the subject of comment in this REVIEW. What the profession wants, as Lindley L.J. has said, is law, the 'legal pith' of a case and the legal pith only. Anything more than this incumbers the book and fatigues the inquirer. It is not worth while in a digest to set out a case with any fullness, because no conscientious lawyer can rely on a case in a digest. He must go to the report itself. Smelting the ore is doubtless very hard work, but it is of the essence of a good digest.

The titles and sub-titles are mostly well-chosen, and the arrangement of matter under each judicious, but there are still some anomalies. Thus ' Employer's Liability' should come under Master and Servant, 'Restraint of Trade' under Contract, Oath' under Evidence. Mischievous Animal' is not a good title. If we have Sale of Goods' as a title it would be better to put Sale of Land with it under a general title 'Sale' than under a separate title 'Vendor and Purchaser.' Why, again, should not the decisions in the Weekly Notes, not afterwards appearing in the Reports, be incorporated? They are frequently of value on points of practice.

On the whole the new Law Reports Digest marks a great advance, and if the Council follows up its improvements we shall at no distant day get what is destined to be the most useful law book of the future, an ideal digest.

And yet the vagaries of the 'Law Reports' in the choice of cases seem uncontrollable. If ever there was an unreportable case in any Court it is that of Hall v. Hall, in which the Court of Appeal have unanimously affirmed the decision of Lord Justice Fry, sitting as a judge of first instance. The case is reported in the 'Law Reports,' '91, 3 Ch. 389, and '92, 1 Ch. 361, occupying in all thirteen pages. It was a case upon the proper construction of a very peculiar will, very inartificially drawn by a commercial traveller. Lord Justice Kay said in terms that the construction would, in his opinion, lay down no canon to guide in the construction of another will, unless another will should be made in identical language. This is a thing which is hardly within the range of possibility. In the face of this remark the case is fully reported in each stage, thus adding a substantial weight to the burden under which subscribers to the 'Law Reports' groan. The initials responsible for the case are H. C. J., and in the Court of Appeal M. W. Where is the editorial power? Why should subscribers be laden with three volumes of Chancery decisions every year when cases of this type might be ignored? The strongest reporters who ever worked on the Law Reports are responsible for the thinnest volumes in the Exchequer and Exchequer Division.

One has a difficulty in perceiving what is gained by reporting the case of Claridge v. South Staffordshire Tramway Co., '92, 1 Q. B. 422 (the May number). Can there possibly be any doubt of the difference between the proposition that a bailee may maintain an action for injury to the chattel by negligence, equally with the bailor, and the proposition that he can recover the same amount of damages that the bailor is entitled to? Perhaps the report, and even the appeal itself, may be due to a confused recollection of the point discussed in Johnson v. Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Co. 3 C. P. D. 499.

We should be leaving a pleasant duty unperformed did we not draw the attention of English lawyers to a series of admirable articles in the Harvard Law Review written by Mr. J. B. Thayer. He is tracing the history of trial by jury and the history of the law of evidence, and is bringing to light many things that have escaped the eye of earlier explorers. He shares with his colleague, Mr. J. B. Ames, a mastery of the Year Books which must be very rare even on the American side of the Atlantic. The Harvard Law Review is rapidly making itself an absolutely indispensable member of the library of every one who has any care for the history of the common law.

Among recent additions to the materials for English legal history we must notice Three Early Assize Rolls for the County of Northumberland,' edited by Mr. William Page and issued by the Surtees Society. The Surtees is constantly proving itself to be the most enlightened of all our local antiquarian societies. On this occasion it has published among its subscribers three judicial rolls of the thirteenth century which are full of interesting and valuable cases, and which should be read by many who are not Northumbrians. In his preface Mr. Page pleads that he is a beginner. He has made an excellent beginning.

It seems convenient to repeat in a conspicuous place that it is not desirable to send MS. on approval without previous communication with the Editor, except in very special circumstances; and that the Editor, except as aforesaid, cannot be in any way answerable for MSS. 80 sent.

R

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE IN FRANCE.

ECENT events have brought prominently before the notice of the British public the manner in which people are arrested and the charges against them investigated in France, and I purpose in this paper to give a short sketch of criminal procedure in that country.

To go minutely into the very complicated provisions of the law on this subject and describe the varied attributes and powers of the numerous functionaries who compose what is called in France 'la police judiciaire' would be probably both too long and too technical to interest even professional readers. I shall therefore merely attempt here to give an outline of the main features of a criminal investigation in France. Let us suppose that a man is accused of a crime in that country either by a verbal accusation to a passing policeman, as in the case of the two Englishmen which not long ago created so considerable a sensation, or by a formal and written communication to the Procureur de la République, or Public Prosecutor. The judicial machine has now been set in motion; let us see how the matter is conducted, following the affair through its various stages until it reaches the Cour d'Assises. A charge made in the public street to a policeman on duty being a matter of everyday occurrence to which any one may be subjected without warning, it will perhaps be more convenient to start from this point. The accused person is taken into custody, let us suppose, on the Place de l'Opéra or the Boulevard des Italiens. The first step is to take him to the nearest Commissariat de Police. If the Commissaire is at the police station at the time he will be interviewed at once, but the duties of that important functionary being extremely manifold he is not unlikely to be out, in which case the accused person will of course be detained till his return. Having been rapidly examined by the Commissary, the evidence of the accuser and of the policeman having been taken down in writing, the accused person will probably be told that the charges against him are very grave and that the 'dossier' (the case) will be immediately sent to the Public Prosecutor and the Juge d'instruction. It is this latter personage in whose hands is placed in practice the sole conduct of every criminal case, and his powers are enormous.

