advocacy of the establishment of cheap local courts. But there are really two distinct questions which come before us this morning. The one is as to the establishment of local courts-that is, such as have jurisdiction in all mattersand the other refers to the administration of local justice in mercantile cases. These are in a certain sense two distinct subjects; and Mr. Hall and Mr. Leppoc have advocated the establishment of separate mercantile tribunals. I certainly must admit-and I think everyone must admit-that there are very strong arguments used on that side of the case, and very strong facts in its favour; and no one certainly who has had an opportunity of seeing the great satisfaction which tribunals of commerce give in a number of continental countries can doubt that the question as to their establishment in this country is one which deserves very great consideration. At the same time I must confess that I doubt whether it would not be better to adapt your existing tribunals to the wants of the mercantile community rather than establish a new and separate court. I confess that I object to the multiplication of courts. It seems to me that the failure of justice in criminal cases in our ordinary tribunals really arises from the mode of procedure. There was a suggestion made by the Mercantile Law Committee of this Association which we embodied in our Bankruptcy Bill. We proposed that in certain cases which came before the commissioners in bankruptcy, such as the granting of certificates, two mercantile assessors should be associated with the judge, much on the same principle as the Trinity Masters are associated with Dr. Lushington in the administration of justice in the admiralty court. I am very much inclined to think that in the adoption of some such principle as that the real solution of the question will be found. I very much regret, for that reason and others, that our Bankruptcy Bill never obtained a fair hearing from the Legislature. I formerly explained how it was that that bill fell through; but I am sorry to see a statement in one of the leading papers that this Association has talked a great deal about bankruptcy, but never done anything, the fact being that we prepared a bill which was introduced into the House of Commons and read a second time. That bill contained a clause which would have introduced the principle of mercantile assessors; and I cannot help thinking that if in mercantile cases the option was given to parties to have their cases tried before a judge and two mercantile assessors, nearly all the grievance felt by the mercantile community would be found to vanish. We all admit, however, that in mercantile as well as in other cases it is necessary to have a much greater amount of local jurisdiction. I think if any fact were wanting to prove this, it would be found in this town of Sheffield. Here you have a population, and an amount of wealth and mercantile enterprise, which far surpasses many of the capital cities of Europe. You have here population enough to make a German principality or a Swiss canton; and yet from year's end to year's end, this town never sees a judge who can try cases above £50. That is not confined to this town, but is true of many other great towns in the kingdom; and after such a fact as that it is impossible to doubt that our system of local jurisdiction does require to be very much extended. The arguments very often used against such an extension are those kinds of constitutional arguments which have been used to oppose so many improvements. It is said that it is opposed to the spirit of our English constitution, and tỏ the spirit of our English courts; that it is necessary everything should go up to Westminster. Now I wish to call attention to the historical fallacy that runs through that argument. It is perfectly true that our Plantagenet sovereigns resolved on having a centralised system of justice, and on placing the judges in one set of courts in Westminster Hall, and making them administer justice twice a year throughout the kingdom; but it is quite a mistake to suppose that those were the only courts which the legislature gave to the country. On the contrary, there were dispersed in the middle ages throughout all the country, local courts, many of which had absolutely plenary jurisdiction. For instance, if you take the case of Bristol, which was the Liverpool of the middle ages, it had its court which could try civil cases to any amount, and the mercantile cases, there is no doubt, were then tried in these local courts. The reasons why these courts fell into disuse were threefold. In the first place, the salaries of the judges were fixed in amount, and the consequence was, that the salaries which were

quite sufficient in the days of the Plantagenets, came in our own times, and long before our own times, to be so inadequate, that it was impossible to get udges to take the office of the Recorder, and our Recorderships came to be held by barristers who rarely thought of residing in the towns where they sat as recorders. In the next place the procedure of these courts became antiquated; and in the third place, the area over which the writs and judgments of these courts could be executed was confined to the old limits of burghs; so that in Bristol the area over which the old court has absolute jurisdiction only extends to a small part of the real town of Bristol. I cannot see why these defects cannot be remedied, as they have been remedied in the Lord Mayor's Court in London, which had fallen into very much the same state as these courts. Its procedure was bad, its jurisdiction was limited, and a local act was obtained giving admirable procedure, both in common law and equity, to the court, and enabling its judgments to be enforced out of the city of London. The consequence of that is, that the Lord Mayor's Court of the present day is doing a very large amount of business. That really is a crucial test to apply to the whole question; for here you have a court in the City of London, close to Westminster Hall --close to the superior courts, to which everyone might have access if they chose, and yet we find that the mercantile men of London to a large extent go into their own Lord Mayor's Court, and get their own business done there. So much is this the case that the judges of that court, the one the Recorder of London, and the other the President of the Education Department of this Association, Mr. Chambers, the Common Serjeant, find that their offices have become very onerous by the large increase in the business of the court. If that be so in the City of London, with the superior courts close at hand, and constantly sitting, it would be much more the case throughout the country if you had courts established in the principal towns, with proper procedure, and with full power to enforce their judgments. As long ago as our meeting at Liverpool in 1858, I pointed out how the thing could be done in a paper which I read. In the large towns you have several offices. You have in Birmingham, for example, the Recorder, the Commissioner in Bankruptcy, and the County Court Judge. Well, if all these three offices were amalgamated, and you had only one court exercising jurisdiction in all these matters, you might perhaps have two judges, and certainly you could have one judge paid so highly that you would command first-rate talent from the bar, and you might have a court to which the legislature might at once, and safely, entrust plenary jurisdiction. But if you look at Liverpool, Manchester, and other places you will find the same thing: and I have no doubt that if in those towns there were not a number of local judges existing, and not salaries sufficient to pay a good judge, you would find that the town would be only too glad to pay out of its rates a moderate salary, in addition to that given by the Legislature, to have the benefit of a judge resident in the locality who would exercise plenary jurisdiction among them. And if you constituted that court so that not only would it have common law and equity jurisdiction, but also some civil mercantile jurisdiction, such as enabling the judge to sit in a mercantile case, after a mercantile fashion, with two mercantile assessors, to be guided by the customs of the mercantile men, you would find that all need for tribunals of commerce would at once vanish.

