If our view of the construction of the Statute of Westminster II. be correct, we are surely not asking very much when we desire that the Legislature should now step in and rectify a mistaken policy originating in the erroneous interpretation of a former Act, and confirmed by its having become or been thought to be necessary to bribe in more recent times the advocates of the punishment of imprisonment for debt.

We conclude, by observing that, if the amended policy we advocate in the case of judgment debts be conceded, we see no reason whatever why, in these days of Guarantee Societies, the Crown's prerogative in the case of its debtors and accountants should be preserved, or why Crown debts should, so far as respects the question of lien, stand in a better position than that in which we wish judgment debts to be placed. By means of the Societies we have referred to, the Crown and its functionaries can, in almost every possible case of accountantship, obtain ample and undoubted security for claims arising from the defaults of Crown debtors; and why, having such suretyship, is the Crown to offer an impediment to all dealings with land in which its servants or clerks are interested? We repeat, that we see no reason in modern times for the preservation of this obstructive prerogative; and we trust that it will not be long before a purchaser or mortgagee will be enabled safely to complete his purchase or mortgage without making any search for either Judgment or Crown debts, or have any concern at all about them beyond its being incumbent on him to make a simple inquiry, of the sheriff of the county in which the land is situated, of whether he has or has not a writ of elegit or extend in his hands or on his registry of executions.

ART. IV. THE HISTORY OF THE LAW AMENDMENT SOCIETY FROM ITS INSTITUTION, IN 1844, TILL THE PRESENT TIME.

SECTION I. Of Law Reform in General.

SECTION II. Of the Rise of the Law Amendment Society.

SECTION III. Of the Proceedings of the Society with reference to Parliamentary Law.

SECTION IV. Of the Suggestions and Resolutions of the Committees and Meetings with reference to the Law of Property: together with some Account of the Results of their Labours. SECTION V. Proceedings for the Amendment of the Criminal Law. SECTION VI. Of the Proceedings of the Society with reference to the Courts of Equity and Common Law.

SECTION VII. Of the Fusion of Law and Equity.

SECTION VIII. Miscellaneous.

SECTION IX. Of the Proceedings of the Law Amendment Society with reference to the Legal Profession.

SECTION X. Of the Future Prospects of the Society.

SECT. I. Of Law Reform in General.

It seems scarcely just to accept as a principle, that the alteration or amendment of laws is necessarily a test of their original imperfection. Reforms are sometimes desired from a change in the habits of a people, so that when a rightful demand for improvement is not satisfied in time, the jurisprudence which suffers at the hand of the new legislator would be less blamed but for the tardiness of its revision. The simplicity of the early Roman laws was admirable by reason of the aptitude with which they met the requirements of the day. But the later dictatorships and the absolutism of the Imperial Purple repelled or extinguished these timely repairs of the old constitution. Efforts were indeed made by some of the more enlightened emperors to appease the controversies of sects. Yet confusion and uncertainty still prevailed in the Law, and the labours of Justinian and Trebonian were called forth, not by the ripening fruits of progress,

The history of France records occasional attempts on the part of the sovereign to administer justice under the sanction of civil rights. Law was not unfrequently respected as a substitute for arms. But succeeding potentates, counting too strongly on their own despotism, and on the vanity of the nation over which they bore rule, failed to modify their edicts, or accommodate them to the advancing age. Hence the Code Napoléon was decreed by its imperious author as a measure of necessity. It was preceded, not by the peaceful contributions of science, but by a baptism of blood.

Looking for a moment to our own country, it is not usual with writers to deny the excellence of the laws of Alfred. Even the statutes of the Conqueror were not devoid of merit when applied to the day in which he lived. But there was nothing in prospect. The movement, on the contrary, was retrograde. The barons of King John and of Henry III. set their seal to the truth of this. Edward I., the English Justinian, evinced, by his promotion of Reform, the sincerity of his convictions. The Wars of the Roses present the same sequel, the necessity for change, and the ordinances of Richard's brief and bloody reign embrace concessions which were not uncommon after great national disturbances. The attack upon monarchy in 1649 may be charged upon those heedless ministers who had not eyes to see that the lengthened reign of Elizabeth and the twenty years' dominion of her successor had borne no fruit to satisfy the Wentworths, the Pyms, the Hampdens, the Seldens of the coming day. The Habeas Corpus Act was established amidst turbulence which foreshadowed the extinction of the Stuart dynasty. England, throughout her history, presents a series of progressive struggles for Reform. And it is not yet too late for the legislators of the nineteenth century to arrest the dissatisfaction which must arise if an enlightened people should become, in knowledge and attainments, too far in advance of their rulers.

