Inclosure At 3 will show the whole amount. N.3.
of Civil Business that has been done in the Court during the past three years years in its it's general and Summary jurisdiction, and from it your Lordship will perceive that there were heard and disposed. in its general jurisdiction in 1845, five, in 1846, twenty-four, and in 1847 seven cases, - or thirty-six in three years, and in its summary jurisdiction 367, in the same period. These latter, it must be remembered, are generally of the simplest kind, each party pleading his own cause: they are in fact determined in the same manner as small suits in the Courts of Requests in England; and the accumulation of them are all generally decided in one day, about 10 in number.
Inclosure 124 contains a list of the Prisoners in Jail on this date for debt: these are five in number. The cases of the three first have been finally disposed of, but those of the two last, cannot be investigated until the 24 December next, so that, as they were imprisoned in July, they must both remain in Jail for four months unless they can find Bail on Mesne Process.
Enclosure No. 5 is a copy of the Calendar of the last Criminal Sessions held in the felony. It opened on the 18th and closed on the 19th July, 10 of the intermediate days being Sunday. I enclose this document principally to prove that even on its present footing the system is open to very serious objections. It will be herein seen that there were filed 51 informations, including 56 Prisoners, and that out of them 13, including 20 prisoners, fell to the ground; chiefly, indeed I may say entirely, from the absence of evidence - the parties had been committed having left the Colony. Although the result would no doubt have been different, had the above stated, been tried within a month after commitment, still as the matter now stands,