l. During
the disturbances in the same year, in Lanarkshire and many other
counties of Scotland, (especially Ayrshire, Fife, and Mid-Lothian,) the
accumulation of prisoners was so great, that not only were none detained
for trial but those against whom the evidence was altogether conclusive;
but that great numbers were remitted for trial before the summary
tribunals, and escaped with a month or two of imprisonment, who had
committed capital crimes, and a few years before would infallibly have
been transported for fourteen years. We are getting on so fast, that
nothing is more common now than to see hardened criminals, both in
England and Scotland, disposed of by the police magistrates, and for
capital crimes receive a few months imprisonment. Their names and crimes
never appear in the returns at all. There is no fault attached to any
one for this seeming laxity. The thing is unavoidable. If the class of
cases were all sent to the higher tribunals which formerly were
considered privative to them, the judges, were they twice as numerous as
they are, would sit in the criminal courts from one year's end to
another, and the jails would still be choked up with untried criminals,
numbers of whom would linger for years in confinement.

The Liberal party, in the beginning of the present century, were
unanimous in imputing the vast increase of crime to the defects of our
criminal law. The nominal severity of that system, it was said, and said
justly, with its uncertain punishments and frequent opportunities of
escape, afforded in fact a bounty on the commission of crime. Injured
parties declined to give information for fear of being bound over to
prosecute; witnesses were reluctant to give evidence, judges caught at
legal quibbles, juries violated their oaths, in order to save the
accused from a punishment which all felt was disproportioned to the
offence; and thus the great object of criminal jurisprudence, certainty
of punishment, was entirely defeated. There was much truth in these
observations, but much fallacy in the hope that their removal would
effect any reduction in the number of offences. The object sought for
was carried. Humane principles were triumphant. The labours of Sir
Samuel Romilly and Sir James Mackintosh, aided by the cautious wisdom
and experienced ability of Sir R. Peel, produced a total revolution in
our criminal jurisprudence. The old stain has been removed: we need no
longer fear a comparison With the la