"The practice of exceptional interference with the general course of the law, by private and special enactments, concessions, and dispensatious, rather implies a series of anomalies than legislation, and certainly represents no system of legislation.

"To interfere with the course of the general law, in favour or to the prejudice of individuals, is neither legislation nor judicial administration; it is hardly more or less than the arbitrary dispensation of absolute power.

"Under purely despotic governments, whatever receives the sanction of the sovereign becomes legal; and in our own country, under the sway of the Plantagenets, the impress of the great seal or the sanction of the sign-manual warped the law to the occasion of every favoured applicant. Letters from the Crown, abundantly to be found on the Patent and Close Rolls, assumed to give a ready relief against legal obstructions in the way of private schemes.

"Living now under a constitutional government, which admits of no royal grants, concessions, or dispensations, infringing on the general, law of the land, we are made to feel that the general law can be adapted to the exigencies of any individuals who pursue the forms prescribed, and have the money required, for obtaining a private Act of Parliament.

"Private Acts, in the present age, if they do not, like the early documents under that title to be found on the Rolls, of the compliant Parliaments of Edward IV. and Richard III., bastardize a troublesome competitor for the Crown, or partition the possessions of those out of power among the adherents and friends of the ruling body, still work the injustice that is inevitable wherever general laws are made to yield to individual importunities.

"If it be the lot of one of us to be involved in a dispute with a company invested with Parliamentary powers, we may soon be made to feel that, not the general law of England, but a special statute passed on the private petition of our adversary, is to adjust the differences between us. Even if carefully endeavouring to avoid direct negotiations and transactions with bodies thus armed, we have little chance of ignoring or disregarding the provisions of private Acts of Parliament. We cannot travel or stay at home without bringing ourselves within the operation of some of the special enactments. Every railway, canal, or turnpike-road; every harbour, dock, or pier ; · almost every town, or large parish, has its collection of local acts. If the street in front of our doors is obstructed; if the supply of water or gas to our houses be capriciously stopped; if the rate collector summarily calls on us for any unexpected contribution, we may rely on finding the imposition sanctioned, not by the general law, but by some extraordinary enactment of the Legislature, passed on a private petition.

"The volumes of our Statute Law at this time contain no less than twenty-seven thousand local, personal, and private Acts of Parliament, varying the general public law, and containing enactments having almost every variety of object-compulsorily to dispossess the owners of private property, under the pretence of the public, good-freely to

give certain joint-stock companies the management and control of our rivers, harbours, roads, and streets, and other property, essentially public-to confer monopolies and arbitrary powers, tolls and taxes, wholly unknown to the common law.

"These special acts introduce an endless variety of conditions and terms into all contracts and transactions with the privileged bodies ; penalties and penal proceedings-often of a very vexatious character— innovating on the first principles of the common law, the law of evidence, the rights of property and of civil liberty-mere private trespasses on the privileged property visited with serious punishments -in some instances the offences magnified into felonies.

"Opposed as such anomalous enactments are to every principle of justice, hardly less objectionable is the way in which they pass the Parliamentary ordeal. Framed wholly to meet the purposes of the promoters, a local and personal bill comes before a select committee in either. House, rarely opposed by any one but' a rival applicant for msiilar privileges. The contest in committee is carried on between these rivals week after week, during the Parliamentary Session. Lawyers, engineers, and witnesses-on some occasions they have been as many as four hundred concerned in one bill (all of them extravagantly paid for their services)-come only to promote the special interests of those for whom they severally appear. No one, professionally or otherwise, is engaged to watch or advocate the interests of the public; and the wearied members of committee, overwhelmed with a thousand sophistries and misrepresentations, are too glad to see the prospect of terminating the contests which actually arise, without volunteering inquiries affecting merely the public interests. Select Committees have been over and over again denounced as the very worst tribunals that could be devised for the investigation of the merits of a private bill project. The prodigal costliness of the proceedings before these committees, often amounting, in the case of our railway companies, to a very large proportion of all their capitaland, in the case of many local improvement bills, to enormous sums, directed to be raised afterwards by tolls and impositions on the public -have made one evil of private bill legislation press where it is sure to make itself felt.

