London Legal Letter. of whom takes the criminal and the other the civil work, as they may arrange between them. Counsel who are actively engaged in civil practice find nothing derogatory to their dignity in criminal work. It is true that there are a few lawyers whose occupa tion is mainly in the criminal courts, but that is only because they have had excep tional experience in that branch,of the law. They have the same standard of culture, the same high character, and the same learn ing as those whose work is exclusively civil. The trials are conducted with dignity, and in such a manner as to impress the prisoners and the witnesses. Usually the interval from the date of arrest to the date of sen tence is not more than six weeks. There is no appeal except in a very limited class of cases, and consequently no objection to evi dence at the trial, and no tedious bill of exceptions, and there are therefore no rever sals and no long delays pending retrials and fresh appeals. There is no exception made in this rule in murder cases, the convicted prisoner being usually executed in less than two months from the date of his committal for trial by the examining magistrate. Such a thing as a "murderer's row" is unknown in an English jail, and the celerity of the procedure gives no time for maudlin sym pathy. The only matter about which there is controversy is the nature of the punishment. The law in every case provides a maximum, and in some cases a minimum, sentence. This enables certain magistrates who advo cate leniency to impose a nominal sentence for an offence which a magistrate in a neigh boring jurisdiction will punish with a consid erable term of imprisonment. No matter upon what theory as to the object of punish ment the judges act,— whether they may consider it as retribution, or as expiation, or as an example to others, or for the purpose of reforming the offender,— there is a con
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sensus of opinion that there should be some attempt at uniformity in the term and nature of sentences for the same offences. Recently this matter has been discussed by the Society of Comparative Legislation in England, and by the International Congress of Comparative Law. At the session of the latter body, held in Paris in 1900, a com mission was appointed to investigate the principles which should guide the judiciary when pronouncing a criminal sentence. Mr. Montague Crackenthorpe, who is the author of the movement, has recently retired from a very large special practice at the English Chancery Bar. He will be pleas antly remembered in the United States as one of the suite of distinguished lawyers who accompanied the late Lord Chief Justice, Lord Russell, of Killowen, to America in 1896. He read, upon the occasion of that visit, a paper before the American Bar Asso ciation on the " Uses of Legal History." Mr. Crackenthorpe's commission has recently decided to make as wide an inquiry as pos sible upon the questions which were referred to it by the International Congress, and for this purpose has issued a circular letter to prominent lawyers in various countries. This letter sums up the nature of the infor mation required in the following terms : Three distinct theories of punishment — the expiatory, the deterrent, and the reform atory — have, as is well known, been dis cussed for a long time by philosophers and criminologists. Each, or all of these com bined, may be adopted by the judiciary. Thus, one judge may hold the main object of punishment to be that the offender should do penance for his sin; another that he should be made a public example of; a third that he should be reformed by the discipline of the jail, and only be imprisoned for life or for a long period of years if reformation appears to be hopeless.
