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¬to arrest before indictment found, must have been virtually abrogated, or, at all events, that the people of England would not have been more than ever subjected to arbitrary imprison- ments by the lower magistrates appointed and removable by the crown, after it had been de- clared by Parliament that it was not safe to confide a jurisdiction over libel, even to supe- rior and independent judges, as an abstract question of law. — It may be safely admitted, that there may be many libels so clearly mis- chievous as to require no judicial discretion ; but what can that have to do with an universal jurisdiction over every thing that is written, whatever it may be ? ¬In all other criminal cases within the power of justices to arrest before indictment, the defi- nitions of the crimes imputed are legal ques- tions, which a magistrate may therefore examine, and which are generally of a plain and simple character; but what is a libel, is not now matter of laze, nor even a fact which any tribunal but a jury is competent to decide. — This must have ¬k been ¬
