IV. c. 64, in that respect are by the present statute conferred also upon all courts of sessions of the peace, who may now order compensation for extraordinary exertions to the amount of five pounds.

This statute also enacts that clerks of the peace may, upon the recommendation of the justices of the county in quarter sessions, or of the town council of the borough (as the case may be), be paid by salaries in lieu of fees, such salaries to be paid out of the county rate or borough fund, with a provision that, if it is thought proper, any description of business may be excepted from the salary and paid for as before by fees. But when a salary has been fixed, no other payment is to be made for any business included in such salary, and all fees received in respect of such business are to be accounted for to the county or borough treasurer, as the case may be. This is in accordance with the present feeling, that officers of courts of justice should be remunerated by an adequate salary instead of directly by fees. We trust the day is not far distant, when no fees whatever will be payable by the parties immediately concerned in respect of the administration of public justice, whether civil or criminal.

The remaining clauses of the act are mostly of a local nature, and may be disposed of in a few words. The court of general or quarter sessions for the county of Middlesex is now put on the same footing as other quarter sessions with respect to the class of cases which it has jurisdiction to try, and also with respect to the power of dividing the court and appointing a deputy assistant judge, with these exceptions, that the

deputy so appointed must have been approved of by the Secretary of State, and must be a barrister of not less than ten years standing, although he need no longer be in the commission of the peace for the county of Middlesex. Moreover, the deputy assistant judge so appointed is competent to form a court in the absence of any of the justices, without however lessening in any way the jurisdiction of the justices who may sit with him in such additional court.

Provisions are also made for backing warrants for the apprehension of offenders in the Channel Islands by the bailiffs and chief officers of those islands, or their respective deputies in

their absence.

Wherever prisoners, whose offences are triable only at the assizes, are committed from any county of a city or town which has not for five years previously had a separate commission of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery, to the gaol of such city or town, the commitment is to specify that the offender is committed pursuant to this act, and the recognizances are to be conditioned for appearance at the assizes for the next adjoining county (according to the schedule C. of 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 76), and the cases of such prisoners are to be dealt with at the assizes in all respects as if they had been committed for offences perpetrated within such adjoining county. A similar provision is likewise made with respect to prisoners committed to any gaol or house of correction approved of as fit to contain prisoners committed for trial at the assizes for any county, instead of to the common gaol of the county; and, in either case, all prisoners so committed, either to the gaol of the city or town, or to any gaol or house of correction other than the common gaol of the county, are in due time to be removed, without any writ, to the common gaol, in order that they may be tried at the assizes, and such removal is not to be deemed an escape; and such prisoners are to be deemed to have been in legal custody during the time of such removal, and also during the time of their being removed back to the gaol from which they were brought, notwithstanding that they have been during that time taken out of the jurisdiction of the county &c. to which either of the gaols belong, and into a different county.

Such is an outline of the provisions of these statutes, a familiar knowledge of which is indispensable to all members of the profession who are practically engaged in carrying out the civil or criminal business of the country. We have gone at some length into many of their clauses, but we think that the importance and novelty of their contents will be our best warrant for having so long detained our readers with them.

If what is here enacted be carried out in the full and liberal spirit in which it has been intended by the legislature, we feel little doubt of these provisions commanding general satisfaction; and when it is seen as we believe it will be-that accused persons in reality suffer no hinderance in defending themselves from charges brought against them by reason of the abolition of useless forms and tautology, but that the substantial ends of justice are thereby greatly advanced, we trust that parliament will in future sessions not hesitate to follow up the work which it has now begun, and will still further facilitate the trial of cases on their merits, by sanctioning such other improvements as may be found necessary to complete the work of Criminal Law Reform, now so well begun. We would also throw out a suggestion that, when so many fundamental alterations have now been introduced into this part of the legal system, and so many clauses and provisions of former acts have been repealed by the statutes passed within the last few years, it would be highly desirable to re-enact the whole of the existing criminal law in a single consolidated act. We regard as utterly impracticable, any scheme of codification which should attempt to define and express the common law applicable to offences; but there would, as it seems to us, be no difficulty in arranging the whole of the statute law within the compass of a single act, while the convenience which would result from such a proceeding would be beyond all question.

