Had Lord Cardigan been convicted, he had still a _chance_ of escaping the serious personal consequences by claiming that absurd and unjust privilege of the peerage of which Lords Mohun, Warwick, and Byron in past times had respectively availed themselves, immediately on their having been convicted, in cases of fatal duels, of manslaughter. This privilege had been confirmed by statute, 1st Edward VI. c. 12, § 14, which was passed in the year 1547, and consisted in enabling a lord of parliament and peer of the realm to have benefit of clergy for a first conviction of felony,--that is to say, to escape the penal consequences of conviction, on simply alleging that he was a peer, and praying the benefit of that act! In 1827, however, by one of the statutes which effected so salutary a reform of our criminal law, (statute 7th and 8th Geo. IV. c. 28, § 6,) it was enacted as follows,--that "benefit of clergy, with respect to persons convicted of felony, shall be abolished." It had been intended, by this section, to repeal that of the 1st Edward VI. c. 12, § 14; but serious doubts were entertained, during the pendency of Lord Cardigan's trial, whether that intention had been effectuated. We offer no opinion on the point, which would have been argued, of course, with desperate pertinacity, and consummate learning and ingenuity, had the occasion for such an exhibition arisen. To extinguish, however, all possible doubt, and prevent any future failure of justice, an act was passed in the same session during which Lord Cardigan was tried, (statute 4th and 5th Vict. c. 22, 2d June 1841,) asserting that "doubts had been entertained" whether, notwithstanding the statute of 1827, that of 1547 "might not, for some purposes, still remain in force." The statute of 1841 had but one section, which declared the 1st Edward VI. c. 12, § 14, to be "thenceforth repealed, and utterly void, and no longer of any effect;" and enacted that "every lord of parliament, or peer of the realm having place in parliament, against whom any indictment for felony may be found, shall plead to such indictment, and shall, upon conviction, be liable to the same punishment as any other of her Majesty's subjects are, or may be, liable upon conviction for such felony." Here stands the law of duelling, alike for lord and commoner, whom we trust we have satisfied of the really alarming responsibilities entailed upon those who may choose to perpetuate these outrages upon the laws of their country.