Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/736

 722 V. BENCH AND BAR without a jury, except when specially demanded, and then only as a security against class feeling, governmental op- pression or corruption. At first he was ignored by the pro- fession as a foolish and visionary man, who put his ideas in very bad English. He did manage to secure an act against cruelty to animals, and this was all. Yet when he died in 1832 he was revered as the founder of modern legis- lation. His disciples devoted themselves to his practical reforms on the side of the most important part of the law, — the means which it provides for the enforcement of rights and the redress of wrongs.^ Easily accessible courts, a cheapen- ing of legal remedies, and the prevention of delays, were proposed as matters of the first moment. Judicial evidence was to be regulated, so that it would be certain that all the testimony could be heard. Pleadings were to be curtailed and simplified, fictions were to be abolished, sham pleadings made impossible, and all distinctions in forms of actions and in the jurisdiction of courts were to be swept away. For " glittering generalities " Bentham's mind had no tolerance. He dissected with more or less severity the fallacies of our Declaration of Independence. He refuted the so-called self- evident truths that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among them the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The struggle for reform had been initiated by Sir Samuel Romilly, in his effort to mitigate the penal code. Year after in England, had been made before the reformers set to work. The judges of England had uniformly held that in a prosecution for libel the jury passed upon the facts, the court upon the law. The construction of the written document, whether it was libellous or not, was according to well-settled principles a question for the court. The matters of fact, as to whether the defendant had piiblished the libel and whether its references were to the persons and things stated in the indictment or information, were for the jury. But as long as the jury rendered a general verdict of not guilty, there was presented a chance to the jury to find a verdict of not guilty, upon the ground that, although the publi- cation was found and the innuendoes proven, the document was in fact no libel. The judges had tried to escape this dilemma by putting to the jury the question of publication and of the truth of the' innuendoes, but Fox's Libel Act provided, in eflfect, that the jury should pass upon both fact and law.
 * One change in the law, which once seemed a very imnortant matter