It was suggested by the three peers, that the old rule had no better foundation than the indolence, slovenliness, and negligence of practitioners, whom the salutary stringency of the new rule would stimulate into superior energy and activity. We cannot help regarding this notion, however--for the preceding, among many other reasons--as quite unfounded, and perhaps arising out of a hasty glance at the alterations recently introduced into _civil_ pleadings and practice. But observe, it required _an act of Parliament_ to effect these alterations, (stat. 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 42,) the very first section reciting the "_doubts which might arise as to the power of the judges to make such alterations without the authority of Parliament_;" and yet the state of the laws calling for such potent interference was in an incomparably more defective and mischievous state than is imputed to the present criminal law. Then, again, any practical man will see in a moment, that the strictness of the new system of civil pleading, which to this moment occasions not infrequently a grievous failure of justice, with all the ample opportunities afforded for deliberate examination and preparation of the pleadings, cannot be safely applied to criminal law for many reasons, principally because it rarely admits of that previous deliberation in drawing the indictment, which must be based upon the often inaccurate statement of facts supplied by the depositions; and because a defect in them is, generally speaking, irremediable and fatal, and crime goes unpunished. If the new rule is to be really acted upon in future, we must, in some way or other, alter the whole machinery of the criminal law: but how to do so, without seriously interfering with the liberty of the subject, we know not.