[ 472°] 
{Dee. I, 
“INCIDENTS, MARRIAGES, snp DEATHS, .1n anv yEaR LONDON; 
With Biographical Memoirs of distinguished Characters recently deceased. 
—~ 
CHRONOLOGY OF THE MONTH. 
CTY. 24.—A murder, committed on one 
Weare, in Gill’s Hill-lane, near Elstree 
by apparently-previous contrivance, while 
riding in a chaise at eight at night towards 
the house of one Probert. The body was 
thrown into Probert’s fish-pond; but af- 
terwards coolly removed to another pond 
three miles distant, the clothes and pro- 
perty being divided in Probert’s parlour, 
On the apprehension of the parties, Hunt 
made such confessions as led to the disco- 
very of the body, and J. ‘Thurtell, Pro- 
bert, and Hunt, have been committed to 
Hertford gaol, together with some females 
of the house. The newspapers being 
without other subjects of interest, bave 
vied during the month in theirdetails, and 
thas a degree of public attention has been 
drawn to the subject far beyond its. rela- 
tive importance: at the same time, the 
education and family-connections of the 
parties considered, the crime and their 
subsequent conduct, afiord a_ striking 
proof of the moral depravity of the fash- 
gonable ruffians who frequent gaming 
houses and boxing matches. ‘As friends of 
justice, and the liberal spirit of our laws, 
we enter our protest against the prece- 
dent attempted to be established in this 
obnoxious case, by shutting up prisoners 
in secret after the manner of the dungeons 
of the Inquisition,and the gaols of Austria, 
Russia, and Turkey. This execrable and 
constantly encroaching system arises no 
doubt from so often allowing narrow apd 
intolerant minds to mix with the secular 
power... Priests in power are every- 
where and always the same, We know 
not whois to blame; but, in the present 
case, the prisoners and their connections 
scem to have been treated as though they 
had been’ conspiratots against the state, 
having confederates whose intercourse 
with them might lead to public danger. 
It appears to us, that, having secured any 
culprits, the law before trial has no farther 
controul over them than to prevent their 
escape ; and that no pretence of ordinary 
danger, even from escape, ought to de- 
prive an accused paity, after commitment 
for trial, of the freest and most unreserved 
access to his friends, witnesses, and con- 
nexions. Any hindrance is an ebstruc- 
tion of justice; and, so far from: friends 
being obliged to apply for a magistrate’s 
order, or to be subject to interrogatories, 
they onght to receive every facility and 
encouragement; for it is no small sacritice 
to visit those accused of crimes, and cleri- 
cal magistrates at least ought to-remem- 
ber the phrase, “J was in prison, and ye 
visited me.” We Jament to say, that, under 
one’ pretence or another, the practice of 
our laws is losing its ancient liberal cha- 
racter; and, as a means of restoring their 
true spirit in this particular, we exhort m- 
dependent men on petty juries, as ofter 
as they see occasion, to put the following 
questions to prisoners arraigned on their 
trial: Since yeur commitment, have you had 
Sree access to your friends, to concert the 
means of your defénce?—When were you 
served with a copy of the indictment ?—When 
did you learn that the Grand Jury had found 
a true Bill against you?— Have you hat 
time or means since then to give notice to 
your friends and summon ‘your witnésses? 
‘The answer to these questions would prt 
to shame any new-fangled practices of 
benches of magistrates, and afew deferred 
trials, or acquittals, from obstructions to 
the defence, would correct a vicious and 
cruel system. So far is genuine English 
law, as practised by lawyers and well-edu- 
cated country gentlemen, from countenanc- 
ing the modern practice, that it assumes the 
innocence of every man till convicted bya 
jury, and‘ the jndges humanely assign 
council to prisoners when from poverty 
they are unable to retain them. In. 
making these observation’, we are not ad- 
dressing those who, with Draco, think it is 
a compromise with crime not to punish 
every offence with death, nor those who 
will permit a bad precedent to be formed, 
because the offence cliarged is of heinous 
character; but we address them to 
those who in these practices of police aud 
clerical magistrates, can read “‘ the sigus 
of the times.’ Happily, however, any 
honest and independent man on’ @ petty 
jury has it in his power to put the newly- 
imported system to the routé on British 
soil; and to this extent, therefore, the 
legal security of our lives and liberties are 
iu the keeping of the people as long as a 
manly sense of liberty and independence 
exists among us. On a motion on this 
subject in the King’s Bench, the courtry 
magistrates of the kingdom received a 
lesson from the judges, which we hope will 
diminish the horrid, cruel, and wojust, in- 
quisition held over prisoners only com- 
mitted for trial. A very loosely expressed 
clause of an Act of Parliament gives 
power,-to be properly exercised, to these 
local authorities; but, m truth, no con- 
troul ought in general to interfere with the 
free access of’ all applicants before trial, 
and ought (if ever) to be exerted only in 
very special cases, and by some justifiable 
and paipable necessity. English’ gaols 
should not be rendered BasTsLes by any 
iliberal and tyrannical spirit of a, preju- 
diced and narrow-minded local magis 
tracy. 
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