other instances the vast "metropolis" has been the determining cause of great changes.

Meanwhile the whole theory of public prosecutions had been abundantly discussed. Englishmen began to see that they had against them the practice of almost all other countries. In Scotland, for instance, there are public officers throughout the country, procurators fiscal, whose duty it is to investigate criminal cases and prepare them for trial under the control of the Lord Advocate, and a prosecution instituted by a private man though theoretically permissible is practically unknown. Even in Ireland there has been developed out of English law, and apparently without legislation. a system of Crown Solicitors and Crown Counsel controlled by the Irish Attorney-General which has very largely superseded prosecution by private persons. During a quarter of a century commissions and committees reported on the subject, and several ambitious schemes were laid before Parliament, applauded, and forgotten. The main complaints against our procedure were, that prosecutions were compounded, that prosecutions were instituted for vexatious purposes, that, when there was no private prosecutor with means, cases came to trial in an unprepared state. It became a mark of enlightenment to demand the immediate creation of a complete system of public prosecutors; but beyond this demand there was extremely little agreement. To say nothing of details, it has been very generally believed that to put the control of the criminal law into the hands of state officials is not the way to make that law respected. It is better that some rogues should go quit, and some guiltless men be vexed by false charges, than that there should be any room for even a groundless suspicion that party

politics have or can have anything to do with criminal law. This has been felt and has hitherto delayed what perhaps is the fated progress of events.

At last, in 1879, after five-and-twenty years' discussion, a measure, which proved to be a very small measure, was passed. A Director of Public Prosecutions was to be appointed by the Home Secretary, he was to be an experienced lawyer, paid by salary. He was (1) to give advice to private prosecutors, justices, magistrates' clerks, policemen, and the like; and (2) himself to institute criminal proceedings according to rules to be made by the Attorney-General with the approval of the Chancellor and Home Secretary. In 1883 his office was abolished, or rather it was enacted that the Treasury Solicitor should for the future be also Director of Public Prosecutions. Practically the functions exercised by the Director had been very much those which theretofore had been exercised by the Home Office, that is, he had directed the Treasury Solicitor to prosecute in cases of the same sort as those in which such direction had formerly been given by the Home Secretary. The existence of a separate department for this purpose seemed unnecessary. For the future then the Treasury Solicitor, subject to such regulations as just mentioned, is to take up the prosecution if he thinks fit without the need of any orders. The chief and head constables are to bring to his notice crimes committed within their districts. He and his staff will personally see to London cases, but it seems to be intended that country cases shall be managed by agents, local solicitors, employed for the occasion and paid by the piece. The choice of counsel to conduct these prosecutions is seemingly left to the Attorney-General. There is (in theory) to be

no interference with the right of any person to institute, undertake, or carry on any criminal proceeding. In what kind of cases the Treasury Solicitor shall interfere is left pretty much a question to be decided from time to time by the Attorney-General, Lord Chancellor, and Home Secretary, but seemingly it is not at present proposed that his operations shall be extended far beyond their former limits; that is to say, he will take up cases of difficulty, cases in which there is reason to fear a failure of justice. Until this year such cases have been very rare, some five or six hundred annually out of some fourteen thousand prosecutions, and of these five or six hundred about one half have been coinage cases. We have not yet made any large inroad on that system of non-governmental prosecutions of which foreigners can see the merits if we can not, and it must be added that the Treasury Solicitor in his prosecutions has hardly any legal powers of any kind that are not possessed by any other prosecutor or his solicitor.1

Already it has been made the Director's duty to take up every case in which a Bankruptcy Court orders the prosecution of any offence arising out of, or connected with, bankruptcy proceedings, and he is specially charged to institute prosecutions for corrupt or illegal electoral practices. "No criminal prosecution shall be commenced against any proprietor, publisher, editor, or any person responsible for the publication of a newspaper, for any

1 The history of projects of public prosecutions, and of the Treasury Solicitor can be traced in Select Committee on Public Prosecutors, Parl. Papers, 1854-5, Vol. XII., p. 1; 1856, Vol. VII., p. 347; Fifth Report of Judicature Commission, Parl. Papers, 1874, Vol. XXIV., p. 319; Committee on Office of Public Prosecutor, Parl. Papers, 1884, C. 4016. See also Self-Government, § 76; Stephen, History, Vol. I., p. 493.

libel published therein, without the written fiat or allowance of the Director of Public Prosecutions, or Her Majesty's Attorney-General in Ireland, being first had and obtained";1 this is a rare, it is believed unique, example of a kind of legislation that may become

common.

1 Statute, 1881, ch. 60, sec. 3.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CRIMINAL COURTS.

THE courts which receive indictments and try the indicted are, (1) the county and borough Quarter Sessions, and (2) the High Court. This (if we neglect the right of a peer to be tried by his peers) seems to be a correct statement, but it needs explanation, and we should be better conforming to common usage were we to say that the trial, if it does not take place at Quarter Sessions (of which enough has been said 1), will take place before (a) the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court, (b) a court constituted by Commission of Assize, of Oyer and Terminer, or of Gaol Delivery, or (c) the Central Criminal Court. To clear up this matter, reference must needs be made to a long history, hardly to be told both accurately and very briefly, but unfortunately the statute book requires us to make the effort.

For what are the Assizes? To start with, an assize (assisa) means a session, a sitting, for instance, of the king with his councillors, and if at such a session an ordinance is made, that ordinance also will be called an assize; thus an ordinance made at Clarendon is the Assize of Clarendon. Henry II. made many famous

1 See above, p. 85.