MORENO. It is only the "wild justice," which Lord BACON calls revenge, that can be executed either without or against law—and most certainly if MORENO were tried and put to death in this country for the murder of Mr. BOYD, at Malaga, it would be as lawless an act of homicide as his own destruction of his unfortunate victim. The time may come, perhaps, when the "march of intellect" may teach us that justice ought to be emancipated from all legal restraints that the forms and distinctions of law shackle and confine her energies, and that, by making the occasion itself constitute the law, and passion act as its expositor, the arm of justice will be freed from the ligaments of legal science, and become, thereby, better able to strike the retributive blow with promptitude and effect. When that time comes, but not till then, will it be a matter of perfect indifference whether a person be tried for a crime upon a repealed statute, or upon one that is still in existence. When that time comes, but not till then, will British Judges sentence a person to die, and acknowledge at the same time that the sentence is not according to law, for they have a right to go beyond the intention of the Legislature. When that time comes, but not till then, will the Courier's notions of British justice be satisfied. In our simplicity we had heretofore supposed that a Judge was bound to confine himself not only to the spirit but the letter of a penal Act, and that to construe otherwise than strictly a law affecting life, liberty, or member, would be a gross violation of the settled and invariable practice of the English Courts. Let us be better instructed for the future. The Courier lays it down that a statute affecting life may be construed liberally-that the net of penal construction may be so enlarged as to include more than the Legislature either expressed or intended. This gives us a new light upon the administration of the laws, and shows how the arbitrary interpretation of a Judge may supply the deficiencies of legislative enactment. Thus are old prejudices that check the loose and uncertain application of penal statutes got rid of, and thus is the science of criminal jurisprudence improved. Our contemporary thinks we spoke harshly of the legal G opinions with which it favoured the public the other day. This makes it necessary for us to give a concise analysis of those opinions, to show that we were justified in describing them as being of no value whatever. * * We stated that the 7th section of " Lord LANSDOWNE's Act" is the portion of law now applicable to murders committed out of the realm-we care not whether it be called a re-enactment of a former statute or not-neither the words nor the construction can thereby be altered. We quoted the section which says "Be it enacted that if any of his Majesty's subjects shall be charged in England with any murder or manslaughter, or with being accessory before the fact to any, &c., the same being respectively committed on land out of the United Kingdom, whether within the KING's dominion or without, it shall be lawful for any Justice of the Peace," &c. The construction of the above passage, which the Courier stands up for is, that "If any of his MAJESTY's subjects" may be construed as if it were "if any who are not his MAJESTY's subjects." This construction has at least the merit of being original. We were not satisfied with giving the theory-we exemplified it in practice, by referring to the case of Captain HELSHAM, which is to be found in Carrington and Payne's Reports, vol. iv., page 394. We asked the Courier to reconcile that case, which is the latest one, with its own construction of the law, and what is its answer? It says "In HELSHAM's case there was no question as to the construction of the words British subject" (who said there was?)-" but only as to the mode of proof." The fact is, as we before stated, there were two points decided in HELSHAM'S case:-one was that in an indictment framed upon the 9th George VI, cap. 31, it must be averred that the prisoner and the deceased were subjects of his Majesty--so the point was ruled, and thereby has the main question in the case of MORENO been decided. The other point related only to the species of evidence, or the mode of proof. There is, indeed, a statute, "for the more effectual punishment of murders committed in places not within his MAJESTY'S dominions, which has not been repealed by Lord LANSDOWNE'S Act—that is, the 57th George III., cap. 53. That statute allows trials for murder or manslaughter, committed in certain foreign parts by persons residing in settlements under the protection of his MAJESTY, and by the captains and crews of British ships in the South Sea Islands, &c., to be held in his MAJESTY'S plantations and colonies, &c., the same as if such offences had been committed on the high seas which are subject to his MAJESTY'S Court of Admiralty. So much for the law as to murders and manslaughters committed out of the realm. Nowhere in our statute-book will any authority be found for trying in England a person, not a British subject, who has committed the crime in the territory of an independent Sovereign. There, municipal law must be controlled by the law of nations. [This General MORENO, alarmed by the outcry against him, fled from England. Five years after, he was an accomplice of the Carlist Commander-in-chief, the traitor MAROTTO, in the "butchery" of the bravest generals of his master's army. His crimes were not forgotten by the betrayed Navarrese soldiers, and they shot him at Urdax, on the 6th of September, 1839.