Where two persons are cohabiting together as man and wife, and a child is born, the chances are the father, if he goes to record the birth, will merely be asked the maiden name of his wife. If he is a good-natured man, he may answer in all truth that her name was Joan Stuart, or whatever the name may be. He is not asked whether he _is_ actually married in law, or when and where he _was_ married, nor what evidence he has to show that any marriage ever took place. Admittedly, the lack of insistence on the part of the authorities is benign in one way, but it leaves loop-holes for all sorts of abuses. The Perjury Bill threatens to stop them up. In sub-section (2), clause 5, of the Perjury Bill, there is the line, “after the expiration _of months_ from the solemnization of the marriage.” What “the expiration of months” means, Heaven only knows! Either by accident or intention an anomaly will be created unless His Majesty’s Stationery Office, or the Printers to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, will assume responsibility and correct the error. As the Bill stands, “the expiration of months” may mean any number of months, which is grotesque on the face of it. III. THE CRIMINAL EVIDENCE ACT The Criminal Evidence Act, 1898, comes out of chronological order here, but it is none the worse for that. It might have been placed first of all, instead of granting precedence to the Poor Prisoners’ Defence Act, 1903, though in the present arrangement of several short Acts of Parliament, various considerations have exercised the author. Then, too, for instance, the Perjury Bill, 1911, quite the newest thing in legislation, supplies a form of introduction to the Criminal Evidence Act, which has given great and uninterrupted scope to half a generation of liars. It is the constant complaint of judges that a criminal when giving evidence on his own behalf rarely tells the truth, or anything approaching the truth. Comment on the subject flows freely from the Bench, with every possible cause. If criminals were not allowed to “speak for themselves,” at least the occupants of the dock could tell no lies. Still, there are so many technical fictions permitted nowadays that one half expects a man to lie with _sang froid_, in an attempt to save his own skin. This is scarcely morality, but it is a practical and true way to look upon an evil which is akin to nature. On one of those rare occasions, when a murderer is caught red-handed, he will enter a plea of “Not Guilty,” as a matter of course. The plea is a fiction in itself, but an even greater one is to be found in the amendment or alteration of a plea of “Guilty” to “Not Guilty,” the most absurd anomaly sanctioned in the English courts, one due, it may be explained, to the tolerance of the judiciary. Owing to the shortness of the Criminal Evidence Act, and owing also to its clearness of meaning, it may here be inserted intact, without misgiving. It is made up of only seven brief sections, the first of which begins,