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If it be the fact that the public mind errs on the side of indulgence towards crimes of cruelty and violence, as compared with others, I do not think that the law is under any necessity of conforming itself to the error. I believe that if the law and the administration of justice were to maintain true standards, the conformity would be the converse way, and the public mind would adjust itself accordingly.

I have one question to propose on the subject of evidence and then I shall come to an end. In our administration of justice the evidence of previous convictions is produced only after the verdict. I think that, with some exceptions perhaps and under certain conditions, it should be produced before. If the object is to arrive at the truth whether a man has or has not committed an offence, the fact that he has been previously once or oftener convicted of offences of the like nature, is circumstantial evidence of a very cogent character. There is no reason to fear that this, any more than other circumstantial evidence, will lead the jury to convict a man of an offence he has not committed. And in other cases in which circumstantial evidence is allowed to prevail, it may be, though happening so very rarely the objection is justly disregarded, that an innocent man is convicted. But a man who has

already been convicted cannot be called an innocent man; and the whole tenor of our criminal statistics tends to show that he may be assumed with something like certainty to have committed divers offences in which he

has not been detected; or for which, from defect of evidence or other causes, he has never been punished. The case is not, therefore, the grievous one of an innocent man being punished for an offence which he has not committed; nor is there any real injustice in making the previously convicted man suffer for the suspicions to which his own acts have given rise, provided every endeavour shall be used to see that those suspicions carry no more weight than is fairly due to them as circumstantial evidence.

But better, it is said, "that nine guilty should escape than that one innocent should suffer." The one innocent that escapes has been already guilty of one, two, three, half a dozen offences of which he has been convicted (I have already stated the number of offenders in the year 1866-7 who had been more than ten times recommitted to amount to 3927), and probably of ten, twenty, or thirty offences in which he has not been detected. And how many are the innocents that will suffer? All the victims of the crimes of which he will forthwith re-commence the commission. And how many they who are to suffer by the escape of the nine guilty? Nine times that number. The maxim is questionable enough, even in the case of casual criminals; but it is preposterous when extended to previously convicted criminals. The late Lord Cranworth, the highest authority that can be quoted on such a subject, took exceptions to this maxim in his evidence before the Commission on Capital Punishment. And the authority of Rochefoucauld may also deserve some

attention: "Il s'en faut bien que l'innocence soit protégée autant que le crime.”

In coming to a conclusion of what I have to say upon Penal Law, I am aware that I, not being a lawyer or a jurist, may be myself charged with that with which I have charged the House of Commons,-not leaving to experts what experts only can understand. The charge would be just if I had assumed to possess the faintest colour of a competency to construct a Code. But I know that you at least, with the friendly indulgence with which you are wont to regard whatsoever I may write, will bear in mind that it is with the principles only of Penal Law that I have claimed to be conversant; and that those are concerned much more with a knowledge of human nature than with a knowledge of law. I must hope that there will be others also who will forgive anything which may seem like arrogance in what I have written; though there are not many who will be so forgiving as you.

Believe me,

Ever yours sincerely,

HENRY TAYLOR.

[Shortly after the date (1869) of the foregoing letter to Mr. Gladstone, the services of Mr. R. S. Wright, a jurist of eminent ability, were obtained for the construction of a Penal Code and a Code of Procedure for the Crown Colonies, in which are embodied such of my views as Mr. Wright saw reason to adopt and the Secretary of State for the Colonies found himself enabled to approve. These draft Codes are now, I believe (January, 1878), about to be presented to Parliament.]

REVIEW OF

JOHN STUART MILL'S WORK

ON

"THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN."

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