-See telegraphed news, copied into the Morning Herald, Sept. 10, 1839.- ED.] Imprisonment for Debt.-April 4, 1834. THE Bill for the abolition of imprisonment for debt, so long promised by the Government, is still delayed. Even the provincial legislature of Canada has got the start of the British parliament in this respect, as the Montreal Papers announce the publication of a Bill to repeal a law which confounds misfortune with crime, and, like all acts of injustice, has operated to the detriment of society at large. Of all the laws derived from less civilized times, it would be difficult to point out one more absurd than that which permits the incarceration of the body of a man who is unable to pay his debts, without any imputation of fraud against the victim of this oppressive law. Where there is fraud, indeed, in the contracting of debts, or in making away with property which should be reserved for their payment, let it be punished, for fraud is criminal; and we do not wish to protect crime, but to prevent innocence from suffering the punishment which should be reserved for guilt. The absurdity of the law is seen in this, that it compels a man, as it were, to pay his debts by depriving him of all means of retrieving his affairs. In this way, it is true, a harsh creditor may gratify a vindictive feeling; but law should never minister to the passion of revenge. Many a man whose industry would enable him to overcome the difficulties, not of his own creating, with which he may be oppressed, is utterly ruined by being thrust into a gaol. Many an honest and steady man, too, by the evil association of a prison, has been corrupted in his principles, deprived of his good habits, and has re-entered society reckless of character, and qualified to follow any other pursuit but one of honest industry. A great portion of the criminals of this country are created by the demoralising instruction of a gaol. Thus one of the great results of this oppressive system is to multiply criminals, and thus the vindictive law re-acts against the interests of society. One pernicious effect of the law as regards the community in general, is the system of false credit which it engenders, whereby people are induced to live beyond their incomes; the creditor knowing that the body of the debtor is pledged by the law for the debt, he relies upon that law extorting from the sympathy and compassion of relatives and friends the payment of debts which the debtor himself may be unable to discharge, and which, but for the facility of credit that the law of imprisonment creates, he never would have contracted. But if the case of the honest debtor of the male sex who is dragged to a prison is bad, how much worse is the situation of the unfriended female, whom some hard-hearted creditor thrusts into the noisome moral atmosphere of a gaol, to pine in brokenhearted wretchedness, or fly from the gloom of a comfortless cell, and despairing thoughts, to its debasing associations! It is painful to think how many have fallen in this way from honesty and virtue to the depths of depravity. Thus does the operation of this cruel law extend the influence of vice, and prove itself a moral calamity to this Christian land. Reason, justice, and sound policy dictate that if a debtor has property whereby he can pay his debts, and will not pay them, that property should be made available to the payment of his debts; but that if a debtor has no property, he should not be deprived of the chance of making any, nor of retrieving his affairs, by being thrown into prison. The matter has been seen in this light by the Commissioners, who reported in favour of the abolition of imprisonment for debt. Government has incurred the charge of a most culpable negligence, by allowing the introduction of the Bill for that purpose to be so long delayed. It seems as if they were always to be most reluctantly dragged to any improvement which concerns the reformation of the laws, and the morals of the people. Under the law of imprisonment for debt, a man is allowed, contrary to the first elements of justice, to be Judge in his own cause, for upon his ex parte affidavit, another who does not owe him a farthing, nay, to whom he is himself a debtor, may be torn from his family and employment, and immured in a dungeon. How long is this disgrace to our laws to be tolerated? THE TEARS OF SCIO.-1822. FAIR SCIO! when that beauteous dawn arose |