One other Law on this subject exists on the Statute Book of the Colonynamely, Law 15 of 1890, under which the accused was made a competent but not a compellable witness, and provides to this effect:

Any person found in possession of any article of agricultural produce in the schedule to this Law, under circumstances which afford reasonable grounds for suspecting that such possession is not lawful, may be arrested by any constable or rural headman, and taken forthwith before the nearest magistrate; and the refusal or inability of such person arrested as aforesaid to satisfy the magistrate that his possession of the article in question is lawful shall be deemed prima facie evidence of larceny.

The obvious difficulties and inconvenience of strictly carrying out the procedure laid down in this enactment have to all intents and purposes rendered it a dead letter.

In 1896 and 1901 the Legislature introduced and passed further Laws on the subject, but as they have both been disallowed by the Secretary of State, it is unnecessary to say more about them here than that both enactments proposed to give wider powers of arrest in cases where persons were found in possession of agricultural produce under suspicious circumstances, and the onus of proving that such possession was lawful was placed on the accused. Under the latter Law the punishments that the Courts. were empowered to impose were made more severe, and whipping or flogging might be ordered even for a first offence.

Over-Severity of the Law.-After reading how the Legislature in Jamaica has dealt with the matter, one would hardly think that the pains and penalties provided by the Law err on the side of leniency. In my opinion the very severity of the punishment directed to be imposed has largely tended to deter persons from having recourse to its provisions, and has failed to check the growth of the crime. In proof of the latter of these opinions I might refer to the returns of this crime in the parish of Westmoreland, where it is well known the resident magistrate deals most severely with offenders of this class. For the last three years the convictions for this crime have been as follows: For 1899-1900, 47; for 1900-1, 76; and for 1901-2, 105. Still, there is no doubt that there are many persons in the Island who assert that the punishment of such offenders should be made more severe, and claim that flogging, and flogging alone, should be the invariable punishment. To such persons, apart from the fact that all enlightened public opinion is against this form of punishment, it should be a sufficient answer to point out that a large proportion of the offenders consists of women and sickly persons who cannot be so punished. There is a further section of the community who, in their indignation against such criminals, and having regard to an alleged difficulty in identifying the articles found in the possession of an accused with those alleged to be stolen, go so far as to urge that any person should be authorised to arrest persons

whom they suspect to be in possession of stolen produce, and that persons so arrested should be deemed to be guilty until they can establish their innocence. Even if such a course was not in direct opposition to the traditions and first principles of English law, it would be a peculiarly dangerous innovation to make in a country where the bulk of the population is so uncivilised as is the case in Jamaica. Personally, I have experienced no difficulty in obtaining convictions for this crime which is not present in the case of other similar crimes; nor do I think it would be practicable, in view of the limited numbers of the police force, to provide greater facilities for the discovery and detection of this crime than already exist for this purpose. At any rate, I am strongly of opinion, under present social conditions, that the introduction of indiscriminate powers of arrest of suspected offenders would prove to be a remedy far worse than the disease.

How far the conditions in other West Indian Islands are favourable to the increase of this crime, I cannot say, but there can be little doubt that it exists, and that for its suppression special legislation has been passed. When the Law which was passed by the Legislative Council in 1901, and has since been disallowed, was being discussed in the Council, it was asserted by those who advocated the flogging clauses of the Bill that in British Guiana, where the like punishment was in force, the number of cases had been largely reduced. I have no means of testing the truth of this assertion, but I submit that the reduction may be equally due to the fact that the offenders in that Colony may also be punished by fine.

Treatment of the Crime in other West Indian Colonies.-By way of comparison it may be useful in concluding this paper to point out shortly how the Legislatures in the other principal West Indian Colonies have treated the subject.

