contrary to the embargo law, which received the President's signature Jan, 9th, and on that day became a law, it being admitted that this was not known at Newburyport on the day when the Ann sailed. The case of United States v. Arnold, (1 Gall. 357) presented the same question.

Another position of Mr Stephen arrested our attention. He has stated, on the authority of a case at Nisi Prius, (3 C. & P. 397,) which fully supports him, that an infant under fourteen cannot be convicted of an assault, with intent to commit rape. It will be remembered by the reader that the Supreme Court of Massachusetts have solemnly decided the contrary. (Commonwealth v. Greene, 2 Pick.)

Old Bailey Experience. Criminal Jurisprudence and the Actual Working of our Penal Code of Laws, also an Essay on Prison Discipline; to which is added a History of the Crimes committed by Offenders in the Present Day; By the Author of 'The Schoolmaster's Experience in Newgate.' London. 8vo. 1833. pp. 447.

This is the title of a neat octavo, published during the last year in London, and containing a series of essays on crime and criminal jurisprudence, These essays originally appeared in Frazer's Magazine, over the signature of The Schoolmaster in Newgate." They were read with deep interest, and the general favor with which they were received induced a republication in their present elegant form. The stamp of deep thought is impressed on every page, and the reader is at once instructed and charmed, by truth expressed in a fascinating style. The subject of the work is one which deeply concerns every member of civil society, and has at all times arrested the attention of legislators and philanthropists. The prevention of crime is one of the chief objects of legislation and of all the institutions of government.

The wonderful reproductiveness of crime in all large communities, and the confessed, the lamentable inefficiency of the various systems of criminal law to repress its contagious spread,

The same writer is now publishing in Frazer's Magazine a series of Essays on the Present Condition of the People,' in which, among other topics, he has treated, already, of Imprisonment for Debt.

furnish a theme for serious reflection and benevolent design. The problem of precisely allotting to various kinds and degrees of crime, their proportionate kinds and degrees of punishment, has never yet been accurately solved. Even partial success requires long continued observation of criminals, in all the stages of guilt, and such observation is not enjoyed or sought by those best qualified to turn it to profitable account. That mighty maze, the human mind, remains to be threaded; its plan to be found

out.

The allurements of vice, and the terrors of punishment, affect diversely different individuals. But legislatures must enact uniform laws, and while by so doing they shun great evils, those which they incur are fearfully numerous. It is the object of the work before us to point out some of them as they exist in England, and to throw out suggestions as to the mode of redress. The design is worthy.

The author introduces his subject by stating the deplorable ignorance of the lower classes in London and the populous towns, as the cause which preserves and enlarges the stock of criminals. We cannot doubt the correctness of this statement. Without the means of moral and religious instruction, and with the example of vicious parents and companions before them, the young grow up to a disregard of laws human and divine. Immured in vice, they imbibe infection at every pore.

The indiscriminate herding together of criminals of every stamp is commented on, and to this is attributed in a great degree the inefficiency of punishment to reform criminals of short standing. Many are led on to crime by strong temptation mastering their virtue, before resistance can begin. Were such, (and their first offences are almost always slight) separately confined and separately punished, return to rectitude might be easy. But under the prevailing system, they are thrown in with confirmed and artful rogues, who seize on the favorable moment of despair, to smother the flickering blaze of virtue, and soon reduce the novice in crime to their own deplorable state. The undistinguishing visitation of severity is next censured, as inconsistent with true philosophy. For the punishment should not be allotted to the crime, but to the offender. He, who after repeated detection, continues.to sin, is deserving of more rigor than he who for the first time commits the same offence. Yet the one receives a degree of punishment little lower than that allotted to the other.. The end of all punishment is the prevention of crime, the punishment of the offender being a secondary consideration. The law

takes no pleasure in causing human suffering. But it is forced to act on the minds of the many, by inflicting physical evil on the few. The great end, at which it aims, would be more surely gained, if the criminal could be reformed. To effect this, punishment should be graduated to his guilt, and should not be needlessly severe.

Our author does not hesitate to apply the actual cautery to the mode in which criminal trials are conducted at the Old Bailey. By a numerical calculation it appears that eight minutes is the average amount of time allowed for each trial, and this where life and liberty are involved. This inexcusable haste is attributable not to the judges but to the legislature, which has not provided an additional tribunal for the trial of certain offences. Crimes at present increase, and trials must be urged on, or many cases must lie over.

