and instigation to murder rested upon evidence of a most suspicious character-the evidence of accomplices in the crime of illegal combination, or rather conspiracy; or, the evidence of persons who had come forward, under the inducement of a large reward, to depose to acts of violence and blood, which, if they had previously known, they had up to that time concealed. In either case the evidence, when uncorroborated in material facts by unimpeachable witnesses, was such as no court or jury could safely act upon. * Upon evidence such as we have described, if human life were sacrificed, no man's life would be safe. We repudiate the cold-blooded PALEY's monstrous dotrine,† touching the benefit

[ The specious arguments of Dr. PALEY against any mitigation of the criminal-law of his day (1785)—sanguinary to the last degree as it then was-were admirably refuted by Sir Samuel ROMILLY, in the House of Commons, Feb. 9, 1810. From ROMILLY'S own notes to a printed report of his speech, we extract the following passages :

"The maxim that it is better for ten guilty persons to escape than for one "innocent man to suffer, is mentioned with approbation by Mr. Justice "BLACKSTONE, but is contested by Dr. PALEY.

"The misfortune,' says PALEY, 'of an individual-for such may the sufferings, ' or even the death of an innocent person be called, when they are occasioned by 'no evil intention—cannot be placed in competition with this object [the 'public advantage.]'

"PALEY here speaks of the sufferings and privations endured by the “victim, as if they were the only evils resulting from the punishment of "the innocent. He overlooks entirely the mischiefs which arise from "the consideration, that the most perfect innocence and the most implicit "submission to the laws cannot afford security to those who possess the one and practise the other. He leaves altogether out of his consideration "that disrespect for the tribunals, which is the necessary consequence of 66 SO terrible a failure in the administration of justice. He does not reflect "how much the effect of example must be weakened by men being taught "from what they have themselves witnessed, that the wretch, whom they "see consigned to punishment, may be in the highest degree 'unfor"tunate,'—and in no degree guilty. He does not take into his account "the hopes which the punishment of an innocent man ever affords to the "guilty, by placing in so striking a point of view, the fallibility of our "tribunals: and by showing how uncertain it is that punishment will "be the consequence of guilt.

་

"They ought rather,' continues PALEY, 'to reflect, that he who falls by a 'mistaken sentence, may be considered as falling for his country, whilst he

that may sometimes result to society from the judicial destruction of innocent life, lest great crime-murder for instancemay be supposed to go unpunished. Atrocious and deplorable is the crime of murder, whether committed for private gain or revenge, or perpetrated through passion and prejudice with all the solemn formalities of a court of justice. We cannot see how the evil of one murder is remedied by the commission of another. Of all murders, judicial murders are the greatest disgrace to a civilized country. The sacred name of justice is brought into contempt when the administration of the law is ignorant, passionate, or precipitate.

66

As to the sort of corroboration which the evidence of an

'suffers under the operation of those rules, by the general effect and tendency 'of which the welfare of the community is maintained and upheld.' Nothing is more easy, [ROMILLY replies,] than thus to philosophize "and act the patriot for others, and to arm ourselves with topics of con“solation, and reasons for enduring with fortitude the evils to which, not ❝ ourselves, but others are exposed. Instead of endeavouring thus to "extenuate, and to reconcile to the minds of those who sit in judgment upon their fellow-creatures so terrible a calamity as a mistake in judi"cature to the injury of the innocent, it would surely be a wiser part to "set before their eyes all the consequences of so fatal an error in their "strong, but real colours :-to represent to them, that of all the evils which " can befall a virtuous man, the very greatest is to be condemned and to "suffer a public punishment as if he were guilty-to see all his hopes and "expectations frustrated; all the prospects in which he is indulging, and "the pursuits which he is following, for the benefit, perhaps, of those who are dearer to him than himself, brought to a sudden close; to be torn "from the midst of his family; to witness the affliction they suffer; and "to anticipate the still deeper affliction that awaits them-not to have "even the sad consolation of being pitied; to see himself branded with "public ignominy; to leave a name which will only excite horror or disgust; to think that the children he leaves behind him, must, when "they recall their father's memory, hang down their heads with shame; "to know that even if at some distant time it should chance that the "truth should be made evident, and that justice should be done to his 66 'name, still that his blood will have been shed uselessly for mankind; “that his melancholy story will serve, wherever it is told, only to excite "alarm in the bosoms of the best members of society, and to encourage "the speculations for evading the law, in which wicked men may "indulge."

*

From the date (1810,) it will be perceived that these notes of ROMILLY were written not many years before the close of his valuable life. ED.]

accomplice requires, we will explain that, by one or two recent judicial decisions. The first to which we shall refer is Rex v. Wilks, which will be found in the 6th vol. of "Carrington and Payne's Nisi Prius Reports," page 272.

