villany in the reign of George I., the confederates of the felons thus disposing of stolen goods, at a cheap rate, to the owners themselves, and thereby stifling all further inquiry. The famous Jonathan Wild had under him a well-disciplined corps of thieves, who brought in all their spoils to him; and he kept a sort of public office for restoring them to the owners at half price. To prevent which, such an offender was by 4 Geo. I. c. 11, made liable to suffer as the principal felon, unless he caused him to be apprehended and brought to trial, and also gave evidence against him. Wild, continuing his old practice, was convicted and executed upon this very statute; which has, however, been superseded by modern enactments, making the offence a felony, punishable with penal servitude or with imprisonment, with or without hard labour and solitary confinement.

8. Receiving stolen goods, knowing them to be stolen, which is only a misdemeanor at common law, has also been the subject of several enactments. A receiver is now guilty of felony; and may be indicted either as an accessory after the fact, or for a substantive felony; and in the latter case, whether the principal felon shall or shall not have been previously convicted, or shall or shall not be amenable to justice. Where the original stealing is a misdemeanor, the receiver is guilty of a misdemeanor, and where it is punishable on summary conviction, the receiver may be punished the same way.

9. Theft bote is of a nature somewhat similar to the two last offences; and happens where the party robbed not only knows the felon, but also takes his goods again, or other amends, upon agreement not to prosecute. This is frequently called compounding a felony; and was formerly held to make a man an accessory; but is now punished only with fine and imprisonTo advertise a reward for the return of things stolen, or lost, with no questions asked, or words to the same purport, subjects the advertiser and the printer or publisher to a forfeiture of 50l. to any person who will sue for the same, who is entitled also to his full costs of suit.

ment.

10. Common barretry is the offence of exciting and stirring up suits and quarrels, either at law or otherwise, the punishment for which, in a common person, is fine and imprisonment; but

if the offender, as is too frequently the case, belongs to the profession of the law, a barretor, who is thus able as well as willing to do mischief, ought also to be disabled from practising for the future. Many such offenders flourish among us, as it seems to be next to impossible to prosecute or convict them. Hereunto may also be referred another offence, of equal malignity, that of suing another in the name of a fictitious plaintiff; either one not in being at all, or one who is ignorant of the suit. This offence, if committed in the High Court, may be punished at their discretion. But in courts of a lower degree, where the crime is equally pernicious, but the authority of the judges not equally extensive, it is punishable by six months' imprisonment, and treble damages to the party injured.

11. Maintenance bears a near relation to the former; being an officious intermeddling in a suit that no way belongs to one, by assisting either party with money or otherwise, to prosecute or defend it. A man may however maintain the suit of his near kinsman, servant, or poor neighbour, out of charity and compassion, with impunity. Otherwise the punishment is fine and imprisonment; and by 32 Hen. VIII. c. 9, a forfeiture of ten pounds.

12. Champerty, campi partitio, is a species of maintenance, and punishable in the same manner: being a bargain with a plaintiff or defendant campum partire, to divide the land or other matter sued for between them, if they prevail; whereupon the champertor is to carry on the party's suit at his own expense. These last two offences relate chiefly to civil actions.

13. The compounding of an information upon a penal statute is an offence of the same nature in criminal causes. Accordingly, to discourage malicious informers, and to provide that offences, when once discovered, shall be duly prosecuted, any person making any composition without leave of the court, or taking any money or promise from the defendant to excuse him, forfeits 10., and is liable to fine and imprisonment.

14. A conspiracy to indict an innocent man of felony falsely and maliciously, is a perversion of public justice; for which the party injured may either have a civil action; or the conspirators, for there must be at least two to form a conspiracy, may be indicted at the suit of the crown; and were by the ancient common law to receive what is called the villenous judgment;

viz., to lose their liberam legem, whereby they were discredited and disabled as jurors or witnesses; to forfeit their goods and chattels, and lands for life; to have those lands wasted, their houses rased, their trees rooted up, and their own bodies committed to prison. But the villenous judgment is by long disuse become obsolete; it not having been pronounced for some ages: but instead thereof the delinquents are sentenced to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, and fine.

It is no excuse that the indictment was insufficient, or that the court had no jurisdiction to try it, and the party was never really brought into danger; nor will it avail the defendant that he intended only to give evidence on a trial not then commenced. For the law makes the mere intent in such case criminal; this intent being the essence of the offence.

