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but certain it is, they were in use among the earlier Saxon colonies, this institution being ascribed by bishop Nicholson, to Woden himself, their great legislator and captain.

When the Normans came in, William, though commonly called the Conqueror, was so far from abrogating this privilege of juries, that, in the fourth year of his reign, he confirmed all king Edward the Confessor's laws, and the ancient customs of the kingdom, whereof this was an essential and most material part.

Afterwards, when the Great Charter, commonly called Magna Charta, which is nothing else than a recital, confirmation, and corroboration of our ancient English liberties, was made and put under the Great Seal of England, in the 9th year of king Henry III. A. D. 1225, then was this privilege of trials by juries, in an especial manner, confirmed and established, as in the 14th chapter: that no amercement shall be assessed, but by the oath of good and honest men of the vicinage. And more fully in the twenty-ninth chapter: no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseized of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other way destroyed, nor shall we pass upon him, or condemn him, but by lawful judgment of bis Peers.

This Grand Charter, having been confirmed by above thirty Acts of Parliament, the said rights of juries thereby, and by constant usage, and common custom of England, which is the common law, are brought down to us, as our undoubted birth-right, and are, in fact, the best inheritance of every Englishman.

In Stourhead Grounds, belonging to Sir Richard Hoare, bart., is a tower erected in memory of Alfred the Great. Over the entrance is the following inscription.

Alfred the Great,

A. D. 870, on this Summit
Erected his Standard
Against Danish Invaders.

To him we owe the Origin of Juries,
The Establishment of a Militia,
The Creation of a Naval Force.
Alfred, the light of a benighted age,
Was a Philosopher and a Christian,
The Father of his People,

The founder of the English
Monarchy and Liberty.

The following lines were found in the building, having been left

there by a visitor.

Whoe'er thou art who dar'st approach this pile,
And feelest not thy bosom all on flame,

Boast as thou wilt alliance with this isle,
Renounce thy title to a Briton's name:

For 'tis to him whose image* meets thine eye,
The Christian hero, Alfred, that we owe

Freedom and right, than which beneath the sky

Heaven has not richer blessings to bestow.

HOARE thankful felt th' enthusiast patriot's fire,
This sacred spot with awful reverence trod,

And bade the votive fabric to aspire,

An off'ring to his country and his God:

For when the trophy to the man was rais'd,

"Twas Heaven, who lent him, in the end was prais'd.

There is an image of Alfred, in the building, in a niche.

CONFINING JURORS FROM MEAT AND DRINK.

"For, once the jury being box'd up,

They are denied both bread and cup;
Hence, he who can hold out the longest,

Will carry his point, though not the strongest;
It may be well that this should be,

But who thinks

so,

who has been on jury?"

The Gothic nations were famous of old, for the quantities of food and drink which they consumed. The ancient Germans, and their Saxon descendants in England, were remarkable for their hearty meals. Gluttony and drunkenness were so very common, that those vices were not thought disgraceful; and Tacitus represents the former as capable of being as easily overcome by strong drink as by arms. Intemperance was so general and habitual, that no one was thought to be fit for serious business after dinner; and under this persuasion it was enacted in the laws, that judges should hear and determine causes fasting, and not after dinner.

An Italian author, in his Antiquities, plainly affirms, that this regulation was framed for the purpose of avoiding the unsound decrees consequent upon intoxication; and Dr. Gilbert Stuart, very patiently and ingeniously affirms, in his Historical Dissertation concerning the Antiquity of the British Constitution, p. 238, that from this propensity of the older Britons to indulge excessively in eating and drinking, has proceeded the restriction upon jurors and jurymen, to refrain from meat and drink, and to be even held in custody, until they had agreed upon their verdict.

EXEMPTION OF SURGEONS AND BUTCHERS FROM SERVING ON JURIES.

"Many will swoon when they do look on blood!"-Shakspeare. "But, what ceases to be novel, seemingly ceases to exist."-Bacon.

The reason commonly assigned for the privilege of surgeons, in being exempt from serving on juries is, that they are too constantly in the habit of suppressing the human feelings. But this is not the real cause of the privilege, as appears from the following extract from Andrews' History of England:

In the same year, (i. e. 1513) the Corporation of Surgeons, consisting of twelve, a number being then thought equal to the care of the metropolis, petitioned parliament to be exempted from bearing arms, or serving on juries and parish offices; and their petition was successful.

