Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/564

 550 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Lord Justice Holker, reached, when engrossed on parchment and presented at the Old Bailey, ninety yards in length. Nevertheless there is no place in the world where justice is more admirably done than in our great courts of criminal law. Many difficulties yet remain to be overcome in devising, if possible, some adequate system for the interrogation and examination of the accused, in equalising sentences through- out the kingdom, in bringing those passed at quarter sessions into more complete harmony with those inflicted by the judge at the assizes, and in graduating and adjusting with greater nicety as well as in lessening the severity of the longer sen- tences of penal servitude. As regards the procedure before justices, and all matters that relate to their jurisdiction, the reign has been fruitful of the best and most careful legisla- tion. Jervis's Acts (drawn by Mr. Archbold and introduced by Sir T. Jervis when Attorney-General), the new Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879, and a group of statutes that extend and regulate the summary pov/ers of magistrates, have been of considerable benefit to society. At the beginning of the reign there were outside the metropolis but two or three stipendiary magistrates. The extension of their number has been a measure of unqualified good. Extradition statutes have been passed, which, together with a series of treaties, now enable justice to follow many English criminals beyond the seas, and to remit for trial to their own country many foreign culprits who have fled to seek an asylum here. For some few years before 1837, the punishment of death had ceased to be inflicted except for the crime of murder. But the condition of the Statute-book in this respect had not kept pace with the humane practice of the Executive. Death was still the sentence for some lesser offences, though it was, as a rule, commuted. So lately as 1833, a poor little boy of nine pushed a stick through a broken window, and pulled out some painters' colours worth twopence. He was sentenced to death for burglary. The result of this condition of the law was twofold. In the first place, it led prosecutors and witnesses to abstain from pressing home the evidence of a prisoner's guilt, and to connive anxiously at his escape. In the second place, the deterring influence of the sentence was