CO885(2-3) — Page 393

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Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. May 20, 1870.

Some Considerations preliminary to the Preparation of a Penal Code for the Crown Colonies.

Description of the Criminal Law

of England.

THE Criminal Law of England has been described, I believe correctly, as follows:

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"It consists of three parts: First, the Old Common Law, a crude and meagre theory, adapted to a rough state of society long since passed away; secondly, a vast mass of unsystematic and ill- arranged Acts of Parliament, rendered necessary by the defects of this system, unconnected with cach other, passed at different times, written in different styles, intended for different purposes, and finally consolidated into small number of Acts faithfully preserving the confusion and in- tricacy of the materials out of which they were put together; thirdly, a number of cases filling many volumes, and deciding isolated points as they happened to arise, totally unarranged, glancing at innumerable questions which they do not solve, and which never will be solved till some circumstance occurs to call for their solution. This is the bad side of the criminal law. Its good side is, that it is the work of successive genera-

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