This, however, is not the case with the Knights of the Cleaver, commonly y'clep'd butchers. In M'Queen's Historical Records, we find the following notice on the subject. During this session, (1661) Mr. Hyde brought in a bill to prohibit butchers from serving on juries in cases of life and death, which unanimously passed both houses of parliament, and received the royal assent. It is very strange, continues the historian, that so judicious and humane an enactment had not been passed before; not that they (butchers) should be considered as devoid of the common feelings of humanity, but more liable to its infirmities, from their avocations necessarily compelling them to the performance of a duty, incompatible with those feelings which they hitherto had been called upon to exercise in the capacity of jurymen.

BENEFIT OF CLERGY.

As the true meaning of the term, may perhaps not be generally known, the following definition is given:

Felony, which comprehends almost numberless species of crimes, is subdivided into two classes; with, or without benefit of clergy. The benefit of clergy, at present, signifies an exemption from capital punishment, in all felonies where the legislature has not taken away that benefit by express words. The origin of this principle, which is very little understood, is as follows: at the time the Catholic religion was the established one in this country, the clergy claimed an exemption from punishment for all secular offences; and the legislature was so far duped by them as to grant them that privilege; therefore, whenever a priest was convicted of a crime, for which another man would suffer death, he was discharged without punishment, on proving himself to be an ecclesiastic. The clergy did not fail to avail themselves of this advantage; and committed all sorts of enormity with impunity.

This induced the parliaments at various times to subject them to capital punishments, for particular offences, by taking away from those offences the benefit of clergy. In those dark superstitious times, every person who could read, was presumed, in law, to be a priest in orders; and till the reign of Anne, a man who was not possessed of this qualification, was liable to be hanged for an offence, which one possessed of it, would only be burnt in the hand for; but since that time, laymen are allowed the benefit of clergy, once. The clergy, however, are entitled to claim it as often as they have occasion, and are exempted from the punishment of burning in the hand by the statute of 1 Edward VI., which extends the same privilege to Peers of the Realm, whom it also exempts from capital punishment, for the crimes of house-breaking, highway robbery, horse stealing, and robbing of churches. Felony without benefit of clergy, are capital offences, of which, Sir William Blackstone, in his time, enumerates 160, and since his death, upwards of 50 have been added to the catalogue. It is to be hoped, that in the alteration of our Criminal Code, commenced by Mr. Peel, these circumstances will receive a due share of that gentleman's attentive consideration.

BOROUGHS.

"The sale of Seats in this House, has become as notorious as the Sun at noon-day."-Abbott.

As we are constantly hearing the word Borough-monger made use of, the original signification of the term borough is here introduced. Borough, originally meant a company, consisting of ten families, which were bound together as each other's pledge. Afterwards borough came to signify a town, having a wall, or some kind of enclosure round. And all places, that in old time had the name of borough, it is said, were fortified or fenced, in some shape or other. Borough is a place of safety, or privilege; and some are called free burghs, and the tradesmen in them free burgesses, from a freedom they had granted to them originally, to buy and sell without disturbance, and exempt from toll. Borough is now particularly appropriated to such towns or villages as send burgesses or representatives to parliament, whether they be incorporated or not. They are distinguished into those by charter or statute, and those by prescription or custom; the number in England is one hundred and forty-nine,

some of which send one, but the most of them two representatives. Royal Boroughs, in Scotland, are corporations made for the advantage of trade, by charters granted by several of their kings, having the privilege of sending commissioners to represent them in parliament, besides other immunities.

CORPORATIONS.

It is difficult to account for the origin of charter and corporation towns, unless we suppose them to have arisen out of, or been counected with, some species of garrison service. The times in which they began justify this idea. The generality of those towns have been garrisons; and the corporations were charged with the gates of the towns, when no military garrison was present. Their refusing, or granting admission to strangers, which has produced the custom of giving, selling, and buying freedom, has more of the nature of garrison authority than civil government.

Soldiers are free of all corporations throughout the nation, by the same propriety that every soldier is free of every garrison, and no other persons are. He can follow any employment, with the permission of his officers, in any corporation town throughout the nation.

FEUDAL LAWS.

The feudal (from feodal) laws, or the tenure of land, by suit and service, to the owner of it, was introduced into England by the Saxons, about 600. The slavery of this tenure increased under William I., 1068. This was dividing the kingdom into baronies, giving them to certain persons, and requiring those persons to furnish the king with money, and a stated number of soldiers.

