*eemed an immunity of the most beneficial description. Jurors, and especially citizens of London, are expected to have a good knowledge of the laws which regulate juries, and of the serious, and indeed all-important duties of jurymen: as well because each and all of them may be suddenly called upon to determine in such capacity the rights of their fellow-subjects and brother citizens; as because their individual property, personal liberty, and life, depends upon upholding in its legal strength, the rightful and constitutional trial by jury. Nor should any gentleman in the kingdom, whether acting as a county magistrate or not, be without a competent knowledge of the JURY LAWS, and of the responsible duties which devolve on jurors at large. Much is it to be desired, also, that justices of peace*

Justices of the Peace were made by Edw. III., A.D. 1327, for the purpose of suppressing commotions which were anticipated, in consequence of the dethronement of his predecessor. Lord Coke says, that in Easter Term, 6 Edward the First, "primer fuit institutio justiciariorum pro pace conservanda. Notwithstanding this, it appears that long before the time of our third Edward, the preservation of the peace was, by the common law of the kingdom, entrusted to peculiar officers, under the appellation of custodes, or conservatores pacis; of whom some had this power by virtue of their office, such as the Lord Chancellor, and other judges and great officers of state. At the same time there were other "bold and brave" conservators of the king's peace (without any office or emolument) who either claimed that power by prescription, or were bound to perform the duties of the office by the tenure of their lands. Others there were, and the most numerous, who were actually chosen by the freeholders in county-court assembled, with the High Sheriff for their chairman, exactly in the same way as are those very ancient common law officers, the CORONERS, elected now-a-days. (Vide Lambard's Eerenarcha, cap. 3.) The class of country gentlemen to whom allusion has been just made, and who were anciently entitled to act as "conservators of the king's peace," virtute officii, still remain so: while the former class mentioned above have been superseded by the newly concocted class, contra distinguished as Justices of the Peace. I find the first sta

would never forget that a "petty sessions" is as much a tribunal as the highest court of judicature; and that they, as judges, are bound by the same rules of law

tutary provision relating to this office was made in the first year of the reign of Edward the Third: when it was ordained that Justices of the Peace should be assigned by the king's commission. Their powers, at first extremely limited, were gradually extended, since that monarch's reign, as the necessities of the times and the usefulness of the office rendered the doing so expedient.

By Dalton, Justices of the Peace are defined to be judges of record, appointed by the CROWN to act as justices within a given circuit, for the conservation of the king's peace; and for the due and timely execution of divers things comprehended within their commission, and within divers statutes committed to their safe keeping, &c. So early as the reign of Henry VII. the duties of a Justice of the Peace had become so disagreeably onerous, on account of the numberless statute laws which justices in general had been charged to carry into effect, that few were both ready and willing to undertake the office. The illustrious Blackstone himself indeed laments, that in consequence of the infinite variety of business heaped upon Justices of the Peace, few of them took the trouble to make themselves acquainted with the highly important duties inseparable from so distinguished a public situation. With regard to the powers and duties of county magistrates at the present time, they have been most extensively enlarged. The "authority" of Justices of the Peace is either ministerial or judicial. They are said to act ministerially in cases of felony or misdemeanor, where they merely initiate the proceedings upon prosecutions, by receiving an "information" of the offence, and issuing a warrant of apprehension, and then taking the depositions and committing for trial, &c. Another important part of the perhaps too various duties they have to perform is the signing rates, passing accounts of parish officers, &c. And they are said to act judicially in all those cases of summary jurisdiction, where they are empowered to inflict punishment by fine or imprisonment. And their judicial authority is not unfrequently of a civil kind; they are often called upon to adjudicate between masters and their servants, landlord and tenant. Sometimes they are also called on to enforce the payment of parochial and other local rates.

It is true that a very honest man, with the best disposition to serve his neighbour, may so far be unmindful of his own interest, and the paramount interest of the country, as to suffer himself to be deceived by a knave. We are told, that "if individuals have no virtues, their vices may be of service to us."

that, for example, a person cannot be tried twice for the same offence, and that a penal statute cannot be extended; that a magistrate, to be useful, must make himself respected; and, that to be respected, he must maintain the dignity, the gravity, and, above all, the impartiality of an English judge: that if he neglects to do so, he subjects himself and his order to contempt and derision.

And, since law is admitted to be a science of no vulgar import; since it has been spoken of as "the pride of human intellect, and the collected reason of ages," by the eloquent Burke, perhaps I may be permitted to say, that I humbly conceive it to be one of the noblest occupations of the intellectual faculty.* Cicero himself tells us that it is a species of knowledge of the most extensive import; and in its nature and effects the most beneficial to mankind. Sir James Mackintosh deemed it "the most honourable occupation of the understanding, and the most immediately subservient to the general safety and comfort of the community, of all other sciences or callings in the whole compass of human affairs." The Roman orator, speaking of it as a human study, further says, "Law is a science which teaches to establish the one, and to prevent, punish, and redress the other; which extends the dominions of justice and reason, and gradually contracts, within the narrowest possible limits, the domain of brutal force and arbitrary will."

As law then is thus admitted to be the main spring of worldly affairs-the lever which sets in motion by

* Goldsmith tells us that the English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue-audi alteram partem.

far the greatest number of our transactions in life, and regulates (as it were) and controuls them all-is it not the bounden duty of every Englishman (the right minded citizens of London especially, and jurors in particular,) to make themselves familiar with those laws by which the general safety and welfare of their country, and the particular laws (the jury laws) which affect their own personal freedom of action— their own civil and political rights? Surely, yes. For myself, I am anxious to accomplish (even in a very small degree) the benevolent precept of my Lord Bacon, who wished that every man knew as much law as would enable him to guard against the penalties of the former, and protect himself from the disagreeable consequences of the latter.

MEMORANDA.

A husband is bound to pay for necessaries ordered by his wife, unless that wife ceased to discharge her duties by failing in fealty to her husband. The moment a wife ceases to regard her " marriage vow" the husband of that wife is discharged from his former liability.

Should a wife be turned out of doors by her husband, even if he were then living in open adultery, if the wife afterwards committed a similar crime, he would never again be liable to support her.

EVIDENCE.-Every man that will confess the truth must own, that some of the things of which he feels most sure, are those of which he would be utterly unable to offer such a proof as another might not find very good reason to reject.-Lord Dudley's Letters.

SECTION I.

OF THE JURIES NOW IN USE.

THE Grand Jury consists of gentlemen of property and station in society, selected out of the county in which they reside by the sheriff, and returned by him to sessions of the peace, and commission of " Oyer* and Terminer," and of general Gaol Delivery, to enquire, on the part of the Queen, (or King, as the case may be,) of all treasons, felonies, and other indictable offences committed within the county for which they are supposed to be competent and able to

serve.

The "grand jury" must necessarily consist of twelve, at least, and may contain any greater number under twenty-four; the object of which is, that a certain majority may always be secured. Twelve or more of these must find the bill of indictment; though it is not that all above that number should agree to

necessary the bill.

The qualifications of grand jurors are the same as those of petty jurors, and are pointed out by the recent

* French-ouir et terminer (to hear and determine) is a commission, directed to judges and gentlemen of the county to which it is issued, by virtue whereof they are empowered to hear and determine treasons, and all felonies and trespasses. The usual commission of Oyer and Terminer of justices of assize is general; but when any sudden insurrection is committed which requires instant reformation, then a special commission is immediately granted as in the case of the late Chartist attempts at insurrection, both in Lancashire and Yorkshire.

C