INTRODUCTION. THE Criminal Law Consolidation Acts of 1861 were introduced as bills into the House of Lords, in 1860, and passed through a Select Committee. As there was not sufficient time to get them through the House of Commons during the same session, they were withdrawn, and re-introduced into the Lower House at the commencement of the last session, and after a second reading they were referred to a Select Committee. Having passed through the House of Commons with few amendments involving matters of principle, and consequently being sent to the House of Lords nearly in the state in which the bills of the previous session had left it, they were permitted to pass through that House almost pro formâ, and received the Royal Assent on the 6th of August, and they come into operation on the 1st of November next. These statutes may be regarded as the first fruits of the repeated efforts by Commissions and otherwise during the last thirty years, to effect a consolidation of the Criminal Law of this country. Nevertheless, to treat these Acts as a consolidation of the Criminal Law would be incorrect, and also unfair to the able hands entrusted with the duty a 2 of framing them. They do not consolidate the Criminal Law, nor do they attempt to do so. Offences against the state (except so far as regards the coinage), offences against public justice, including perjury, and many offences against the public peace and morals, comprising the laws relating to game, libel, fraudulent bankrupts, gaming, smuggling, together with a variety of other crimes and misdemeanors, are not touched. Above all, the law relating to Criminal Procedure is left unconsolidated. The scope of the New Acts is indicated by their titles. They comprise the Statute Law relating to larceny and other similar offences-to malicious injuries to property, and to offences against the person; to which are added indictable offences by forgery, and offences relating to the coin. And notwithstanding the title of the Acts might lead to the supposition that the whole of the law on these particular subjects has been consolidated and amended, an examination of them demonstrates that no such intention even existed in the mind of the draughtsman. For example, in the Larceny Act, although there are several clauses under the general head of "larceny or embezzlement, by clerks, servants, or persons in the public service," where of course, if it had been desired, the stealing of money letters by clerks and letter carriers might and would have been introduced, those offences are omitted. The new Criminal Acts are, in fact, new editions of "Peel's Acts," embodying the subsequent legislation relating to the subjects of those particular statutes. Thus, the ground work of the Larceny Act, the Malicious Injuries Act, and the Offences against the Person Act, are the Acts 7 & 8 Geo. 4, cc. 29 and 30, and the 9 Geo. 4, c. 31, respectively, and bear the same titles of Consolidation and Amendment. In like manner the Forgery Act is chiefly based on the 11 Geo. 4 & 1 Will. 4, c. 66; and the Act relating to the coin bears the same title, and follows in its main provisions the 2 Will. 4, c. 34. Of the two other new Acts, the one, relating to accessories and abettors, collects the scattered provisions on the subject to be found in "Peel's Acts" and subsequent statutes, and the other repeals the old provisions embodied in the new statutes. In thus indicating the scheme of the new statutes, it must not be supposed that the amount of labour involved in their preparation is undervalued. In no plan for the consolidation of the Criminal Law, however extensive, could the very valuable and admirably drawn provisions of "Peel's Acts" be properly treated otherwise than as the foundation of legislation upon the subjects to which they relate. So far as the definition of offences is concerned they were all that could be desired at the time, and even down to the present moment have sufficed to meet the general requirements of society. Still, the progress of commerce and science on the one hand, and the ingenuity of crime on the other, from time to time called for the interference of the legislature, by extending the scope of particular portions of these Acts. The principal changes, however, had been, not so much in the definition of crimes, as in the punishments awarded to them. The gradual contraction of capital punishments, and the substitution of transportation for life, and—as a necessary consequence for the preservation of a due distinction in the enormity of offences-a corresponding reduction of offences previously punishable with transportation for life, to transportation for a term of years; the abolition of transportation for simple larceny and offences punishable as simple larceny; the introduction of penal servitude; and lastly, the cessation of transportation altogether; had so complicated the statute law that it was a work of considerable difficulty in many cases to ascertain the existing limits of punishment for each offence. The crime of horse-stealing may be taken as a fair illustration, and by no means the most complicated. What is the punishment for horse-stealing at this monent, that is to say, before the new Acts come into operation? Answer. Penal servitude for not more than fifteen or not less than three years, or imprisonment not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour. Question. How is that shown? Answer. The 7 & 8 Geo. 4, c. 29, enacts, that if any person shall steal any horse, he shall suffer death as a felon. By the 2 & 3 Will. 4, c. 62, the punishment of death was abolished, and transportation for life was substituted for this and other offences. By the 7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. |