All confederacies to prejudice a third person, as to cheat him in the purchase of a horse; to charge him with being the reputed father of a bastard child; or to injure his reputation by preferring a complaint before a magistrate, though no complaint be preferred, are indictable. The combination among brokers usually called a "knock out," is a conspiracy; the difficulty is to prove it. Bankers may conspire to cheat their creditors by false balance-sheets; horsedealers to defraud a purchaser by selling him an unsound horse; traders to cheat an intending partner by false representations of their profits; and persons to defraud tradesmen by causing themselves to be reputed men of property. There have been conspiracies to hiss and so condemn a play; to marry a girl for her fortune; to get a pauper married by unlawful means, so as to shift the burden of supporting her from one parish to another; to commit an offence; and to prevent the prosecution of an offence.*

* It is laid down, that journeymen confederating and refusing to work for certain wages may be indicted for a conspiracy, the offence consisting in the conspiracy, and not in the refusal; all conspiracies being illegal, although the subject-matter may be lawful. The conviction, in 1874, of certain gas stokers, as of a conspiracy to abstain from work, upon this view of the law, led to the statute 38 & 39 Vict. c. 86; whereby it is enacted that an agreement or combination by two or three persons, to do, or procure to be done, any act in contemplation or 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.

15. Perjury is committed when a lawful oath is administered, in some judicial proceeding, to a person who swears wilfully, absolutely, and falsely, in a matter material to the issue or point in question. A great many statutes, too numerous to be mentioned here, expressly provide that persons making false statements or declarations on oath, relating to the subject matter of these acts, shall be liable to the penalties of perjury, and punished accordingly.

The perjury must be corrupt, that is, committed malo animo, wilful, positive, and absolute; not upon surprise, or the like; it also must be in some point material to the question in dispute; for if it only be in some trifling collateral circumstance, to which no regard is paid, it is not penal.

Subornation of perjury is the procuring another to take such a false oath as constitutes perjury in the principal. The punishment of either offence was anciently death; afterwards banishment, or cutting out the tongue; then forfeiture of goods; and now it is fine and imprisonment, with or without hard labour, as the court shall award.

16. Bribery is when a judge, or other person concerned in the administration of justice, takes any undue reward to influence his behaviour in his office. This offence is punished, in inferior officers, with fine and imprisonment; and in those who offer a bribe the same. But in judges it has been always looked upon as so heinous that chief justice Thorpe was hanged for it in the reign of Edward III. At the present day the species of bribery to which public attention is chiefly directed, is that which destroys the purity of the elections for members of the House of Commons. Professedly to prevent this crime, for in no other light can it be regarded, numerous statutes have been passed, but hitherto without success.

17. Embracery is an attempt to influence a juror corruptly to one side by promises, money, entertainments, and the like, the punishment of which is fine and imprisonment. Connected with which was another offence, the false verdict of jurors; which, whether occasioned by embracery or not, was anciently considered criminal, and exemplarily punished. A wrong verdict can now, and in civil cases only, be set aside; but a

corrupt juror may always be proceeded against, and punished as for a misdemeanor.

18. The negligence of public officers, intrusted with the administration of justice, is an offence subjecting the offender to fine; and in very notorious cases, to a forfeiture of his office, if it be a beneficial one.

19. Oppression on the part of judges, justices, and other magistrates, in the administration and under the colour of their office, is an offence, happily unknown, but when it occurs, severely punishable; as is,

20. Lastly, Extortion; which consists in an officer's unlawfully taking, by colour of his office, any money or thing of value, that is not due to him, or more than is due, or before it is due. The punishment for this offence, which is fortunately equally rare, is fine and imprisonment, and sometimes a forfeiture of the office; the defendant being also made to render double to the party aggrieved.

CHAPTER XI.

OF OFFENCES AGAINST THE PUBLIC PEACE.

OFFENCES against the public peace are some of them felonies, and some merely misdemeanors.

1. The riotous assembling of twelve persons, or more, and not dispersing upon proclamation, was made high treason by 3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. 5, when the king was a minor, and a change in religion to be effected. That statute was repealed by 1 Mar. c. 1, but the prohibition in substance re-enacted by 1 Mar. st. 2, c. 12, which made the offence felony; and indemnified peace officers and their assistants, if they killed any of the mob. This act was made at first only for a year, and was afterwards continued for the queen's life. By statute 1 Eliz. c. 16, when a change in religion was again to be made, it was revived and continued during her life. From the accession of James I. to the death of Anne, it was never once thought expedient to revive it; but, in the first year of George I., it was judged necessary to renew it,