heads, and iu chronological order, in the Law of Criminal Conspiracies and Agreements, by II. S. Wright (London, 1873) : Combinations against Government ; combinations to defeat or pervert justice ; combinations against public morals or decency; combination to defraud; combination to injure otherwise than by fraud; trade .combinations. "It is conceived," says the author, " that on a review of all the decisions, there is a great preponderance of authority in favour of the proposition that, as a rule, an agreement or combination is not criminal unless it be for acts or omissions (whether as ends or means) which would be criminal apart from agreement." A dictum of Lord Denman s is often quoted as supplying a definition of conspiracy. It is, he says, either a combination to procure an unlawful object, or to procure a lawful object by unlawful means ; but the exact meaning to be given to the word "lawful" in this antithesis has nowhere been precisely stated. A thing may be unlawful in the sense that the law will not aid it, although it may not expressly punish it. The extreme limit of the doctrine is reached in the suggestion that a combination to hiss an actor at a
theatre is a punishable conspiracy.The application of this wide conception of conspiracy to trade disputes caused great dissatisfaction among workmen. By the Master and Servant Act, 1867, breach of contract of service might be made the subject of complaint before a magistrate, who was empowered to impose a fine when he thought it necessary. Trades unions were relieved from the stigma of illegality which had hitherto attached to them by reason of their being combinations "in restraint of trade" by the Trades Unions Act, 1871. In the same year the Criminal Law Amendment Act (34 and 35 Vict. c. 32) specified certain acts which, if done with a view to coercing either master or workman, were to be punishable with imprisonment. But in the meantime, the mere com bination of workmen not to work with a particular person was held by the judges to amount to a conspiracy at common law (so held by Mr Baron Pollock at Leeds assizes in 1874). And the case of the London gas stokers, who were in 1872 convicted of a conspiracy to break their contract of service, directed attention to the question of punishing breach of contract as a crime. The following extract from Mr Justice Brett s charge to the jury will show the view taken by the judge : " If you think there was an agreement between the defendants to interfere with the masters by molesting them so as to control their will, and if you think that molestation was such as would be likely in the minds of men of ordinary nerve to deter them from carrying on their business accurding to their own will, then that is an illegal conspiracy." Again " was there a combination to hinder the company from carrying on and exercising their business by means of the men simultaneously breaking their contracts of service? Breach of contract is an illegal, nay more, it is a criminal act, and if they combined to interfere with their employers by breaking their contracts this would be using unlawful means." So in 1867, in the case of Druett, it had been laid down that if any set of men agreed among themselves to coerce the liberty of mind and thought of another by com pulsion and restraint, they would be guilty of a criminal offence. These judicial opinions led to much agitation, which ended in the legislation of 1875. In that year was passed the Act for amending the law relating to conspiracy and to the protection of property, and for other purposes, 33 and 39 Viet. c. 80. This Act was intended to regulate the criminal, as the Employers and Workmen Act of the sime year (c. 90) was intended to regulate the civil questions arising out of the contract for service. The corresponding Acts of 1867 and 1871 are repealed. The 38 and 39 Viet. c. 86 enacts ( 3) that " an agreement or combination by two or more persons to do, or procure to be done, any act in contemplation o r furtherance of a trade dispute between employers and workmen shall not be indictable as a conspiracy, if such act committed by one person would not be punishable as a crime. When a person is convicted of any such agreement or combination to do an act which is punishable only on summary conviction, and is sentenced to imprisonment, the imprisonment shall not exceed three months, or such longer period, if any, as may have been prescribed by the statute fur the punishment of the said act when committed by one person." The effect of tbe two Acts of 1875 is that breach of contract between master and workmen is to be dealt with as a civil and not as a criminal case, with two exceptions. A person employed on the supply of gas and water, breaking his contract with his employer, and knowing, or having reasonable cause to believe, that the consequence of his doing so, either alone or in combination with others, will be to deprive the inhabitants of the place wholly or to a great extent of their supply of gas or water, shall be liable on conviction to a penalty not exceeding 20, or a term of imprisonment not exceeding three months. And generally any person wilfully and maliciously breaking a contract of service or hiring, knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that the probable corsequences of his so doing cither alone or in combination with others will le to endanger human life or cause serious bodily injury, or to expose valuable property whether real or personal to destruction or serious injury, shall be liable to the same penalty. By section 7 every person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing or to do any acb which such other person has a legal right to do or abstain from doing, wrongfully and without legal authority, (1) uses violence to or intimi dates such other person, or his wife and children, or injures his property; or (2) persistently follows such other person about from place to place ; or (3) hides any tools, clothes, or other property owned or used by such other person, or deprives him of or hinders him in the use thereof; or (4) watches or besets the house or other place where such other person resides, or works, or carries on business, or happens to be, or the approach to such house or place ; or (5) follows such other person with two or more other persons, in a disorderly manner, in or through any street or road, shall be liable to the before-mentioned penalties. Of course a combination to do any of these acts would be punishable as a conspiracy, as mentioned in section 3 above.
Seamen are expressly exempted from the operation of this Act. The exceptions as to contracts of service for the supply of gas and water, &c., were supported by the circumstances of the London gas stokers case above mentioned.
Conspiracy at common law is a misdemeanour, and the punishment is fine or imprisonment, or both, to which may be added hard labour in the case of any conspiracy to cheat and defraud, or to extort money or goods, or falsely to accuse of any crime, and to obscruct, pervert, prevent, or defeat the cause of justice. Conspiracy to murder, whether the victim be a subject of the Queen or resident in her dominions or not, is by 24 and 25 Viet. c. 100 punish able by penal servitude.
peace. The name, as well as the office, are, according to Blackstone, borrowed from the French. In the Middle Ages there was a great officer of this name, whose duties related to matters of chivalry. " The office of Lord High Constable," says Blackstone, "hath been disused in England, except only upon great and solemn occasions as the king s coronation and the like ever since the attainder of
Stafford, duke of Buckingham, under King Henry VIII.,
