with them according to his own view of his interest and according to his own pleasure, help him in the performance of all contracts which he may make respecting them, and enable him to obtain protection against any incroachments and compensation for any injuries done to him in respect of either his labour or his property.

3. The law ought to prevent any burthens from being imposed upon men beyond what the necessities of the state require, and ought to refuse all preferences, all exclusive privileges to one person or one class, either in respect of the persons or the properties of others.

4. The law ought to render the transfer of property and the hiring out of labour easy and safe, and ought to make the titles secure of the parties acquiring and the parties transferring.

5. The law ought to provide for the transmission of property after the owner's decease, regulating its descent if he have made no distribution of it, preventing him from capriciously fettering its transmission or enjoyment, aiding him to a reasonable extent in disposing of it prospectively, and protecting both him from deception in making his disposition, and those who come after him from uncertainty in the rights conveyed to them.

6. The law ought to protect the rights of a personal as well as those of a proprietary nature, so that no one shall be slandered in his reputation, or injured in his person, or constrained in his liberty, or interfered with in his marital or parental capacity, providing due compensation to him for all such injuries.

Next, as regards Criminal Acts.

1. No act should be pronounced criminal which the common and natural feelings of mankind do not reprobate; that is, as soon as their understanding of the nature and consequences of the act in question is complete.

2. No punishment should be inflicted upon any offender, which is manifestly repugnant to the general sense of mankind, either from the amount or the kind of the suffering it gives.

3. The object of all punishment is both to incapacitate or to disincline the offender from repeating his offence, and to deter others from following his example. If, in addition to securing these principal objects, a profit can be obtained to

the state, it will be so much the better; but no part of these main objects should be sacrificed to the attainment of this, which is only incidental.

4. No greater amount of punishment should be inflicted than is necessary for securing the community against a repetition of the offence, either by the criminal, or by others. Thus, to put a man to death, or imprison him for life, is unjustifiable, if by making him suffer from fine or solitary imprisonment he may most probably be prevented from desiring to offend again. So, to deter others from committing a small offence, it is sufficient to show them that a moderate suffering will be the consequence.

5. No punishment should be inflicted which occasions greater suffering really to be endured than is apparent and visible to the beholders.

6. Punishments are to be preferred which are easily comprehended in all the suffering they occasion, and easily remembered by those who see them.

7. Punishments are to be preferred which are divisible or apportionable, which are invariable, certain or equal, being the same in their effects upon whomsoever they are inflicted — which are exemplary and striking-which are simple - which are remissible in case of good behaviour, or of error discovered in the conviction which fall in with the sense and feelings of the community — which tend to the reformation of the offender which press as lightly as possible upon all others than the offender.

8. In estimating the fitting or the justifiable amount of punishment, care must be taken that it is sufficient to counteract the motive to commit the offence, by inflicting an evil greater than the advantage of offending - that where the offence has proceeded from confirmed habit and practice of delinquency, the advantage derived from a course of such conduct should be taken into the account, and not merely the gain of the particular offence—that the temptation existing to commit different crimes at once, a more severe punishment should be denounced against the greater that the more pernicious the crime is, the greater should be the punishment that the nominal amount of the punishment should be so adjusted as to secure the same real amount for the same offence, the crimi

nality being different that an addition should be made to the punishment in consideration of the uncertainty or remoteness of the prospect of its infliction.

9. In awarding any punishment, care must be taken that a proportion be kept to the nature of the offence, and the minds of men be not bewildered, or their feelings outraged, by seeing the same punishment inflicted for different crimes, still more by seeing the greater punishment for the lesser crime. & 10. In choosing the kind of punishment, care must be taken to avoid such as have a tendency to hurt the character of the beholders, by either exciting cruel or savage feelings, or calling in their aid to execute the law otherwise than by their presence, or turning their sympathies in the delinquent's favour, or making them undervalue the guilt of the crime, or inclining them to hate or contemn the law.