We shall in the succeeding number call the attention of our readers to such other portions of the legislation of the recent session as peculiarly affect the practice of the law.

H.

ART. VI.-CRIMES OF 1848, 1849 AND 1850.

Official Tables of Criminal Offenders for the Years 1848, 1849 and 1850. Printed by Authority.

Census of Great Britain for 1851. Printed by Authority.

Education, National, Voluntary and Free. By Joseph Fletcher, Esq., H. M. Inspector of Schools. London: Ridgway, 1851.

Reformatory Schools. Mary Carpenter. Bristol, 1851.

CRIMES

RIMES have decreased these last three years; and run thus since 1847:

This is gratifying, and concurs with that increase of prosperity which is well attested by financial and fiscal statistics of all kinds, in each branch of this busy, commercial empire. There has also been a quinquennial decrease of crime, for in the five years ending 1845 there were 139,505 crimes, but in the five years ending 1850, only 138,918, a decrease of no numerical importance, except that during the five years population increased by 6 per cent., and thus criminality decreased by about 7 per cent.

That able and accurate statist, Mr. Redgrave, thus analyzes, in his Preface, the criminal tables of 1850:

The decrease of the commitments in 1850, as referred to locality, has been very general. It extended to twenty-eight of the forty English counties, and includes all the Midland, Southern and Western counties, without exception. The increase has fallen in the Northern counties-in Durham and Northumberland, in the great manufacturing district, Yorkshire alone excepted, running through Cheshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and Staffordshire. In these counties the chief increase was shown, the decrease having extended to all the most agricultural counties, Essex and Norfolk forming the only exceptions. In Wales there was an increase, the commitments in the Principality having for several years shown a tendency to increase. On a comparison of the offences in which the decrease of the

last

year is most apparent, it will be seen that they are chiefly those which are prevalent in the rural districts, as burglary and housebreaking, sheep stealing, stealing fixtures and growing trees and plants, arson, maliciously maiming cattle, and offences against the game laws.

In the 1st Class-The Offences against the Person—there was a decrease of 38 per cent. last year on the commitments for murder, but when this offence is united with the attempts to murder and maim, the numbers are shown to remain stationary. In rape and assaults to ravish, there was an increase. On the whole class the numbers continue nearly the same, both on a comparison of the two last years, and the two last periods of five years.

In the 2nd Class-The Violent Offences against Propertythere is a decrease of burglary, housebreaking, and the other crimes against the dwelling, and an increase of the robberies from the person. The class showing a decrease of nearly 3 per cent. on the two last years, and of 3.1 per cent. on the two last five years.

In the 3rd Class-The Simple Offences against Propertythe chief decrease has fallen upon larceny, and is for that offence 6.4 per cent. There is also a decrease in horse and sheep stealing, stealing fixtures, &c. The chief increase arises in larcenies from the person, larcenies by servants, and embezzlement. The decrease on this class last year was 3.6 per cent., but an increase of 2.3 per cent. appears on a comparison of the two last five years.

The 4th Class-The Malicious Offences against Propertyshows a considerable decrease, both in arson and maliciously maiming cattle, and a total decrease on the class last year of 19 per cent. On a comparison of the two last five years, however, an increase arises of 4 per cent.

In the 5th Class-Forgery and Offences against the Currency -the commitments remain nearly the same in the last year, but there is an increase of 8 per cent. on extending the comparison to the totals of the two last five years. The art itself has made great progress. We believe this to be the cause.

In the 6th Class-There is a decrease of nearly 15 per cent., arising chiefly on the offences against the game laws, and the indictments for keeping disorderly houses. In the two last five years the decrease has been 36 per cent., and is owing to the absence (with the exception of the year 1848) of seditious offences, and the great decrease of riots and breaches of the peace, by which such offences are attended.

There were only six persons executed last year, and all of them for atrocious murders. We can bear witness to some very felonious acquittals; some in which the evidence was so free from flaw or doubt, that the mob nearly performed the duty which the juries failed in. There is a curious table of executions during