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offender a chance of reformation should be awarded.

As to the punishment of offences committed in a state of intoxication, considered apart from punishment for the intoxication itself, perhaps they should be left, as they now are in England.

to be in strictness of law punishable in like manner as if the offender had been sober; the relaxation of a law so plainly unreasonable in its rigour, being to be entrusted to the common sense of judges and juries. When a man has reason to know from his experience that if he gets drunk be is likely to commit some outrage. the protection of others requires that he should be punished much as if he had committed the outrage with a sober will: otherwise, he should not be so punished. The state of the case should be brought out in evidence.

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wish to In making these suggestions, it is be understood as founding them on principles of universal application, and not merely on English facts and conditions. The Asiatic and African populations of the Crown Colonies are by no means as much addicted to drunkenness as the populations of England and some of the Colonies having Representative Assemblies. But the law should punish drunkenness for what it is in itself,

• Not twelve hours after writing this, however, I came across a Report of the Inspector of Prisous in Antigua, in which

be ascribes the increase of crime in that Colony, amongst other causes, to the prevalence of a large amount of drunkeu-

11ess,"

Abortive attempts.

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and what it leads to, whether the prevalence of it be more or less.

The provisions of English law which, in my view of them, stand next for reconsideration in respect of the proportion of punishments to offences, are of a class which may involve more serious differences of opinion. Throughout the Acts 24 and 25 Viet., caps. 96 and 100, there are wide distinctions taken in the punishments for crimes consummated and for attempts accidentally abortive, to commit the same crimes.

The Code Napoléon refuses this distinction in the case of "crimes," ie., the gravest class of offences :-" Toute tentative de crime qui aura été manifestée par des actes extérieurs et suivie d'un commencement d'exécution, si elle n'a été suspendue ou n'a manqué sofi effet que par des circonstances fortuites ou indépendantes de la volonté de l'auteur, est considérée comme le crime inême."*

But the provision is not extended to "délits

(ie., offences of the second order of gravity) as a general principle, but only when it is so extended by the special law relating to the offence. Austint seems to have disapproved the French law on abortive attempts as not giving a locus penitentia; but in the above article it is plainly not open to any such charge, and I think the disapproval must have had reference to some

* Code Pénal, Dispositions Préliminaires, Article 2. Austins Jurisprudence, vol. it. p. 1098). Criminal Law (chap. 4. 3.

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