These are the general principles upon which every penal code should be constructed; and they are such as plainly will condemn many of the provisions in all the systems of penal legislation which have been framed; but it is most pleasing also to reflect that they are in the present age much more generally borne in mind, and much less frequently departed from by lawgivers, than in any former period of history. Towards them all, the attempt should be made to bring the criminal law of every civilised community; and in proportion as the code of any state approaches this point, it will deserve the respect of the philosopher, the jurist, and the world.

The procedure in obtaining restitution of rights, or compensation for their infraction, or in bringing offenders to punishment for crimes, depends upon the constitution of the courts, whereof we have already treated, and upon the rules laid down for bringing actions, for instituting prosecutions, and for trying the one and the other description of causes.

Those rules having for their object the procuring as speedy and as cheap a remedy as speedy and cheap an acquittal or conviction as the nature of the cases will permit, ought to be devised, so as to throw no impediments in the way either of bringing or defending actions and prosecutions. The trial, having for its object the ascertaining of the truth, ought to be conducted in the manner most likely to bring

forward whatever can elucidate the facts, and secure an accurate application of the law.

1. It is necessary that the case of the party complaining should be previously stated in writing, in order that the opposite party may know what he has to answer.

2. It is necessary that due notice should be given of the trial, in order that the party complained of may come prepared for his defence.

3. It is necessary that the nature of his defence should be stated by him in writing, in order that the party complaining may not be taken by surprise and defeated for want of proofs in reply, which, had he been warned, he might have procured.

4. It is necessary that, if any answer to the defence is to be proved by evidence, that answer should be stated also in writing, to prevent a surprise upon the defendant.

5. This alternate statement in writing should go on as long as any new matter of fact is brought forward by either party; and at each stage the opposite party should be entitled to deny the legal inference from the facts alleged, and only be called upon to disprove or deny the truth of those facts after they shall have been decided to be material, that is, sufficient to support the legal inferences built upon them.

6. The same principles apply generally to the prosecution of offenders, though it is hardly ever necessary to require the particular statement of the defence, unless when the party means either to deny that the offence was committed, or to rest upon his legal right of acting as he is charged with having done, or to show that he acted under the influence of disease, or to prove that he was acting under compulsion, or to affirm that he was absent at the time from the place. In such cases, upon receiving notice in writing of the charges. against him, he should be called on to specify his defence.

7. All persons should be allowed either to conduct their own cause, or to employ advocates; and full power should be given to these of urging whatever topics of law or fact best serves the purpose of the parties. In the case of persons too poor to afford employing advocates, the courts should assign them such help, on reasonable proof of poverty.

8. A prosecutor should be appointed on behalf of the

State, to conduct all prosecutions for crimes, and he should have deputies in local courts at which he cannot himself be present.

9. In the trial, whether of crimes or of actions, the judge or judges -professional persons should be aided by men not of the profession, and of two descriptions: persons of skill, where nice matters in any trade or other employment arise; and persons of respectability, to decide upon the disputed facts of all cases, or the amount of compensation in actions for infraction of rights where restitution is impossible.

10. The court in every case ought to hear only the testimony of persons who speak from their own knowledge: no hearsay evidence ought ever to be admitted. It is no exception to this rule to admit proof of reputation in such cases as custom, boundary, and character, because the witnesses speak of the fact within their own knowledge-that fact being the existence of the reputation. Also, in certain other cases, declarations of persons deceased may be admitted, when they were made under an apprehension of death supplying the sanction of an oath. In police inquiries, when the question affects not the final judgment of the case, but only the discovery of evidence, or the commencement of proceedings, the rule excluding hearsay of course cannot apply.

11. The testimony of witnesses ought not to be rejected on account of their infamous character, or of their having an interest in the event of the trial, or on account of their connection with one of the parties. These circumstances should affect their credit, but not work their exclusion.

12. All freedom should be given to witnesses to be sworn according to the religion they believe, and its forms, the oath being administered of which the obligations may appear to the witness the strongest.

13. All freedom should be given to the parties to examine and sift the evidence each of his adversary; and each should examine his own witnesses in the way most likely to bring out the statement in the words of the witnesses, and not in those of the party or his advocate examining them.

14. No party, as a general rule, should be suffered to bring forward any witness at a venture, taking the chance of his testimony proving favourable, and prepared to discredit him