*

*

In a later case than the one above cited, Lord ABINGER lays down the judicial rule, as to the corroboration of accomplices, with great clearness and precision. We allude to the case of Regina v. Farler, in the 8th volume of Carrington and Payne. This is the very latest case on the subject. *

Let us now say a word or two upon the subject of money offered as a reward for blood. For the conviction of the murderers of SMITH, if we mistake not, £500 reward was offered-a sum for which wretches of desperate character can always be obtained to swear away the life of any man. In a question of property, no person is allowed to give evidence who has a direct pecuniary interest in the decision which he comes to support, though but to the amount of a farthing. In some instances even an indirect or contingent advantage incapacitates the wit

ness.

But where life is at stake, a witness does not become incompetent by having a pecuniary interest (to any amount) dependent upon the success of his efforts to convict the prisoner. Impartial judges and cautious juries will, however, always look upon such evidence as they would upon the suspected testimony of an accomplice. They will require confirmation of it as strong as they would require in the case of an accomplice, and will apply to it the rule, which was so explicitly and ably laid down by Lord ABINGER and Baron ALDERSON, in the cases which we have cited.

For our own part, we have no objection that pecuniary rewards should be offered for the apprehension of the perpetrators of great crimes; but if their conviction cannot be obtained by other and more credible testimony than that of persons who are to receive or share the price of blood, the history of criminal justice, from the days of Judas, down to a much later era than that of Titus Oates, satisfies us of the danger of the experiment.

*

*

Election of Aldermen.-The Judicial Bench.-Feb. 6, 1838. ONE of the projected changes, ignorantly called a "reform" in the London corporation, is the making the office of alderman periodical; so that election to such office shall be limited to one or more years, instead of being for life, as at present. The corporation inscribes on its banners, as they sometimes have caught our eye, or else we are greatly mistaken, the letters S. P. Q. L.,-meaning, we presume, Senatus populus que Londinensis-thereby intimating that the Court of Aldermen is in the nature of a senatorial council or patrician chamber, which ought not to be dependent upon the popular will; and that the Common-council is a body essentially popular. So far the constitution of the miniature parliament of Guildhall is analogous to that of the great parliament of the realm. Why should the city "reformers" wish to alter this constitution? Why should they think it advisable to imitate the absurd conduct of the Canadian "patriots," who insisted upon having both chambers periodically elective, though the great end of the one is to be a check upon the other, which it can never be, if subject to and controlled by the same influences?

*

Aldermen are magistrates, who have to perform one of the most solemn trusts which the supreme power in the State can confer upon a subject; to the adequate and impartial discharge of which trust, a perfect independence of popular caprice is absolutely essential. Who would trust men with the administration of justice, that, while seated on the judgmentseat, would have to consider, not what justice demanded, but what might serve or endanger their own re-election? Such persons would be far more likely to weigh their own interests than the merits of the case in the scales of justice, and might often find themselves awkwardly placed between electors in the witness-box, and electors in the dock.

What constitutes the excellence, what secures the purity, of the administration of justice by the superior judges of the land? Is it not the realization of that admirable principle in our constitution which makes them, when once appointed to their

high offices, equally independent of the Crown and People? The radical reformers of our day, many of whose proposed changes, instead of being steps in the march of civilization, are steps retrograding into barbarism, would have all judges dependent upon popular caprice! There is no such institution as the judicial bench of England now in the whole civilized world— nothing like it, or near it, for a high-minded purity and impartiality in the dispensation of justice. Yet the judicial bench of England, as the sad records of history too legibly declare, was once corrupt and tyrannical. To what is the change owing? It is owing to that wise and wholesome "reform," by which the judges were made as independent of the Crown, as they had formerly been of the People. That which secures the purity of justice in its most exalted seat-independence of undue influence from above or beneath-must have a wholesome effect upon its character in a less elevated position.

The Ballot.-Feb. 17, 1838.

PUBLIC opinion is the great preservative of public virtue. In the darkness of secret and inquisitorial proceedings, the foulest corruption is engendered. Public opinion exercises a purifying influence wherever its wholesome light is allowed to penetrate. If it be not the living essence, it surely is the strengthening aliment of the constitutional liberty of England. Exclude the light of public opinion from our houses of parliament, from our courts of justice, from all the political institutions of the country, and whatever abuses now exist,and which are but the occasional blemishes upon the excellence of these institutions,-would grow, and spread, and multiply, until no bright vestige of all that excellence remained. Let public action be once removed from responsibility to opinion, and the sustaining source of public virtue is gone. There is no longer the reward of an honourable reputation to stimulate the good, or the fear of shame to check and abash the bad.

The "philosophy" of radicalism, in the nineteenth century, has discovered that it is by the extinction of the influence of