The case of R. _v._ Ball and Another is of enormous interest and importance, so far as the workings of the Court of Criminal Appeal are concerned. It suggests very forcibly the need for definitely detaining all criminals pending final appeal, where any intermediate step may allow of their liberation. _The Times_ newspaper for December 16, 1910, reports the case in the following words: “HOUSE OF LORDS. Criminal Appeal. Director of Public Prosecutions _v._ William Henry Ball.--Director of Public Prosecutions _v._ Edith Lilian Ball. (_Before the_ Lord Chancellor, Earl of Halsbury, Lord Ashbourne, Lord Alverstone, Lord Atkinson, Lord Gorrell, Lord Shaw _of_ Dunfermline, Lord Mersey, _and_ Lord Robson.) This was the first appeal to the House of Lords from the Court of Criminal Appeal, consisting of Justices Darling, Pickford, and Coleridge, who quashed the conviction against the present respondents for incest, which was made a criminal offence by an Act which came into operation on January 1, 1909. The trial took place at the Central Criminal Court before Mr. Justice Scrutton, who sentenced the respondents. The Crown appealed under a section of the Criminal Appeal Act, 1907, as was reported in _The Times_ of November 30.... The Attorney-General (Sir Rufus Isaacs, K.C.), Mr. R. D. Muir, Mr. Rowlatt, and Mr. Graham Campbell appeared for the appellant; Mr. Holman Gregory, K.C., Mr. Forrest Fulton, and Mr. Eustace Fulton for the respondents. The arguments of counsel turned on the admissibility of certain evidence tendered by the prosecution. The Lord Chancellor moved that the order of the Court of Criminal Appeal be reversed, and said that evidence of previous guilty relations between the respondents was admissible, not to prove the evidence of a _mens rea_, but in support, having regard to the proved facts, of the particular charges made in the indictments. The principle that one offence is not established by proof of a similar previous offence was one which ought to be jealously guarded; but in the present case the evidence was clearly admissible.... Lord Halsbury agreed with the Lord Chancellor for the same reasons. The other noble and learned Lords concurred. Appeal allowed.”