"Shareholders who contributed funds thus misapplied and perverted from their legitimate purpose-the public who have been taxed in various ways to meet the deficiency, all feel that Select-Committee expenses are a gross abuse. When we find the expenditure of the Great Northern Railway in parliamentary costs amounting to half a million sterling before the undertaking itself was even commencedwhen we find (as parliamentary reports show us) companies consuming their entire property and proposed capital in obtaining, or endeavouring to obtain, the concession of parliamentary powers the practice which sanctions and necessitates such breaches of trust, might be justly stigmatized as something more than a mere abuse !

"Last, though not the least of the evils of private bill proceedings, is the obstruction they offer to the legitimate business of Parliament. In the great railway session of 1846, there were no less than five hundred

sittings of Select Committees, as many as thirty-four being held in one day. When session after session, amidst the loud complaints of wearied members and of disappointed constituents, private Bill Committees consume that time which, judiciously applied to the details of public business, might prevent the repetition of the annual outcry about reforms postponed, inquiries refused, the estimates scrambled through, and great public questions neglected-we may justly denounce the private bill system as directly obstructing the business of the nation. Were the labours of private bill committees to be lessened, and the valuable time thus consumed to be devoted to committees to be appointed for the thorough investigation of the details, and expediting the progress of public questions before Parliament, the annual disappointment referred to would indeed be lessened.

"The unjustifiable costliness, the anomalous character, the inconvenient and irksome proceedings of private bill committees, obstructive as they are to public business, and so wholly unsatisfactory in their results, have been the subject of vehement condemnation by all classes, for a great many years-by Parliamentary committees without number -by judges who have vainly endeavoured to construe and practically apply the exceptional enactments-and by the public, who have to suffer and pay for it all.

"The anomalous authority exercised by Parliament in the case of private bills has ever been deemed to require the utmost vigilance. The preliminary investigation by the ancient officers called Receivers and Triers of Petitions, and the subsequent examination by the judges summoned in the House of Lords having gone into disuse, standing orders have been made in modern times, with the view to realise the eulogistic apology of Blackstone (vol. 3, p. 345), that 'private Acts of Parliament are carried on in both houses with great deliberation and caution, and that nothing is done without the consent of all parties in being, and capable of consent, that have the remotest interest in the matter.'

"As the practice of Parliamentary interference by private bills has gradually extended from mere cases of disentailing private estates with the consent of every individual concerned, to extensive joint-stock undertakings of a distinctly public character, at the prayer only of the schemers, it has, after years of experimental change, been found that no standing orders are sufficient to prevent imposition and injustice. The inherent defects of a system by which the distinct functions of the legislator and judge are sought to be united, defy all human efforts to cure it.

"In 1846 the abuses practised before private bill committees excited so much attention, that Parliament was induced to pass an act, 9 & 10 Vict. c. 106, affirming the self-evident proposition, that it is expedient that facilities should be given for procuring more complete and trustworthy information previous to inquiries before either House of Parliament on applications in certain cases for private acts.' But the complete and trustworthy information which was directed by that Act, and the amending Act of 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. 129), was practically limited to certain matters affecting the special interests confided to the

Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and the Admiralty, and these preliminary inquiries were not required to be made in such a manner as to afford Parliament or the public any light on the real merits of a proposed scheme: which might, for anything that appeared in such preliminary investigation, be most prejudicial to private rights, without producing any commensurate public advantage. These preliminary inquiries, as might be expected, were therefore after a short time pronounced a failure, and the statutes prescribing them repealed (by 14 & 15 Vict. c. 129).

"With some alterations in detail in the routine of select committees, the regulations affecting Private Bills remain almost as they were. The chief objections to them continue, and with, perhaps, the exception of Parliamentary agents and practitioners, every class affected by private bills and private Acts of Parliament unite in denouncing them as a monstrous inconvenience and a monstrous abuse.