Confinement in the hulks and transportation are also examined, and their effect traced out. The whole power of the writer is directed at the inconsistency of the criminal law in its several parts, and at the mode in which it is administered. It has not been the fortune of preceding writers to treat the subject in a manner generally pleasing. Able treatises have been written, it is true, but the subject has been set forth in a manner too elaborate and didactic to arrest the attention of those who, as voters and legislators, are alone competent to the task of remodeling the whole system. The work before us adds to its just reasoning very considerable literary merit. The style is nervous, and the choice of language very happy; and its general contour agreeable. It is a book which may claim a high degree of consideration. It is difficult, in a general sketch like the present, to convey an exact idea of it; but we are confident that we have done it no more than critical equity in the praise which we have bestowed.

A Practical Treatise on Bills of Exchange, Promissory Notes and Bankers' Checks; containing Forms of Affidavits of Debt in actions thereon; and of Declarations and Pleas in such Actions, adapted to the new Rules on Pleading; with all the statutes and Decided Cases in full, relating to Bills and Notes, the Bank of England and Bankers. By JOSEPH CHITTY, Jr. Esq. of the Middle Temple. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1834.

Why Mr.Chitty, Junior, should have published a treatise on Bills when his father had just put out a new and improved edition of his standard work on that subject, we are at a loss to conceive. He must have had great faith in his own abilities, and in the merits of his plan, and in the wants of the public. The work of his father, as improved by the last edition, is a full and systematic treatise, displaying learning, industry, and what is particularly grateful, some acquaintance with the foreign law of the subject, containing also many references to American cases; though our respect for his researches does not rise when we know that these were taken from the notes to the American edition of Bayley on Bills. The immense number of English cases, which have accumulated on this subject, are systematically arranged and accompanied by illustrations, properly introduced, from the French law, and the American cases above mentioned. The sheets of this work could hardly have been dry from the press, before the son entered upon the publication of a work on the same subject, whose title we have copied at the head of this notice.

This is a work in two very large volumes, consisting of upwards of sixteen hundred pages, and its price in London, is £2, 12s. 6d. in boards. Its plan will be best apprehended when we describe it, as being like that of the works of Mr. Basil Montague, and of the first edition of Mr. Angell's Treatise on Water Courses. The first hundred pages of these volumes are occupied by a summary statement of the doctrines of bills of exchange, promissory notes, bankers' checks, &c.— describing first, the form and particular parts of these various instruments, and showing their nature and peculiarities, next, the capacity to become a party, and the rights and liabilities of the parties in general, next, the presentment and its incidents notice of dishonor and of protest, embracing also forms of affidavits to hold to bail, and of declarations on bills of exchange, promissory notes and checks, as recently settled by the judges of England,

and concluding with a consideration of the usual defences to actions on these instruments. The rest of the work- immensum spatium consists of a collection of all the statutes—so Mr. Chitty informs us- and decisions in the books respecting these commercial instruments. He has arranged these, which are perfect transcripts from the books, chronologically, and considering the imperfections of the ancient reports, has thought proper, in most instances, to insert all the contemporary reports of the same cases, and as many of the marginal notes to the older books are incorrect or not sufficiently explanatory, he has framed them anew.

The first part of the work, containing the view of the rules and principles which define and govern bills, &c., so far as we can speak from the examination we have been able to give it, is without any decided merit. It is by no means comparable to the excellent manual of Baron Bayley-the only advantage, which it possesses over this work, being, that it contains the 'law on its subject brought down to the latest times, perhaps we should say terms. The value of the work is to be determined by the importance which may be attached to the compilation of the statutes and cases. None can prize higher than we do the value of reference to the reports, recurring, as it were, to the living words in which a rule was enunciated and explained by the court, and examining the grounds upon which the decision was rested; but we doubt whether professional men, unless their business be entirely in this branch of law, would find it for their interest to purchase these volumes rather than the reports themselves. We say nothing of the superior satisfaction in consulting the original report; but if a lawyer purchases a collection of all the cases relating to bills of exchange, he will want a collection of all relating to devises, remainders, shipping, &c. &c., so that, in fact, he must virtually purchase a library of reports, not published as their original authors gave them to the world, but newly grouped and arranged by some modern book-maker, to the utter confusion of all ready reference and consultation. The expense of a library of this kind would not fall short of that of one of the common kind.

Mr. Chitty says, that merchants and professional men in Scotland and Ireland, in the Colonies, in America-by which he means the United States and on the continent, where there is frequent occasion to consult the English law on this subject, without the opportunity of referring to an entire library of English reports, will find in these volumes full and satisfactory in