principal provision, by which, the judge is enabled of himself to amend any indictment, when it may be
found at the trial to contain an error not material to the merits of the case, or by correction of which the
accused cannot be prejudiced in his just means of defence, removes one of those defects by which, more
than by any other, our criminal law has been made an abomination and scandal to justice. The felon has
had no such constant friend, society no such steady opponent, as that flagrant worship of technicalities
against which Lord Campbell has here dealt a blow, under which other absurdities, springing from the same
source and defensible only on the same pitiful grounds, must ultimately and as certainly stagger and fall. In
other amendments of this admirable bill the same tardy but invaluable tribute is offered, from what has too
long been supposed to be the unalterable genius of English law, to the better genius of universal reason and
common sense. It is provided, for example, that in future indictments for murder or manslaughter, there
need not be any specification of the mode or means by which the act was done; that where the prosecution
is for forgery, or fraud, the intent to defraud any persons in particular need no longer be held a necessary
part of the proof; that where the trial is for misdemeanour, and the offence turns out to be a felony, the
offender shall not therefore escape; that where the charge is felony, and the proof fails of the original
charge but establishes the attempt to commit it, the prisoner shall be subject to exactly the same
consequences as if the indictment had been originally and only for the attempt to commit; that all formal
objections to the indictment must be taken before the jury is sworn; and, finally, that a prisoner shall not
hereafter be called upon to plead guilty or not guilty, but shall be simply asked whether he wishes to plead
guilty, or any other plea, "or to be tried." In short, there is not a clause in this bill which would not, five-
and-twenty years ago, have been entitled to a place in Sydney Smith's noodle oration, as a direct assault upon
the British constitution; and, in a letter to Lord Denman, in which, with justifiable pride, Lord Brougham
recounts his share, together with that of his friends, in the law amendments of the session, he not obscurely
hints that certain distinguished noodles had plagued Lord Campbell not a little for his resolute determination
to get the bill passed. "Lord Campbell," he says earnestly, "deserves the thanks of the profession, and of the
community, for his manful perseverance; for there cannot be doubt that he had to struggle against no little
weight of prejudice, in not the most obscure quarters of our legal body."

To these successes in Law Reform some failures have to be added. But first the Chancery Bill,
constituting a more efficient staff of judges, providing for the more speedy disposal of suits, and erecting a
more satisfactory court of appeal, deserves a word of praise. The bill introduced by Mr. Baines for the
Protection of Apprentices and Servants, deserves also a hearty mention for its simple and humane provisions.
But the promised Registry measure has failed; and the bill for further Extension of the County Courts,
together with that for the Amendment of the Patent Laws, were at the last moment thrown out by the Lords.
In neither case, however, is the upper house to be held blameable for the failure, seeing that both bills were
sent up with changes of the greatest moment, at a time when the alternative was to pass them without
discussion, or not to pass them at all. For the rest of the performances or failures of the session, a very few
words may suffice. Light is no longer subject to taxation, and a fair House Duty has taken the place of the
iniquitous Window Tax. The Water doctors have undergone a disastrous failure, but the Smithfield
abomination is knocked on the head. The Board of Health has made a backward rather than a forward
movement, but the Board of Woods and Forests has been obliged to enter into promises for future better
behaviour, and for a more decent management of the property of the Crown. Mr. Milner Gibson has failed to
popularise the management of the County Rates; Lord Wharncliffe cannot induce the bishops to abolish the
restrictions on the law of Marriage; the Jews are still excluded from Parliament; and the silly Vice-Royalty
of Ireland has received another reprieve. But, on the other hand, whether advanced under cover of
oppressed country rate-payers, of distressed ship-owners, or starved-out millers; whether the forlorn hope
has been led by Lord Naas, or Mr. Herries, or Mr. Disraeli; no matter how many of the Irish brigade have
rushed to its rescue;—every Protectionist move of the session has suffered ignominious defeat. Nothing
could exceed the spirits with which the campaign was opened; nothing can express the gloom in which it
has closed. Gratiano's simile of the ship "hugged and embraced" at her start, and of the same ship "lean,
rent, and beggared," on her return, is the type of what this year has befallen the Protectionist leaders. And
who does not know "the reason why?" Who cannot read it legibly in everything around him? What
registrar's return does not proclaim it? What poor-law union does not confirm it? Where is there a
labourer's cottage, in which better clothes and more abundant food do not write it on the walls, in language
which even Mr. George Frederick Young will have to acquire a knowledge of at last, and confess "the reason
why." Not wholly unprofitable, then, has been the session of 1851.

Other matters, meanwhile, proceed in their customary course. Of little avail is any general prosperity
against cases of individual suffering, and there can be no amendment of the absurdities of the law so
extensive as to reach or correct the absurdities of those who administer the law. This latter truth has had no
lack of illustration during the past month. The summer assizes have contributed their usual share, and the
police magistrates have not been idle. And first for those who are first in dignity, and in absurdity often
very far from the last. To that truly British judge, Mr. Baron Platt, fell the duty of trying that most
unheroic clergyman to whose sudden excess of craven terror a hearty, jovial, wealthy border farmer, a loving
father and a most affectionate husband (as on the trial he was well proved to be), fell a victim in the prime of
health and life a few months ago. The clergyman, frightened out of his small wits by the fate of Mr.
Hollest, had after that event kept always, by way of protection, a six-barrelled loaded revolver ready to his
hand; and so fortified, was sitting in his study between ten and eleven o'clock on a brilliant moonlit night
in the middle of last April, when he heard a rattling at the window. Housebreakers don't generally ply their
trade at so early an hour, or on a night of full moon, nor is a tap at the window commonly the proceeding
they begin with; but out rushed this clergyman forthwith, with his six-barrelled loaded revolver, never
inquired who was there, never gave warning of his purpose, never thought of firing upward, but fired
successively three deadly volleys straight in the direction of the noise, slammed the door, rushed up to bed,
and was summoned next morning to view the dead body of one of the most respected men upon the
Scottish border, lying outside his study window. Of course no one could desire that more suffering
should be laid on this unhappy man than should follow with the consequences of an act so incautious and
rash, but to a full responsibility for such grave want of caution it was right and necessary that he should
be made amenable. There is nothing to which grosser acts of cruelty may be more surely traced than to