The

accused person is detained as a matter of course at the 'Poste' or lock-up till the wishes of the Juge d'instruction are ascertained. This magistrate-who is one of the Judges of the Tribunal of the locality, nominated to the functions of a Juge d'instruction for three years with the possibility of continuance at the end of that periodwill issue a mandat de comparution,' ordering the accused person to be brought before him if such person is already in custody. Otherwise he issues a 'mandat d'amener,' which is equivalent to our magistrate's warrant. The prisoner is then brought before him, as a rule pretty promptly, in his private room at the Palace of Justice. And now begins that system of criminal procedure initiated in France but now common to most other countries in Europe, which is so utterly foreign to the English notion of criminal law and justice that an Englishman who is not acquainted with it has great difficulty in believing it to be true, while those who know it well seldom become reconciled to its extraordinary methods. The whole aim and object of the procedure is, as soon as the authorities become convinced of the prisoner's guilt-a conviction at which they frequently arrive with unwarrantable haste -to force that unhappy individual to confess his sins. Physical torture has been abolished, as most people are aware, for some time in criminal procedure, but it is doubtful whether the rack and the thumbscrew were much harder to bear than the mental torture to which prisoners are subjected in France from their first interview with the Juge d'instruction to the close of their trial at the Cour d'Assises. For unfortunately and almost inevitably with men whose functions are exclusively criminal and who are daily in the habit of employing these peculiar methods for extracting the truth, the Juge d'instruction has almost always a more or less well-defined bias against the prisoner. In the case we have supposed, he will have read the depositions of the accuser, the policeman, and the commissary of police before he sees the prisoner. Then the interrogatoire' begins. It is directed more usually than not and more or less to the knowledge of the Juge d'instruction himself to prove that the prisoner is guilty of the offence of which he is charged. The accusation is prima facie true-this, I mean, is the often unconscious idea in the mind of the Juge d'instructionand everything alleged by the prisoner in his defence must be most carefully verified. Let it be noted, moreover, that the accused person has to grapple singlehanded with the Judge, the police, and the accuser. He is not allowed any professional advice, and everything he says or omits to say will be used against him to the utmost advantage. There is a law at present under discussion for permitting the prisoner to be assisted by counsel during his ex

amination by the Juge d'instruction, but it has been under discussion for several years now and has not yet become law.

At the close of several hours of cross-questioning of this kind the magistrate issues a 'mandat de dépôt' if he thinks there is a prima facie case against the prisoner, and the latter is incarcerated for the present. This is one of the enormous powers before alluded to of the Juge d'instruction.

By virtue of this 'mandat de dépôt the prisoner can be kept in custody for months, being brought up from time to time for fresh interviews with the Juge d'instruction, when the same harrying, bullying, and badgering is renewed, 'pour amener des aveux!' There is no effective means of checking this power. The Juge d'instruction is nominally under the control of the Procureur Général and the Courts of Appeal, but neither one nor the other ever interfere with the discretion of the Judge in this matter.

The prisoner may be liberated on bail by the Judge in criminal cases, and for misdemeanours punishable with less than two years' imprisonment liberty on bail may be demanded as a right five days after the first examination for all persons domiciled in the locality—a provision which of course generally puts foreigners out of court. If the Judge refuses bail the prisoner can appeal from prison to the Chambre des mises en accusation, a branch of the Court of Appeal-this is the nearest approach to our Habeas Corpus-but he will have to make out an overwhelmingly strong case to induce that Court to interfere with the Judge. Practically, as was before stated, the Juge d'instruction is supreme.

Let us now suppose that the preliminary investigation known to French law as 'l'instruction' is terminated, and the Judge has rendered an 'ordonnance de renvoi,' that is an order that the case be tried-the committal for trial of our magistrates.

The Procureur-Général-the head of the department of public prosecution who is kept informed of every affair by the Judge of instruction-is officially apprised of the termination of the investigation, and of the decision of the Juge d'instruction. If the charge is a mere misdemeanour the case goes before the 'Tribunal de police correctionnelle,' a court composed of three judges without a jury. But it will be more interesting to suppose that the matter in question is a crime. In that case it will be sent before the Cour d'Assises, where there are three judges of the Court of Appeal and a jury. But there is a preliminary step in this event. The whole case, together with all the evidence and the judges' notes, is sent to the 'Chambre des mises en accusation,' which proceeds to a more or less cursory examination of the affair; but it is extremely rare that it comes to a different conclusion to the

VOL. VIII.