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Untitled Article
authority to another , and the delay consequent therebh . Independently of the unspeakably greater security afforded by grand juries , in criminal cases , than by any constituted and paid autho * - rities whatever , the periodical association of the principal resident landowners , and the interchange of information and opinions
consequent thereon , would speedily create a species of countrygentlemen , above all things wanted in France , who would , in a short time , be qualified to act as justices of the peace , ( peacemakers and peace-preservers amongst their neighbours , ) and who would give a tone and consequence to the country departments , which they have not at present . In the inferior description of
law-courts alone , it appears that , including the suppleans , there are in France three thousand persons having the character of judges . Even a single cour royale , in a populous district , has sometimes from twenty-five to thirty judges , the collective number of such being not fewer than nine hundred . This is cumbrous , expensive , and dangerous machinery with a vengeance . *
It is cheering to know that the commission of revision appointed by the minister of justice , which has been some time sitting , has sent a report ( projet ) to all the courts of the kingdom for their opinion and advice . They propose to abolish many punishments which have been long reprobated by the enlightened jurists of France , and condemned in the public opinion ; such as civil
death , branding and mutilation of the hand , the corcou ^ or iron collar . The punishment of death is no longer to be inflicted on coiners , for counterfeiting state seals , forgery , or robbery , even under aggravated circumstances , nor for some other , at present , capital offences . Great and salutary alterations are contemplated in some of the articles of the second section of the third book of
the code penal , which treats ' of plots and attempts against the king and his family ; ' and Bonaparte ' s abominably arbitrary acts against vagrants , in the fifth section of the same book and code , are to be entirely repealed , as well as the supplementary law to the penal code , passed the 25 th of June , 1824 . Thus it appears that although the ministers are content to march in the rear of public opinion , they have either too much respect for it , or regard
for their places , to withhold all compliance with its dictates . It is at any rate consolatory to the feelings of humanity , which have been so long outraged by the existence and execution of arbitrary and barbarous laws , that decided progress is constantly making in the improvement of the systems of national jurisprudence , and particularly in assimilating the spirit and practice of the penal code more and more to the clear dictates of justice , and to the
* The celebrated case of Durnonteii , the priest , who had dared to marry , furnishes a memorable example of the manner in which the plainest cases may be turned over from one court to another , each shifting : the responsibility from itself ) whilst the aocuied is in danger' of becoming the victim to their delay . See Constitutionnel , M * y 1831 * 8 * e « Uo Nouveau Mtomgire a cooiulter < lu Jeuae Jtoiit * * Fferia , 1029 .
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1 * 0 Notice * of France .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 110, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/42/
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