A General View of the Criminal Law of England

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The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd., 4 Αυγ 2021 - 514 σελίδες

"Probably the Best Modern History of a Particular Branch of English Law"


"When it appeared in 1883 it was probably the best modern history of a particular branch of English law that had yet appeared in England. It won high praise from Pollock and Maitland. English criminal law, they said, will be fortunate in its historians, 'for it will fall into the hands of Matthew Hale and Fitzjames Stephen.' Though the more intensive study of the earlier history of our law has rendered some parts of it obsolete, it is still the best history of the later stages of the law. And it has another merit which it can never lose. The fact that its author was a practising lawyer and a judge, gives to his account of many parts of the law, and especially to his analysis of famous trials, the reality and vividness which comes of practical experience."

-William S. Holdsworth, The Historians of Anglo-American Law 78.


Sir James Fitzjames Stephen [1829-1894] was a distinguished and influential lawyer, judge, writer and law reformer. When he was the legal member of the Imperial Legislative Council in India, he drafted twelve acts and eight other enactments. Most of these, such as the Indian Evidence Act, are in force today. His 1878 Digest of Criminal Law, a codification, though never adopted in Great Britain, was the basis of the criminal codes of Canada, New Zealand and several colonies of Australia. Also a philosopher, he was a leading critic of John Stuart Mill.


xii, 499 pp.

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Σελίδα 157 - Having heard the evidence, do you wish to say anything in answer to the charge? You are not obliged to say' anything, unless you desire to do so, but whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence...
Σελίδα 36 - Queen, or of their eldest son and heir; or if a man do violate the King's companion, or the King's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the King's eldest son and heir; or if a man do levy war against our lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be provably attainted of open deed by the people of their condition.
Σελίδα 36 - Heir ; or if a Man do violate the King's Companion, or the King's eldest Daughter unmarried, or the Wife of the King's Eldest Son and Heir ; or if a Man do levy War against our Lord the King...
Σελίδα 57 - You shall well and truly try, and true deliverance make, between our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at the bar, whom you shall have in charge, and a true verdict give, according to the evidence. So help you God.
Σελίδα 254 - Though the Being to whom the miracle is ascribed be, in this case, Almighty, it does not, upon that account, become a whit more probable ; since it is impossible for us to know the attributes or actions of such a Being, otherwise than from the experience which we have of his productions in the usual course of nature.
Σελίδα 47 - By this statute it is enacted that if any person shall of malice aforethought and by lying in wait unlawfully cut out or disable the tongue, put out an eye, slit the nose, cut off a nose or lip, or cut off or disable any limb or member, of any other person, with intent to maim or disfigure him, such person, his counsellors, aiders, and abettors, shall be guilty of felony without benefit of clergy.
Σελίδα 55 - whosoever, being a bailee of any chattel, money, or valuable security, shall fraudulently take or convert the same to his own use, or the use of any person other than the owner thereof, although he shall not break bulk or otherwise determine the bailment, shall be guilty of larceny...
Σελίδα 61 - The King our Sovereign Lord remembereth how by unlawful maintenances, giving of liveries, signs, and tokens and retainders by indentures, promises, oaths, writings or otherwise, embraceries of his subjects, untrue demeanings of sheriffs in making of panels and other untrue returns, by taking of money by juries, by great riots and unlawful assemblies, the policy and good rule of this realm is almost subdued...
Σελίδα 301 - ... the circumstances of the supposed statement, sufficient to designate the particular occasion, must be mentioned to the witness, and he must be asked whether or net he has made such statement.
Σελίδα 99 - The criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in much the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite.

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