application of the person detained, grants the writ, which commands the persons detaining the prisoner to bring him up before some judge, in order to have the cause of his imprisonment investigated. When the prisoner is brought up, the persons detaining him allege (generally with the help of lawyers) the reasons for detaining him,-as, for instance, that he was sentenced to be imprisoned by a competent Court of Justice, or that he is being detained waiting for a trial under the Warrant of Committal of a Justice of the Peace. If this is proved to be the case, the prisoner is sent back to prison. If it is proved not to be the case, or if the prisoner can show any other reason why he should not be detained in prison, he is immediately set free. The operation of the Habeas Corpus Act is to threaten heavy penalties on judges not granting the writ on the demand of a prisoner. In such a case a judge is liable to be fined 500l. The Act also threatens with a fine of 100%. and (on a second offence) 200l. any officer not delivering up prisoners in accordance with the terms of the writ, or not giving to the prisoner or his agent, within six hours after demand, a copy of the warrant of commitment. If the prisoner is committed for treason or felony, as expressed in the warrant, the judge need not grant the writ. The Act further provides that every person committed for treason or felony shall be brought to trial in the next term or session after his committal, unless the witnesses for the Crown cannot be produced at that time; and if he is not tried in the second term or session, he must be discharged from his imprisonment. No person once delivered by habeas corpus can be re-committed for the same offence, on penalty of 500l. No inhabitant of England "can be sent as prisoner out of the country within or without the British dominions, on pain that the party committing, his advisers, aiders, and assistants, shall forfeit to the party aggrieved a sum not less than 500l. to be recovered with treble costs; shall be disabled to bear any office of trust or profit; shall * incur the penalties of præmunire; and shall be incapable of the Queen's pardon." The Amending Act passed in the fifty-sixth year of George III.'s reign extends the benefit of the Act to persons confined "otherwise than for some criminal or supposed criminal matter," and empowers a judge in vacation time to examine into the truth of the facts alleged in the "return" to the writ, so as to obviate the injustice which might be facilitated by giving false returns. In times of great civic disorder (as occasionally in England in the reigns of the Georges, and not long ago in Ireland) the action of the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended; that is, persons are allowed to remain in prison for an indefinite time on mere suspicion, without the question of their guilt or the reason of their confinement being investigated. This suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act is very rarely resorted to, and is in the highest degree unpopular, inasmuch as it puts any person in the country at the mercy of the police and the Government. The writ of Habeas Corpus does not run into a colony or foreign dominion of the Crown, where Courts are established having authority to grant and execute the writ themselves. THE PUNISHMENT AND REFORMATION OF CRIMINALS. A very important topic of government is the policy with respect to the Punishment and Reformation of Criminals. The only punishments known to the English Law are This celebrated offence (so called from the words of the writ preparatory to the prosecution thereof, "pramunire [or præmonere] facias, cause A.B. to be forewarned "), was originally that of introducing a foreign power into the realm by paying obedience to Papal process. The penalties, which were exorbitantly severe, and included forfeiture of lands and goods, complete outlawry, and imprisonment at the pleasure of the Crown, were extended by statute to a variety of very different offences. H 1. Death by Hanging. In cases of treason, this is accompanied by "drawing" the criminal on a hurdle to the place of execution, afterwards severing his head from his body, and then dividing his body into four "quarters." The Sovereign may, however, after sentence, change the whole. punishment into beheading. 2. Penal Servitude. 3. Imprisonment with hard labour. 4. Flogging. 5. Imprisonment without hard labour. 6. Reformatory or Industrial Schools for juvenile offenders. 7. Fine. Death is only inflicted as a punishment for "killing with malice aforethought;" that is, for "murder." The execution is private, and takes place within the walls of the prison where the convict was last confined, in about three weeks after the trial and sentence. Penal Servitude implies imprisonment with hard labour in certain Government prisons. The work is hard, though adapted to the capacities and health of the convict. It must be at least for a period of five years, and may be for life. The length of the term is generally determined by the Judge who tries the prisoner, and depends on the character and frequency of the offence, or the previous habits of the criminal. Sometimes good behaviour during the term of servitude may lead to a slight shortening of it. In this case the prisoner obtains what is called "a ticket of leave." He is allowed to go abroad, but must report himself to the police at regular intervals. If he omit to do so, his "ticket of leave" is cancelled, and he is sent back to prison again as soon as apprehended. A term of imprisonment with hard labour cannot be for longer than two years. It takes place in a county or borough gaol, and not in a "Government prison." The labour may be of different sorts, and sometimes is wholly unprofitable, as in the case of the treadmill, unless something is ground by it. The "silent and solitary" systems are used only as occasional punishments for misbehaviour or insubordination in gaol, and to a very limited extent, it being believed to be hurtful to the health or reason of prisoners. Juvenile offenders can be sentenced to be whipped, and can also be sent to a certified industrial school. Flogging is at present inflicted only for particular sorts of brutal attacks on the person. It is proposed to extend it to attacks of all sorts upon women or children; but the use of this punishment is opposed in some quarters, on the ground that it is a cruel punishment resembling torture; that cruel punishments never diminish crimes, because they infuriate and brutalise the class who perpetrate them; and that it is desirable rather to pacify and tame than to excite those brutal feelings in society which give rise to crimes against the person. On the other hand, the necessity of absolutely repressing this class of crimes, at almost any cost, cannot be over-estimated, and there is much reason to believe that no other remedy is adequate to the purpose. The whole subject of Reformation and Punishment is one of great interest both in this country and in America. Within the last few years persistent and intelligent efforts have been made to improve the internal management and the construction of gaols; to educate and teach ignorant prisoners, and especially the young; to watch over those who come out of prison; and to select for infliction those classes of punishment which seem most likely to be compatible with the moral reformation of the offender. GENERAL COURSE OF PROCEEDINGS IN A CIVIL PROCEEDINGS. The whole course of a Civil Trial extends over three stages, which are simpler and shorter, or more intricate and longer, according to the nature of the subject matter of the ontention, and the corresponding character of the Court which has jurisdiction in respect of it. These three stages are (1) Pleading; (2) Hearing of Evidence and Decision of disputed matters of Fact; and (3) Consideration and Decisions of disputed points of Law. The two latter stages are generally intermingled in practice, though they can always be clearly distinguished. It will be more convenient to treat them together. (1) Pleading. By "Pleading" is meant the process by which the parties to a suit endeavour to ascertain out of Court, though subject to general rules and the control of the Court, the real points in dispute between them. The object of the process is to prevent needless disputation upon matters which really are not in controversy at all, and to reduce the questions, whether of fact or of law, which really are in controversy, to as simple a form as possible, for the purpose of distinct adjudication upon them. The system of Pleading, especially in the "CommonLaw" Courts, was down to a time still recent, so complex and artificial that it was a scandal to the administration of justice. Unless a plaintiff or defendant observed with the utmost strictness the most technical rules, unless he used the precise terms required, unless he exactly expressed all that was essential, and rigidly abstained from assertions that were superfluous, he lost his cause, whatever might be its moral merits. By a series of reforms this state of things has been gradually brought to an end. In the first place the requisite modes and forms of pleading were largely simplified, and facilities given for amending pleadings or repairing accidental mistakes and omissions. Then, in newly-introduced Courts, —such as the County Courts and the Courts of Probate and Divorce,—a simple form of statement, answer, and reply, (substance being in all cases preferred to form), was substituted for the stricter methods of Pleading still retained in the Superior Courts of Law and Equity. Finally, the Supreme Court of Judicature Act substituted the simple form of an inartificial |