fear: there is hardly a feeling which more requires control; rnost certainly there is none so likely to induce
the degree of recklessness which by every construction of law must be held criminal, if laws are to protect
society at all. Yet thus gingerly did Mr. Baron Platt, after reminding a "British jury" that it was "one of
the first principles of British law that every man has a right to defend his dwelling," touch upon the
restrictions that might possibly in particular cases limit such a right. "It has been said that in these cases
some caution should be used. It is true, want of caution would, in certain circumstances, render an act
criminal; but there are some cases in which you cannot apply very strictly the rule of caution. A man
assailed in the dead of night, expecting robbers coming into his house, is he to sit down, as to a mathematical
problem, to consider how far he is to be cautious in this or in that, at the time he is called on to defend
himself?" Now the charge in this Cumberland case was that of the utter absence of caution, not of the
presence of too little. There existed as much pretence for supposing that a clergyman should be sitting in his
own house between ten and eleven at night "expecting robbers," in a small border village where no burglary
or house-robbery had been heard of for more than twenty years, as for the preposterous comparison of
"a man assailed in the dead of the night" to a case where the only approach to assault consisted of a
tapping at the window so gentle that not a pane of glass was broken, and so noiseless that a nursery-servant
lying awake in bed, in the room immediately above, heard nothing of it. These compassionate comparisons
of the learned judge were nevertheless wholly confined to one branch of the case. For the unfortunate
deceased, nothing of the kind was forthcoming. "The deceased," pursued Mr. Baron Platt, "is said to have
been a good husband and an affectionate father. Now, this may be true: but one cannot shut one's eyes to
this, that he had no business there. The mischief which he sustained was the consequence of his own act. If
he had gone home, instead of going to the residence of this clergyman and disturbing the inmates, he would
have avoided the unfortunate consequences which ensued....If a man so conduct himself by making
noises at untimely hours as to cause the inmates of a house to believe that it is going to be broken into,
it is precisely the same as if a burglary was committed; and no question a man has a right to go forth and
alarm persons so acting, either by shooting over their heads, or in the direction in which he fancies they
are, to prevent a burglary." After this, of course, the accused was acquitted. But without stopping
to remark on the absurdity of supposing that to fire loaded barrels in the direction where persons are
standing may express nothing more than the intention of alarming them, might not Mr. Baron Platt very
fairly be asked whether he cannot conceive it possible for a clergyman's house to be disturbed even later
than eleven o'clock at night, for objects and reasons far other than those of burglary and crime? Are not
men with the cure of souls as liable to be summoned at untimely hours as men with the cure of bodies?
While we write we see it announced that a London rector was the other night knocked up out of a
comfortable sleep at eleven o'clock to attend the death-bed of poor Spring, the boxer; and though the
worthy man, out of some not unpardonable misapprehension, declined to go, other ministers disposed and
zealous to practise what they preach were found, even at a yet later and more untimely hour. But let good
people beware in future at what hour of the night, in town or village, they betake themselves to apothecary
or to minister. The solemn dictum of a truly British judge may be alleged hereafter, to sanction the most
preposterous fears, and justify the most criminal rashness based upon them.

Nor was the enunciation of a doctrine so utterly inconsistent with the safety of society, the only noticeable
circumstance at this trial. An incidental point of some importance arose on which the decision of the judge
appears quite as open to objection. The accused had presented himself at the inquest, before he was formally
charged with having committed the act, and had volunteered to be examined as to what he knew of the
circumstances. His examination was taken, and afterwards signed by himself; but, on its being offered in
evidence at the trial, was peremptorily rejected by Baron Platt, on the ground of its having been taken, not
compulsorily, not under cross-examination, not by any external inducement or suggestion, but, in legal phrase,
"under the pressure of an oath." Yet it had been distinctly declared, not many months before, by full decision
of the very court to which Mr. Baron Platt belongs, "that the practice of coroners refusing the examination on
oath of parties who offer thernselves for that purpose, was founded on the grossest misapprehension of duty
on the part of a coroner. No one was in a state of accusation before a coroner; and he ought to take the
evidence of any one, only cautioning those parties, who might hereafter turn out to be implicated, not to
inculpate themselves unless they so pleased." This, surely, is the common sense of the matter; and it
involves that exact principle, of the last importance to a right administration of the law, on which the changes
in Lord Campbell's Act mainly proceed. Yet there is none which a section of our judges are so prone to obstruct
and interfere with. The only interest they seem disposed or able to recognise is that of the accused. In an
undue concern for the prisoner the public is quite lost sight of. Else why the eagerness to admit evidence
favourable to him, accompanied by equal eagerness to exclude evidence unfavourable? The only rational
and proper rule is that of Bentham, to receive all evidence valeat quantum; the whole machinery of a Court
of Justice being really organised precisely to determine such questions of value. Over and over again has the
point arisen, and more than once during the late circuit, as to whether, evidence in favour of a prisoner's character
having been given, rebutting evidence proving general bad character should not also be received; but the
decision is always in the negative. It becomes a serious question in such circumstances whether all evidence
as to character had not better be excluded. Generally speaking, there is nothing so worthless, nothing so
fallacious, even where the person giving it is not an egregious dupe, or a credulous fool; and the cases
are rare indeed, where mere matter-of-opinion should have any weight in determining matter-of-fact. But at
any rate, where it is so, and the scale of innocence or guilt is so nearly balanced that even such slight weight
might not unfairly turn it, it is obvious that the opinion offered should not be merely one-sided, if truth be
the object of inquiry. We repeat, however, that the interests of truth appear much less frequently than the
interests of the prisoner to guide our criminal courts. A man was acquitted of poisoning two children, the
other day, against the clearest evidence, and in the teeth of the summing up of the judge, on no other
conceivable pretence than that of a preposterous suggestion by one of the witnesses, which every other
person examined had disproved and rebutted, over and over again.

To the less grave arena of the police courts, absurdities are more congenial, and have certainly not been
wanting. An experienced magistrate (Mr. Seeker) has laid down the doctrine that the act of the Greenwich
Railway Company selling a ticket to a person proposing to travel by their railway, necessarily implies the
surrender of all control over that person's access to their platform; so that, on crowded days, for example