ADULT REFORMATORIES.

In addition to the papers by Mr. Clay, printed at p. 188. Mr. Baker read a paper on Reformatories for adults. He pointed out that cellular imprisonment, besides being costly, loses its deterrent power if prolonged, and unfits the prisoner both morally and physically for the life of hard labour to which he will have to return. In the latter part of the sentence a healthier, more natural, and more laborious discipline was needed. He was anxious to see such

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a discipline tried by way of experiment; and he thought that some of the Reformatory schools, which were now scarcely needed for their original purpose, as the number of juvenile offenders had so greatly decreased, might be appropriated for a time to give the plan a trial. He was willing to offer his own Reformatory, at Hardwicke, for a first experiment. He proposed that it should be constituted an adult Reformatory by its transference to the country as its property; and that then the Home Secretary should be requested (in virtue of authority he already possessed) to remove to it a batch of prisoners from Gloucester gaol. The expenses of the establishment might be defrayed by an allowance from the county rate equal to the cost of the men's maintenance in prison. If a prisoner behaved ill, he should be re-consigned to goal; and if the whole scheme proved a failure, it could be abandoned without any serious loss having been incurred. In case of success, however, it would then be expedient to grant to ordinary prisoners, the boon already given to convicts and juvenile offenders, namely, the ticket of leave. The concession of this would, or at any rate ought, to involve a considerable lengthening of sentences, a large part, of course, being remissible under license.

INADEQUATE SENTENCES.

What means is it desirable to adopt to prevent the passing of sentences inadequate to the proper repression of crime?

In addition to the paper on this subject by Mr. Baker, printed at p. 203.

Mr. T. LI. Murray Browne, contributed a paper in support of Mr. Baker's views. As an illustration of the effect likely to be produced by a system of cumulative sentences, he instanced the small number of re-convictions among the liberates assisted by "The Discharged Prisoners Relief Committee," in London, of which he was the secretary. By reference to the last annual report of the Committee, it appeared that of 365 men placed out in the previous year, as far as could be ascertained up to the publication of the report, only 24 had been re-convicted. He attributed this very small percentage to the practice they had adopted of supplying the judge with the particulars of previous offences in cases where any of their clients were re-convicted, in order to procure the passing of a severer sentence. The knowledge that if they relapsed they would almost certainly incur very aggravated punishment had, he was sure, a very deterrent influence upon the men aided by the society.

DISCUSSION.

MR. SAUNDERS, Recorder of Bath. Much that Mr. Baker advocates is already in operation. The present rule, which is widely observed, is to give a much severer sentence on a second conviction. To give the judge no option as to the amount of punishment for second and subsequent felonies would be a mistake. I think the recent act which compels a sentence of seven years penal servitude for

a second felony is too stringent. Rather than inflict it, judges adopt the alternative of eighteen months or two years imprisonment. From motives of humanity, moreover, information as to previous convictions is often withheld from the judge. Severe fixed sentences, therefore, even if required by law, would not systematically be passed; and thus the certainty of punishment, which is the chief deterrent, would be lessened. Besides, in cases of theft, the chances of impunity are so great that the severity of the punishment hardly enters into the thief's calculations. I do not think I am wrong in saying that one-third of the cases of theft never find their way to the knowledge of the police. As regards larceny I have calculated that the persons convicted are at the rate of seven per cent. of the crimes committed. Persons often commit twenty offences before they are discovered. Again, on Mr. Baker's plan, the magistrate might have to give a very heavy sentence for a trivial offence-seven years penal servitude perhaps, for stealing a handkerchief. This would arouse public sympathy, and make the thief a martyr. With a fixed scale of sentences, magistrates could not consider public opinion, as to a certain extent they must do. Suppose, a farm servant received first a moderate term of imprisonment for sheep stealing, and then penal servitude for drinking a can of his master's beer, what would the public say? [Mr. Baker. But I left the magistrate a discretion]. Then if the magistrates are to have a discretion, you leave matters just as they are.

