I do not want charity for the poor in our legal procedure, nor do I wish to see litigation multiplied by cheap remedies. On the contrary, I want every effort made to cut down litigation to a minimum, but when a lawsuit takes place I want it to be a fair fight and no favour, with each side equally well equipped for the fray. CHAPTER X CRIME AND PUNISHMENT The penal laws of the British Empire are, by foreign writers, charged with being too sanguinary in the cases of lesser offences. They hold that the punishment of death ought to be inflicted only for crimes of the highest magnitude; and philanthropists of our own nation have accorded with their opinion. Such persons as have had no opportunity of inquiring into the subject will hardly credit the assertion that there are above one hundred and sixty offences punished by death, or, as it is denominated, without benefit of clergy. ANTHONY KNAPP and WILLIAM BALDWIN: Preface to "The Newgate Calendar," 1824. The progress we have made in the reform of criminal law in the last hundred years is really remarkable. In very recent days we have at last allowed the prisoner to give his evidence of the matter he is charged with if he desires to do so. We have, under certain restricted conditions, supplied him with legal assistance, and, best of all, there is at length a Court of Criminal Appeal. It is interesting and encouraging when your mind has a bent towards legal reform to see how past reforms have come about. As recently as 1826 prisoners accused of felony were not allowed counsel, and the Rev. Sydney Smith, who had a winning way of stating the case of the Law and the Poor in his own day, was pleading in the _Edinburgh Review_ for a reform of this matter. One would have thought then, as one often thinks now, that a mere statement of the issue would have been sufficient. This is a picture of things as they were. "There are seventy or eighty prisoners to be tried for various offences at the Assizes who have lain in prison for some months; and fifty of whom, perhaps, are of the lowest order of the people, without friends in any better condition than themselves, and without one single penny to employ in their defence. How are they to obtain witnesses? No attorney can be employed--no subpoena can be taken out; the witnesses are fifty miles off perhaps--totally uninstructed--living from hand to mouth--utterly unable to give up their daily occupation to pay for their journey, or for their support when arrived at the town of trial--and if they could get there, not knowing where to go or what to do. It is impossible but that a human being in such a helpless situation must be found guilty; for as he cannot give evidence for himself, and has not a penny to fetch those who can give it for him, any story told against him must be taken for true (however false) since it is impossible for the poor wretch to contradict it."