British Guiana.-In British Guiana the crime is treated as one punishable on summary conviction-and ss. 77 and 79 of Ordinance 17 of 1893 contain the law on the subject. S. 77 enacts that a person who steals "cocoa, coffee, plantains, bananas, yams, tannias, cassava, or sweet potatoes, growing in any land, whether open or enclosed, not being a garden,” etc., shall be liable for a first offence to a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars or one month's imprisonment and to whipping or flogging, and for a second offence to six months' imprisonment and whipping or flogging. S. 79 provides that any person stealing "fruit or any cultivated root or plant other than any mentioned in s. 77, used for the food of man or beast, or for medicine, or for distilling, or for dyeing, or for or in the course of any manufacture, and growing in any land, whether open or enclosed, not being a garden," etc., shall be liable to a fine not exceeding five dollars or one month's imprisonment, and for a second offence to six months' imprisonment.

Trinidad.—In Trinidad the tendency has been to make the punishment for this offence more severe. By Ordinance 11 of 1842, s. 1, the law of that Colony as regards larceny was assimilated to that of England, but

special provision was made by s. 42 for this crime to the following effect: "If any person shall steal . . . any sugar-cane, cocoa-tree, or coffee-tree, or any cultivated root or plant used for the food of man or beast or for medicine, or dyeing, or for distilling, or for or in the course of any manufacture, and growing in any land, open or enclosed, not being a garden," etc., the offender for a first offence was to be liable to one month's imprisonment, "or else shall forfeit and pay over and above the value of the article or articles so stolen, or the amount of the injury done, such sum of money not exceeding 1 as to the justices shall seem meet," and for a second offence to six months' imprisonment. In 1867 a second offence under the lastly recited section rendered the offender liable to whipping or flogging (see Ordinance 1 of 1867). In 1886, by Ordinance 22, these provisions were repealed, and the offences therein mentioned, whatever the value of the article stolen might be, and whether the land on which the same was at the time growing or in course of cultivation, was open or enclosed, were constituted felonies, and the offenders rendered liable to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour and (or) to be privately whipped; and for a second offence made punishable as for simple larceny.

Grenada. In Grenada the recently introduced Criminal Code starts with abolishing the distinction preserved by English law as regards the theft of things savouring of the realty, and by s. 36 by way of definition states that "stealing may be committed in respect of anything, whether living or dead, and whether fixed to the soil or to any building or fixture, or not so fixed," etc. Later, by s. 97 this Law enacts that "whoever steals anything the value of which does not exceed £5. . . shall be liable to imprisonment for three months," and by s. 98 "whoever steals any cultivated tree, plant, root, or fruit from the field, garden, building, or other similar place where the same is grown, or any tree, plant, root, or fruit growing, or being in any land appropriated to cultivation, shall be liable to imprisonment for three months, and in the discretion of the Court to flogging or whipping." Special legislation, however, has been passed for the protection of the staple industry of this Island against offences of this kind, in the shape of the Cocoa and Nutmegs Ordinance, No. 21 of 1896. Under s. 18 of this Ordinance, any justice of the peace, revenue officer, or constable may stop any person carrying or conveying or in charge of cocoa or nutmegs suspected to have been stolen, or unlawfully obtained, and require him to give a full and satisfactory account of the same; and if he refuses or is unable to give an account which shall satisfy the officer, the officer may seize the cocoa or nutmegs, and the person may be brought before a magistrate, and charged with having in his possession or conveying cocoa or nutmegs reasonably suspected of having been stolen, or unlawfully obtained; and if he does not give an account to the satisfaction of the magistrate as to how he came by the same, he shall be liable" to a fine of £20, and the cocoa or nutmegs may be ordered to be returned to the owner or forfeited.

Barbados.-Barbados seems to have passed no legislation specially relating to this crime, which would seem to suggest that there it is of no very frequent occurrence.

In Jamaica and the other Colonies to which reference has been made, there are enactments making it an offence to be in the possession of articles alleged to be stolen or unlawfully obtained, where the person so in possession cannot satisfactorily account to the Court for his possession; but those contained in the Grenada Criminal Code are perhaps the most comprehensive and useful.