"The instituting a preliminary investigation of the facts, which is a principle of our whole system of justice, which the common law requires before judgment can be pronounced, which is followed in every tribunal in this country, either in the shape of a trial by jury or reference to some subordinate officer, or to some competent person specially appointed to reduce the facts into the shape of a special case, is practically ignored by Parliament, who proceed to the second stage of a private bill, without any investigation of the merits, and then, in the objectionable manner already spoken of, delegate the investigation and the real power of ultimate decision to a few members of their own body.

"Anticipating, from a notice of motion already given for next session, that Parliament will, before long, again take into consideration the whole question of private bill procedure, it may be worthy the attention of this Society whether the following suggestions might not, with some advantage, be submitted to the attention of the legislature:

"1. Let competent persons be appointed by both Houses of Parliament, invested with the full powers of the ancient triers and receivers of petitions, and the modern examiners; and let every petition for a private bill be referred to one of such persons, who, having summoned before him, and fully heard all parties interested, and fully examined all material evidence, parol or documentary, should make a full and complete report to Parliament, not only of the compliance with the standing orders, but of the objects and proved facts relating to each petition, and the evidence, conflicting or otherwise, by which it is promoted or opposed, and the precise way in which the proposed billdeviates, in any clause, from the general law of the land.

"2. Let no petition for a private bill be presented to either House without such report, accompanied with copies of all maps, plans, and documents referred to therein.

"3. Let the attention of Parliament, in committee or otherwise, be confined to the disposal of the questions arising on the report, and any exceptions to such report duly presented by any party having a recognised locus standi; and let the facts shown on such report, or any report on any fresh investigation directed in consequence of such exceptions, be conclusive.

"4. Let general regulations be made for petitions for such private bills being presented at any period of the year, and being referred at once to the appointed examiner by the Lord Chancellor or Speakerfor the purpose of such examination, altogether or in part, in the immediate locality to be affected by the proposed bill-and for visiting with exemplary costs all persons guilty of vexatious proceedings.

"5. Let all common form clauses, of every class of local and personal act, be consolidated into one or more general acts, and made to operate in all cases of a similar character, both as regards existing and future local and personal acts, whether such clauses regulate the mode of procedure, the form of conveyance, &c.; and,

"6. Let Parliament, as speedily as possible, pursue the course taken with respect to local courts, the enclosure of waste lands, watching, lighting, police, and various other matters formerly regulated by special acts, and substitute general and systematic legislation for that which is now merely anomalous and pernicious.

"These amendments in the mode of proceeding, with respect to applications for private Acts of Parliament, would not only materially diminish the present expenditure of public and private time and money before committees, and secure to Parliament complete and trustworthy information respecting each application, but the reform could, unlike any change hitherto suggested, be effected, without in any way intrenching on the legitimate function or privileges of either House of Parliament.

"In lieu of the loose and unsatisfactory investigation under the present mode of proceeding, an authentic record of the facts of every case would come before Parliament, enabling each branch of the Legislature to decide on those proved facts, and apply the redress which the constitution has empowered Parliament to afford."

Now let us look at Mr. Webster's paper :

It is entitled :-OBSERVATIONS ON THE REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 1856, RELATING TO THE EXPEDIENCY OF CARRYING INTO EFFECT THE SENTENCE OF DEATH BEFORE OFFICIAL SPECTATORS ONLY, AND REMARKS ON A SUBSTITUTE FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. BY EDWARD WEBSTER, ESQ., OF LINCOLN'S INN, BARRISTER-ATLAW.

This paper, which was read on December 17th in the last year, consists partly of compilations from the evidence and report of the committee of the House of Lords, and partly of comments either original or borrowed. The subject has been so often debated, that we had thought all had been said that need be said thereon; and indeed Mr. Webster has contrived to impart into his essay a large portion of the ancient rubbish which always has been, and will be heard, when the topic of capital punishment is discussed by men who are moved