penalty, by a plain and distinct designation of the crime and its consequences, the judges will not award the sentence*. *And by the law of Scotland, where the punishment is left by law to the discretion of the judge, he can in no case extend it to death; for, where the law intends to punish capitally, it says so in express words, and leaves no liberty to the judge to modify†.

With such luminaries before their eyes, the learned and humane judges in the island of the present day would have found it impossible to shed the blood of man, even for the commission of the heinous crime alluded to, by the following wild and uncivilized ordinance, viz.

"If any man take a woman by constraint, or force her against her will, if she be a wife, he must suffer the law for her. If she be a maid, or single woman, the deemster shall give her a rope, a sword, and a ring; and she shall have her choice, to hang with the rope, cut off his head with the sword, or marry him with the ring."

The great Lord Bacon, with that lucid wisdom which characterizes all his writings, says, in his Tract upon Universal Justice, that " а law may be held good that is certain in the intimation, just in the precept, profitable in the execution, consonant to the form of government, and generating virtue in the community. Certainty is so essential to a law, as without it a law cannot be just, si enim incertam vocem det tuba, quis se parabit ad bellum.' A law then ought to give warning before it strike;

* Bacon's Law Tracts, p. 75.

+ Erskine's Institutes.

and it is a good rule, that it is the best law
which gives least liberty to the arbitrage of the
judge. It is a hard case to torture laws, that
they may torture men." We are also informed
by another noble author*, that it is better to
prevent crimes, than to punish them. This is
the fundamental principle of good legislation,
which is the art of conducting men to the maxi-
mum of happiness, and to the minimum of mi-
sery. Would
Would you prevent crimes,-let the laws
be clear and simple;-let the laws be feared,
and the laws only.

The punishment of a crime cannot be just, if the laws have not endeavoured to prevent the crime, by the best means which the times and circumstances would allow. And as crimes are only to be estimated by the injury done to society, to constitute the justice of the punishment, it should have only that degree of severity which is sufficient to deter others: for the excessive severity of laws hinders their execution†.

With respect to the duties of a magistrate, Cicero says, that " they must be exercised with resolution, and with a severity that is above all partiality; to which must be added, affability in hearing, deliberation in examining, and accuracy in explaining and enforcing his opinion or judgment." A man of such enlightened understanding, appointed guardian of good laws, is the greatest blessing that a sovereign can bestow on his people.

Marq. Beccaria.

D

† Montesquieu.

With regard to the acts of Tynwald relative to the penal law, the quotations in the Appendix, from all those which can be now enforced by the magistracy of the island, will impress the mind of the reader with grave reflections on the immediate necessity of a revision of several of them, particularly the statute of 1629, which comprizes offences of very inferior criminality, and naturally causes some astonishment, how it was thought necessary to make them punishable with death*.

In exercising the high authority of legislation, the quantity and quality of human punishment will doubtless be wisely considered; and the legislator will bear in mind, that all punishments should, if possible, be not only in terrorem aliorum, but in emendationem delinquentis; it will consequently follow, that liberty and reason must triumph when the laws are neither indefinite or obscure-when they proportion the punishment to the offencewhen outrageous penalties cannot be enforced --and when crimes shall be more effectually prevented by the certainty, rather than by the severity of punishment.

This great work being happily accomplished, it will be farther manifest (in the language of an eminent divine†), that " two things speak much the wisdom of a nation, viz. good laws, and a prudent management of them."

* It is much to be lamented, that it should be made a capital crime in England, to cut down a cherry-tree in an orchard, or to break down the mound of a fish-pond, and that too in the eighteenth century..

+ A. B. Stilling fleet.

With respect to the crimina læsæ majestatis, (the statute of 25th Eward III. or any other in which the island is not expressly named, being there of no force), and also many other offences of a most atrocious and malignant nature, now totally unknown to the Manks law it would indeed be highly improper, ill-timed, and presuming in the writer, to say more than merely to hint, that, for very obvious reasons, the subject imperiously demands the immediate attention of the insular legislature.

;

Concluding it, therefore, to be the intention of the Government, under the auspices of his Grace the Duke of Atholl, to abrogate certain of the old, and make such new criminal laws, as the members in their wisdom may think reasonable and prudent, the writer apologizes for this concise notice of the Manks penal law, and will conclude his observations on the subject with a sentiment of Montesquieu: "Could

but succeed, so as to persuade those who command, to increase their knowledge in what they ought to prescribe; and those who obey, to find a new pleasure resulting from their obedience, I should think myself the most happy of mortals."

OF THE COURTS OF JUDICATURE.

THE policy of the Manks constitution has established various courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction; the principal of which, exclusive of the house of keys, are the court of chancery, the court of general goal-delivery, the court of exchequer, the common law or sheading courts, the two deemsters' courts, the court of admiralty, or water-bailiff's court, the ecclesiastical courts, and the courts of the high bailiffs of the four principal towns; all of which have an original jurisdiction, and controlling grounds of determination: but the courts possessing appellate jurisdiction, are the Twenty-four Keys, the staff of government, consisting of the governor and council, and his Majesty in council.

For the more convenient administration of justice, the island is divided into two districts, with a deemster or judge for each; but the courts of chancery, general goal-delivery, exchequer, and the southern common law courts, are held in Castle Rushen; and all the judges and law-officers, except the ecclesiastical, are commissioned by his majesty, durante bene placito. These districts are subdivided into six sheadings or divisions, over each of which is annually, about Midsummer, appointed by the governor, a coroner, with extensive powers; the name and office of sheriff being here unknown.