the prisoner is guilty, the Presiding Chairman or Judge pronounces the punishment which is affixed to the offence by law. This punishment is generally variable within certain limits, and the fixing of the amount depends on the discretion of the Judge. It is only in the case of " Murder" that the Judge is obliged to pronounce sentence of Death by hanging.

If the "Jury" give as their verdict that the prisoner is "Not guilty," the prisoner is released.

Sometimes Juries cannot agree on their verdict, though they are left together sometimes for a whole night in the hope of making them agree. If they are finally dismissed without coming to an agreement, the trial will have to take place again, probably at the next Quarter Sessions or Assizes. Many persons at the present time think it very desirable that a simple majority of the Jurymen-two-thirds of them or some other large fraction-should be sufficient to find a verdict. This is the practice in Scotland.

Every prisoner may be assisted by a Lawyer if he can pay for it. It is well urged that every prisoner ought to be assisted by one, whether he can pay or not.

The following is the order of the Proceedings :

(1) The Advocate for the Crown, that is for the Prosecution, makes a speech explaining the nature of the accusation and the general state of the facts.

(2) The witnesses in support of the Prosecution are called one by one and sworn. Each one is first asked questions by the Counsel for the Prosecution, and then asked some very searching questions testing his opportunities of knowledge, and the reasons for his belief, by the Prisoner's Advocate, or (if he has none) by the Prisoner himself. (Cross-examination.) The Judge may ask questions at any

time.

(3) The Advocate of the Prisoner, or the Prisoner himself, makes a speech explaining the defence and arranging the facts from the point of view of the Prisoner.

* Appendix E.

(4) The witnesses for the Prisoner are examined and cross-examined in exactly the same way as were the witnesses for the Prosecution.

(5) The Advocate of the Prisoner or the Prisoner makes a fresh speech, drawing what conclusions he thinks proper from the evidence, and inviting the jury to look at the whole case from the Prisoner's point of view.

(6) The Advocate for the Prosecution does exactly the

same.

(7) The Judge or Chairman at Quarter Sessions sums up ; that is, assists the jury by recalling to them all the evidence, shows where it is inconsistent or worthless, criticises the arguments of the Advocates, and tells the jury what is the law applicable.

(8) The Jury consider and finally deliver their verdict of "Guilty" or "Not Guilty."

(9) If the verdict is Guilty, the Chairman or Judge passes sentence of Punishment.

If the Prisoner produces no evidence, the Advocate for the Prosecution sums up his case immediately after his witnesses have been examined and cross-examined, and the Prisoner or the Advocate simply makes a single speech in defence.

TRIAL BY JURY.

The institution of Trial by Jury is one of those which it is the custom of Englishmen to prize more than almost any other, and for foreigners especially to envy or to copy.

The early history of Trial by Jury is shrouded in considerable obscurity. It probably had two or three different parentages, and it is most likely that the jury in criminal cases and in civil cases cannot be traced to the same source. Among the sources of Trial by Jury generally may be mentioned (1) the general custom among the Teutonic races of referring questions in dispute to the body of the people,

especially in cases of crime; (2) the custom, growing out of the former one, of appointing some definite number of the people (often twelve or some multiple of twelve) believed to be specially acquainted with the matter in dispute. to give a decision on behalf of the rest; (3) the "inquests" and "recognitions" which, so familiar in Norman administration, can even be traced to the Roman Law as incorporated in the laws of the Barbarian Emperors, and by which a body of men (generally twelve) were nominated, as occasion required, on the ground of their presumed familiarity with the subject-matter, to inquire into the truth of facts in dispute, whether judicially or otherwise.

The political value of the jury at the present day is supposed to rest in the fact that no man can be deprived of his liberty or life in a criminal process, or of his land or goods in a civil process, without the unanimous verdict of twelve men who are chosen from the body of the people with the utmost impartiality. The fact is not exactly true at the present day, inasmuch as the large and constantly increasing mass of cases. capable of being summarily decided by magistrates without a jury, and the modified resort to the jury system in the County Courts, must be held (whatever else may be the recommendations of these Courts) to impair the general value of the institution as a positive safeguard.

The Jury in a civil case may be either a Common Jury" or a "Special Jury." The only difference is that the latter are supposed to come from rather a better informed class of society, and a Jury of this kind can be generally had (at the risk of adding to the expenses of the action) by either party in the cause.

Both in a civil case and in a criminal trial the Jury may be "challenged" by either of the parties; that is, the Jury or some member or members of it may be objected to, and a new Jury or fresh Jurymen may have to take the place of the former.

The challenge may be either to the "array," that is to

the whole jury, when it is alleged that the jurors have not been impartially chosen or properly procured; or to "the poll" when exception is taken to individual jurors on such grounds as infancy, partiality, crime, or where a "lord of Parliament" is empannelled.

In criminal cases challenges may be made for all these causes assigned, and in a trial for treason or felony jurors may be objected to by the prisoner without any cause assigned. In high treason generally as many as thirty-five such peremptory challenges are allowed; but in the heaviest kind of treason, as where the Queen's death is alleged to have been attempted, in murder, and other felonies, only twenty peremptory challenges are allowed.

In criminal cases the Grand Jury "of presentment," which is still spoken of as "the county," reproduces the "body of the people" of the old Teutonic times, or the body of freeholders in the Saxon County Court. Common Jury reproduces the ancient inquest.

Jurymen are either (1) Grand Jurymen,

or (2) Common Jurymen,

or (3) Special Jurymen.

The

(1) Grand Jurymen must be freeholders-that is, must have an estate in land for life at least-resident in the county. They are usually taken from among the Justices of the Peace. It has already been seen that their function is to determine at Quarter Sessions or at Assizes whether a trial of a prisoner shall take place or not.

(2) and (3) Common Jurymen and Special Jurymen must have the following qualifications::

1. They must be between the ages of twenty-one and sixty.

2. They must have either 10l. a year in land, freehold ; or 20l, a year leasehold, for twenty-one years or a longer term; or be householders rated for the support of the poor, or (in Middlesex) pay "house duty" on not less than 30.

Special Jurymen are persons described as "Esquires," "Bankers," or "Merchants."

Special Jurymen are only summoned for the trial of civil cases where the pecuniary interests at stake are very large, or where the proceedings are peculiarly intricate and requiring special education and experience for understanding them.

The following persons are exempt from the duty of serving on juries:-Peers, judges, practising lawyers, gaolers, clergymen of the Established Church and Catholic Church, and ministers of dissenting chapels registered, officers in the army, physicians, surgeons, officers in the customs, and members of the House of Commons.

Jurymen are fined if they do not attend when they are summoned.

There are many complaints now made from time to time that the same jurymen are summoned over and over again, and that many persons who ought to be summoned are never summoned at all. A Bill for the remedy of this has recently been brought into the House of Commons.

THE HABEAS CORPUS ACT.

This Act was passed in the reign of Charles II. (1679) for the purpose of giving facilities for granting the old writ of" Habeas Corpus ad subjiciendum," so called from the words in which it ran, "You may have the body brought up before you." The writ was obtained from a Court of Justice, that is, the Court of Chancery, the Queen's Bench, the Exchequer, or the Common Pleas, on proof that there was some cause to believe that a prisoner was unjustly detained in prison. The effect of the Act, with its later amendments, is to facilitate the process by which any prisoner who thinks that he is unjustly detained, either by a gaoler or by anyone else, can have his case at once judicially investigated, in order to see whether he ought legally to be in prison or not. The Judge, on the