FOREST AND GAME LAWS.

The ancient kings of Media, were, the first preservers of game. Their extensive paradises, or royal parks, contained numerous species of animals; lions, bears, camel-leopards, deer, antelopes, wild sheep, and wild asses. But as all those creatures in confinement underwent a kind of civilization, and lost the wild propensities which distinguished them in their natural state, the more adventurous portion of Median youth always sallied forth to the mountains and forests when they were desirous of exhibiting their courage or prowess. It is generally allowed by all who have made remarks, that the game laws, as they are now, and have subsisted for ages, are a disgrace to the noble fabric of our free constitution; and it is not the more remarkable, since they had their origin in slavery, as the following passage from Blackstone sufficiently demonstrates :

Another violent alteration of the English constitution, consisted in the depopulation of whole countries for the purposes of the king's royal diversion, and subjecting both them, and all the ancient forests of the kingdom, to the unreasonable severity of forest laws, imported from the continent; whereby the slaughter of a beast was made almost as penal as the death of a man. In the Saxon times, though no man was allowed to kill or chase the king's deer, yet he might start any game, pursue, and kill it, upon his own estate. But the rigour of these new constitutions, vested the property of all the game in England in the king alone; and no man was allowed to disturb any fowl of the air, or any beast of the field, of such kinds as were especially reserved for the royal amusement of the sovereign, without express license from the king, by the grant of a chase or free warren; and those franchises were granted as much with a view to

preserve the breed of animals, as to indulge the subject. From a similar principle to which, though the forest laws are now mitigated, and grown by degrees entirely obsolete; yet, from this root has sprung a bastard slip, known by the name of the Game Laws, now arrived to, and wantoning in, its highest vigour; both founded upon the same unreasonable notions of permanent property in wild creatures; and both productive of the same tyranny to the commons; but with this difference, that the forest laws established only one mighty hunter throughout the land, the game laws have raised a little Nimrod in every manor; and in one respect, the ancient law was much less unreasonable than the modern; for the king's grantee of a chase, or free warren, might kill game in any part of his franchise; but now, though a freeholder of less than one hundred a year, is forbidden to kill a partridge on his own estate, yet nobody else, (not even the lord of the manor) unless he hath a grant of free warren, can do it without committing a trespass, and subjecting himself to an action. Indeed, the whole body of the game laws, as they now stand, are replete with perplexity, absurdity, and contradiction. What can be more ridiculous, than the legislature of a mighty empire, should require one hundred a year as a qualification to shoot a poor partridge, and only forty shillings to vote for a senator? But the game laws enacted by Henry the Fourth, of France, of whom it is recorded, that he hoped to see the day, when the poorest peasant in the kingdom could have a fowl for his Sunday's dinner, is not a little curious, if we are to believe M. Lequinio, in a work published by him in the year 1792, entitled, Les Prejuges Detruits; Prejudices Destroyed. By an article of this monarch, says he, it was decreed, that every peasant found with a gun in his hand, near a thicket, should be stripped naked, and beaten with rods around it, until the blood came. So that the life of man was sacrificed to the repose and existence of hares and partridges, destined for the pleasures of the Good Henry, as every true Frenchman, we are told by other authors, gloried in styling him. It may, however, be remarked, and we question, in the words of a political writer, if since the first records of human society, there was ever introduced, in the form of law, any thing so truly despotic, as the attempt to claim a monopoly of wild animals, for certain privileged classes of people.

THE AS A MARK.

It is said that Withered, king of Kent, used the sign of the Cross for his mark to his grants, he being unable to write his name; and that from him originated the custom. It is said also, that the majority of the barons who signed Magna Charta, made their marks, being ignorant of the science of writing.*

The sign of the Cross was first used by Christians as a distinction, in 110. That of our Saviour found in Mount Calvary, 326. First set in steeples, 568.

STAMP DUTY ON RECEIPTS.

The Stamp Duty on Receipts, was first imposed during the celebrated Coalition Administration, which gave occasion for the following jeu d'esprit, at the time generally attributed to Sheridan:

"I would," says Fox, "a tax devise,
"That should not fall on me;"

"Then tax receipts," Lord North replies,
"For those, you never see!"

* See Magna Charta.

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