The Salic Law saved France from a war of succession in the days of Philip V. and Philip VI.; but it was a mistake for the Carlists to repudiate the sovereignty of Isabella upon the plea of extending that law to Spain.

The ignorance or neglect of colonial wants and changes on the part of England won independence for the United States.

Taxation, meritorious and necessary in itself, was misapplied through the dearth of political knowledge.

The principle, that laws are suited to particular ages, is now made, it is hoped, more obvious. Even the Ecclesiastical Law, with all its blemishes and oppressions, ripe as it is for amendment, if not for extinguishment (the last instance, it may be, of a system wholly unreformed), might have been useful during the darkest ages. The error of the statesman and the jurist has consisted, not in discovering and applying a just remedy for wrongs, when urgent, not in failing to devise noble conceptions, and ratifying the efforts of their genius, but in neglecting the important fact, that the current of the human mind is a stream perpetually in advance, and that the highest energies ought to be unweariedly in action to watch the channel of improvement.

It is not, however, to be supposed that great legal philosophers and reformers have never existed. Bright lights have shown their beacons in all ages and countries. Men set on high above the ignorance of their fellows have been recognised and revered by posterity. But no source of good is of more doubtful fortune than the labours of a solitary genius. He lives apart from the busy world, ill-appreciated by the thoughtless multitude, rewarded, slighted, or persecuted, as his lot may be to live under the rule of an enlightened monarch and wise legislators, or beneath a dark despotism. It is owing to this isolation of the learned, that the progress of great nations has been tardy and turbulent.

Grotius, Puffendorf, and Vattel have commanded a reputation more than literary. Yet, although recourse is had, upon occasion, to their writings, such has been the lapse of time and so great the complication of events since they flourished, that, although mentioned with deference and admiration, they are no longer followed with implicit obedience. Filangieri, the ornament of Naples, reaped profit and honour from his bold aspirations to Reform; yet modern Italy has little in common with a work which was celebrated throughout Europe. The principles of severe punishments were canvassed by Beccaria; in the face of a temporary persecution he established his success as a jurist. But whilst a professor

little sympathy for the cause which he espoused. If we except Tuscany (the Tuscany of the last century), the continental Governments brought into painful contrast the distinction between homage to talent and practical reform. Sir Henry Meredyth, a man who ventured to think for himself, related, in 1777, to the House of Commons a simple tale (more valuable than long speech or treatise) of the execution of a woman with a baby at the breast under the Shop-lifting Act, for a petty theft when her children were starving, and husband had been taken by a press-gang. But Sir Henry Meredyth had no Society to foster and establish his opinions. There was as yet no organised body, and the career of execution went on.

Pothier, an authority not without weight in France, and known to jurists as a respectable writer on the Roman Law, had full justice done to his merits only when a party of scientific men were directed to form the Code Napoléon.

Few men have settled down so early, so ably, and so usefully to the promotion of Law Reform as Lord Brougham. He survived the persecutions incident to great adventurers, and soon learnt that his sifting commissions into the state of our jurisprudence, if they raised a transient storm, yet gained for him a greater measure of renown. Still, notwithstanding his eloquence, his success, and his watchfulness, he had the sagacity to perceive, that without an alliance his gigantic toils might possibly perish with his life. He was not slow to avail himself of the fellowship of institutes of which he had been the patron if not the founder. The man who lent his support to Mechanics' Institutions, was ready to receive with open arms a Society for the Amendment of the Law.

By community of interests commerce has spread its blessings, by reciprocity we look for a society of nations as we now see a guild of merchants; by mutual instruction and vigour of action, an united party can work effectual change in the jurisprudence of a country.

The suggestions, then, already offered are, that laws may be good in their origin, and yet be proper subjects for constant revision; that the amendment, although not sudden, should be continuous; and that undying as the reputation of a solitary jurist may be, no labours for reform can compete with those of an organised assembly.