Degrees of Criminality: Starving Women and Children.-It remains only to consider by the experience of the results of past legislation in Jamaica, and by the light afforded by the action taken in other West Indian Colonies, how best the law in Jamaica can be amended to suppress—or at least check-this growing evil. In reflecting how this may best be done, it must be remembered that the degree of criminality attaching to this crime varies very considerably. It may be, and very often is, committed by some child or woman, left or abandoned by their natural protectors, as a means of staving off starvation; on the other hand, the offender may be some idle able-bodied male adult who prefers to live on the results of the exertions of his more industrious neighbour. In view of this it seems expedient that the Courts should be given a wide discretion as to the form of punishment to be inflicted. Where, also, the offenders and the persons who suffer by such offenders' acts alike come from the same class, as they may be said to do in Jamaica, it is necessary to make sure that the nature of the punishment should be consonant with the sentiments of that class. If it is more severe than persons of that class think should be inflicted, they will shrink from appealing to the Courts to enforce it, and many offenders will either go unpunished altogether, or be forced to come to some uncertain and irregular arrangement with the persons whose property they have purloined. On the other hand, the Law should not deal with the offence so leniently as to inspire persons with a contempt for its provisions, and thus encourage the willing thief in his career. The policy of the Lord High Chancellor in The Mikado in making the punishment fit the crime is nowhere more necessary than in this instance. I venture to submit that the Legislature should aim at ensuring that, as far as possible, every prædial thief should be brought before the Courts for punishment, and that the punishment should be instructive and deterrent against a repetition of the offence by the offender, rather than vindictive.

Impolicy of Vindictive Punishments.-Vindictive punishments, such as long terms of imprisonment or flogging, as may be gathered from my previous remarks, are not, I think, calculated to improve an offender; and the former method, at any rate, has this further disadvantage-that it can only be inflicted at a cost to the taxpayer out of all proportion to the value of the injury caused by the offender's depredations. The real pest of the community

-the man who makes an idle, dishonest living at the expense of his neighbours-is generally too clever to allow himself to be caught. Usually it is, so to speak, the comparatively innocent thief-the first offender-who, in his inexperience, is surprised in the act; and in such cases, where the value of the property stolen usually does not exceed a few pence, it seems absurd to saddle the taxpayer with the cost of keeping the offender in prison for many months, with the probable result of converting him into an habitual criminal.

It has always seemed to me that in the case of a first offender of this class, the Court ought to have power to impose such a punishment as will make it clear to the meanest capacity (and the majority of prædial thieves have the lowest intellectual powers) that to repeat such an act will be against his own interests. Of course, in the case of the hardened criminal-and the habitual criminal, I fear, will long exist as a living evidence of the failure of our penal law to reform offenders-these reasons have no application, and having regard to the greatness of the damage suffered in such cases, the cost of their long imprisonment may justifiably be incurred, or in cases of special audacity or cruelty even flogging be resorted to. Such cases are and always will be exceptional, and require exceptional treatment. But by far the larger number of offenders will be first offenders, and a great end will be attained if, by their punishment, they can be taught the old principle that "honesty is the best policy," and deterred from repeating their offence. This lesson, I submit, might be taught by giving additional powers to the magistrates enabling them to order a fine not exceeding £5 for such offences, together with fair compensation to the person who has suffered by the theft, and to give such reasonable time for payment of these amounts as will enable the offender to work and earn sufficient to pay them. The magistrates may, I think, be trusted to exercise such powers with discretion; for it is obvious that the indiscriminate use of them, where the offender is a stranger in the district or notoriously unlikely to attempt to pay such a fine, would only afford a criminal an opportunity of evading his punishment. But in Jamaica, where agricultural labour is always in demand, the prædial thief, if he so wishes, can in most cases work out such a fine and compensation by giving his services to the person whose produce he has stolen. The lesson might also be further brought home to the intelligence of the people by making parents or guardians responsible for the deeds of the young persons for whom they are morally responsible. This might be effected by making such persons jointly liable to pay the money penalties imposed on juvenile offenders, or to go to prison in default, unless they can satisfy the Court that they have done all that lies in their power to prevent the commission of such crimes. The enforcement of parental responsibility in this way has been, I believe, tried with success in other places; and nowhere is the lesson more required than by the negro race in Jamaica.

While unfortunately I feel that, under the existing social conditions of Jamaica, there will for a long time to come be a tempting field for the enterprise