Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine | Page 2

of a state provision, have the effect of stimulating private exertion and generosity. In spite, however, of the moral and intellectual advancement of the present age, the passions and evil designs of the vicious and discontented are still able to influence vast masses of the people. The experience of the last few years unfortunately teaches us, that increased knowledge has not yet banished disaffection, and that though, during the last quarter of a century, the general standard of the nation's morality may have been elevated above its former resting-place, that education, in its present state of advancement, has not as yet effectually disarmed discontent or disaffection, by showing the greater evil which ever attends the endeavour to effect the lesser good, by violent, factious, or seditious means.
Within the last thirteen years, the government has been compelled, on several occasions, to curb the violence and to repress the outbreaks of men who had yet to learn the folly of such attempts; and the powers of the executive have been frequently evoked by those who, of late years, have wielded the destinies of this country. Several state prosecutions have taken place during this period. They never occur without exciting a lively interest; the public eye is critically intent upon the minutest detail of these proceedings; and the public attention is concentrated upon those to whom is confided the vindication of the public rights and the redressing of the public wrongs. It has been often asked by some of these critical observers, How is it that, when great crimes or misdemeanours are to be punished, when the bold and daring offender is to be brought to justice, when the body politic is the offended party, when the minister honours a supposed offender with his notice in the shape of criminal proceedings, and the government condescends to prosecute--how is it, it has been asked on such occasions, when the first talent, science, and practical skill, are all arranged against the unfortunate object of a nation's vengeance, that the course of justice should be ever broken or impeded? Is the machinery then set in motion in truth defective--is there some inherent vice in the construction of the state engine? Is the law weak when it should be strong? Is its boasted majesty, after all, nothing but the creation of a fond imagination, or a delusion of the past? Are the wheels of the state-machine no longer bright, polished, and fit for use as they once were? or are they choked and clogged with the rust and dust of accumulated ages? Or, if not in the machine, does the fault, ask others of these bold critics, rest with the workmen who guide and superintend its action? Are the principles of its construction now no longer known or understood? Are they, like those of the engines of the Syracusan philosopher, lost in the lapse of time? Is the crown less efficiently served than private individuals? and can it be possible, it has even been demanded, that those who are actively employed on these occasions have been so long removed on the practice of what is often deemed the simpler portion of the law, and so long employed in the higher and more abstruse branches of the science, that they have forgotten the practice of their youth, and have lost the knowledge acquired in the commencement of their professional career? Lesser criminals, it is said, are every day convicted with ease and expedition--how is it, therefore, that the cobweb of the law holds fast the small ephemer? which chance to stray across its filmy mesh, but that the gaudy insect of larger form and greater strength so often breaks through, his flight perhaps arrested for a moment, as he feels the insidious toil fold close about him? It is, however, only for a moment; one mighty effort breaks his bonds--he is free--and flies off in triumph and derision, trumpeting forth his victory, and proclaiming his escape from the snare, in which it was hoped to encompass him. The astute and practised gentlemen thus suspected, strong in the consciousness of deep legal knowledge, and ready practical skill and science, may justly despise the petty attacks of those who affect to doubt their professional ability and attainments. Some in high places have not hesitated to hint, on one occasion, at collusion, and to assert, that a certain prosecution failed, because there was no real desire to punish.
Such is the substance of the various questions and speculations to which the legal events of the last thirteen years have given rise. We have now collected and enumerated them in a condensed form, for the purpose of tracing their rise and progress, and in order that we may demonstrate that, though there may possibly exist some reasons for these opinions, founded often on