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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.885

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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of Commons by Messrs. Eykyn, Vernon Harcourt, Rathbone, and Viscount Sandon, except that the benefit to be derived from it will not reach the my estimation summary jurisdictions, and that in the summary jurisdictions are the most important of all the jurisdictions. It is by crushing crime in its nonage that we prevent its growth and propagation. It is said that, if we take care of the pence the pounds will take care of themselves; and I think the like may be said of the small and the great offences in regard to those classes of offences, great and small, to which a large majority of offences belongs. Great offenders in those classes have commonly begun with small offences. In France there is a Public Prosecutor for every jurisdiction from that of the "Cour de Cassation" to that of the "Tribunal de Police."

On the subject of evidence I have one question and no more. In our administration to propose, of justice the evidence of previous convictions is produced only after the verdict. I think it should be produced before. If the object is to arrive at the truth whether a man has or has not committed an offence, the fact that he has been previously once or oftener convicted of offences, especially if they be offences of the like nature, is circum- stantial evidence of a very cogent character. It may be admitted that, being of so cogent a character, it will in some cases lead the jury to convict a man of an offence he has not committed. This is not, I think, a conclusive objection to

Evidence of previous conviction-

to precede the verdict.

Conclusion,

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it. The whole tenor of our criminal statistics tends to show that when a man has been once or more convicted and is again indicted, he may be assumed with something like certainty to have committed divers offences in which he has not been detected, or for which, from defect of evidence or other causes, he has never been punished. The case is not, therefore, the grievous one of an innocent man being punished for an offence which he has not committed; nor is there any real injustice in making the previously convicted man suffer for the suspicions to which his own acts have given rise, provided every endeavour shall be used to see that those suspicions carry no more weight than is fairly due to them as circumstantial evidence.

In coming to an end of what has occurred to me as requiring attention in the construction of a Penal Code for the Crown Colonies, I would wish to explain that, although the language I have used in respect to some of the topics may have indicated that I have opinions, yet my desire has been to suggest questions for consideration, and not to anticipate the conclusions to which mature and competent consideration may lead. Much of what I have said, if deserving of consideration, will need to be considered by men whose practical conversancy with penal jurisdiction shall entitle their opinions to be regarded with respect; and

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no important innovation, not hitherto sifted in the controversies and discussions of lawyers and statesmen, should be adopted without the sane- tion of some high authority in matters of juris- prudence.

Colonial Office,

May 20, 1870.

H. T.

PRINTED AT THE FOREIGN OFFICK DY T. HARRISON.—16/6/70,