Mr. HASTINGS: I do not think that sentences should conform to public sentiment. They should simply have regard to what is most effectual for the repression of crime. Our endeavour should be to educate the public to act for their own true interests, and not on sentimental impulse. I do not think, however, that the public is ripe for Mr. Baker's scheme yet. The popular idea at present is, to make the punishment match the offence; whereas, the true principle requires that measure of punishment to be adopted which will most effectually prevent the offence. The true objection to severe punishments lies in the difficulty which they involve of procuring convictions. Mr. Saunders has said nothing about habitual offenders, for whose benefit Mr. Baker's scheme is specially intended. When it is proved that a man is preying on society, the question is, not the fair punishment for the particular offence with which he was charged at the moment, but how is his career to be stopped. The trivial penalties inflicted on regular criminals are absurdly unjust as anything which can be alleged on the other side. In one case that I recently observed the criminal had been fifty-seven times previously convicted for larceny. Abuses of the same kind are common throughout the country under the Summary Convictions Act. Nothing can be more unsatisfactory. It would be well to adopt any experiment, such as Mr. Baker's, and give it a fair trial, rather than let such a system go on. Mr. Cox, Recorder of Falmouth: The want of some settled principle in the infliction of sentences is certainly a great evil. Where you have two judges sitting in adjacent courts, it will often depend on which side of the passage that separates them a man is tried, whether he gets six or twelve months. For want of a guiding principle the length of the sentence chiefly depends on the individual sentiments of the judges. I think this Association would confer a great benefit on the community by issuing a suggestive scale of punishment, for the guidance of magistrates, with a succinct statement of the reasons why each step in the scale is adopted. The scale, however, should be merely suggestive. To fetter the judge's discretion by a rigid rule would be very mischievous. I feel this strongly as regards the recent enactment that the first sentence to penal servitude shall be not less than five, the second, not less than seven, years. Two years' confinement, unless under penal servitude regulations, is far too long: and thus being driven to choose between one year in gaol, and seven in a convict prison, we err on the side of humanity and choose the former. Another reason for not hampering the judge's discretion is that offences of technically the same criminality are in moral guilt widely different. Arson, for example, may be a crime little less heinous than murder in one case, mere wanton thoughtlessness in another. You must therefore give the judge full liberty to act according to the circumstances and the offender's character. The offence, as defined by law, may put the accidental and the professional criminal in the same category. But both in the penalty affixed, and the discipline afterwards applied, a wide difference

should be made. I would separate the professional thief from his associates fo a long period; I would remit the residue of the accidental offender's sentence, when his reformation was secured; and I would detain the incorrigible criminal for life.

Mr. SHEPHERD.-I think the steps in Mr. Baker's scale are too long. I would fix three months for the second, and twelve months for the third offence, as the minimum, leaving the magistrate discretion to increase the minimum. İ would also add to Mr. Baker's plan the suggestion, that on the expiry of his imprisonment the offender should find security for his good conduct during a certain period. You require this from the man guilty of assault, why not from the man guilty of a theft? In my own experience I know of only one re-committal when the offender had been required to find sureties. I would say, then, sentence felons to imprisonment, and tack on to the sentence the necessity for finding sureties for two or three years after, on pain of farther detention if they cannot. The accidental offender will get sureties, the professional will not, and thus you compass your purpose of letting the one go, while you restrain the other from fresh crime. Rev. W. L. CLAY: You must not, as Mr. Hastings says, allow public sentiment to dictate sentences: yet you cannot inflict sentences which violate public sentiment. We must be content to work patiently at the task of getting public feeling into harmony with a sound system. I wish Mr. Baker was less severe in his proposed scale;-the jump from one year to seven years' confinement is startling. I fear that the public in its repugnance to his harsh details, will overlook the great value of his main principle. With regard to the objections brought against restricting the discretion of the judge by a fixed scale, I believe the best remedy would be a court of cassation.

Miss CARPENTER entirely agreed with the principles Mr. Baker advocated; but she pointed out that in order to carry them out, a thorough registration of habitual criminals was necessary. At present a delinquent often escaped with a light sentence simply because his previous character was not known. She was also desirous to see the principle of cumulative sentences applied to small misdemeanours, as well as to felonies. It was useless, for example, to continue to give a few days' imprisonment to drunkards who had been brought up at the same court fifty or sixty times.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Miss SHEDDON read a paper "On the Necessity for the Inviolate Preservation of Trial by Jury on all great Questions of Fact," pointing out the great value of the institution, and urging the necessity for watchfulness on the part of all who desired its maintenance in order that the right of resorting to it might not be taken away in questions of legitimacy, nationality, and inheritance.

Mr. R. A. MACFIE, of Liverpool, read a paper on "Long Restrictions in the Use of Inventions, and Obligation to make heavy Payments to Patentees, incompatible with Free and Fair Trade." Mr. Macfie commenced by observing that he did not dispute the inventor's right of use of the property in his invention, but he did dispute his exclusive right. To give one inventor such a right was to subvert the principle by denying the right of other inventors