political problems. The indication is, I
think, worth giving; but I shall say nothing as to my own estimate of
the importance of the theories thus disregarded.

VI. THE CRIMINAL CODE

I return to the sphere upon which Fitzjames spent his main energies, and
in which, as I think, he did his most lasting work. Three months of the
spring of 1874 had been spent in consolidating the laws relating to the
government of India. About the same time, I may observe parenthetically,
he had a scheme for publishing his speeches in the Legislative Council;
and, at one period, hoped that Maine's might be included in the volume.
The publishers, however, declined to try this experiment upon the
strength of the English appetite for Indian matters; and the book was
dropped. He returned for a time to the Contract Law; but must soon have
given up the plan. He writes on September 23, 1874, that Macmillan has
applied to him for a new edition of his 'Criminal Law'; and that he has
been reading for some time with a view to it. He has been labouring
through 3,000 royal 8vo. pages of 'Russell on Crimes.' They are full of
irrelevant illustrations; and the arrangement is 'enough to make one go
crazy.' The 'plea of _autrefois acquit_ comes at the end of a chapter
upon burglary'--a fact to make even the ignorant shudder! He would like
to put into his book a penal code, a code of criminal procedure, and an
evidence code. 'I could do it too if it were not too much trouble, and
if a large part of the law were not too foolish to be codified.' He is,
however, so convinced of the impracticability of parliamentary help or
of a commission that he is much inclined to try. A fortnight later
(October 8) he has resolved to convert his second edition into a draft
penal code and code of criminal procedure.

The work grew upon his hands.[168] He found crudities in the earlier
work and a difficulty in stating the actual law from the absence of any
adequate or tolerably arranged text-book. Hence he resolved to make such
a book for himself, and to this task he devoted nearly all of what he
humorously called his leisure during the later part of 1874 and the
whole of 1875 and 1876. Moreover, he thought for a time that it would be
desirable to add full historical notes in order to explain various facts
of the law. These, however, were ultimately set aside and formed
materials for his later history. Thus the book ultimately took the form
simply of a 'Digest of the Crimi