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"a peculiarity, and also shows such an obvious neglect of the most natural and important way of obtaining information, that it requires some strong justification before it can be considered as anything else than a defect. It is remarkable that this omission, which is one of the most characteristic peculiarities of the English system of procedure, owes its origin to nothing else than recent practice. It rests upon no express authority, and no general principle recently laid down," he remarks.
The practice of the Courts, up to the time of the Revolution of 1688, and for some little time after, was that the prisoner should be questioned at his trial; and till the year 1840, the Committing Magistrate were bound by statute to take his examination—a word which materially suggests questioning and was held to justify it.
At the risk of unduly lengthening this Report, I cannot refrain from quoting the following pertinent observations from the same learned writer, premising that the remarks have a peculiarly forcible bearing on the case of Chinese prisoners, who, through stupidity and entire ignorance of our forms of law,