568 CRIMINAL CONVERSATION 



CRIMINAL LAW 



with overwhelming masses of troops, to force the 

 allied position, which led to the sanguinary battles 

 of Balaklava (25th October) and Inkermann (5th 

 November). 



Balaklava was mainly a cavalry action, and did 

 far more credit to our soldiers' gallantry than to 

 their commanders' generalship. It will ever be 

 memorable for the glorious charge of the Light 

 Brigade, who, in obedience to a bungled order, "rode 

 a mile and a half beneath a murderous fire against 

 the Russian army in position. Faster and faster 

 grew the pace, until with a cheer that was many 

 a hero's death-cry, they broke right into the 

 battery, sabred the gunners, and burst through a 

 column of infantry. Then they paused, and cut 

 their way back ; but out of the six hundred who 

 had ridden forth, not two hundred returned. ' It 

 is magnificent, but it is not Avar,' was the comment 

 of a French general. Inkermann, known as the 

 Soldiers' Battle, was fought on a dark and drizzly 

 morning of autumn. Taken unawares, and short of 

 cartridges, 8000 British sustained for several hours 

 a hand-to-hand fight against six times that number 

 of Russians, till 6000 French came to their aid, 

 and completed the rout of the enemy. 



Throughout the ensuing winter, the allies, 

 especially the British, suffered terrible hardships, 

 owing partly to the rigour of the climate, but more 

 to the shameful breakdown of the system for pro- 

 visioning the army. The supplies of food, clothing, 

 and other necessaries were often sent where they 

 were not wanted. The hospitals, too, were fright- 

 fully mismanaged ; barely 12 per cent, of our total 

 loss in the war (20,656) dying in battle, the rest in 

 hospital. To Florence Nightingale, a lady of gentle 

 birth, was due the establishment of proper nursing 

 in the military hospitals, not merely then, but 

 thereafter. 



The prodigious extent and strength of the fortifi- 

 cations of Sebastopol (q.v.), together with the skill 

 and obstinacy of its defence, protracted the siege 

 for nearly a twelvemonth, and rendered it well-nigh 

 the greatest in history. In March 1855 died the 

 Czar Nicholas, whose ambition was the cause of the 

 contest ; but under his son and successor, Alexander 

 II. , Russia continued to sustain the enormous drain 

 on her population and resources. The trenches, or 

 lines of attack, had drawn closer and closer to the 

 Russian works, till at one point the foes were well 

 within speaking distance ; at last, on 8th Septem- 

 ber 1855, after a three days' tremendous cannonade 

 by the allies, the French stormed and carried the 

 Malakoff fort, the key of Sebastopol. That night 

 the Russians evacuated the city, or rather its blaz- 

 ing ruins. Except for the surrender of Kars in 

 Circassia, after its gallant defence by the Turks 

 under Colonel Williams, a British officer, the war 

 ended with the fall of Sebastopol. In March 1856 

 a treaty of peace was signed at Paris, by which 

 Russia lost all she had gained or attempted to 

 gain ; but the article prohibiting Russia from build- 

 ing arsenals or having war-ships on the Black Sea 

 (q.v.) was abrogated in 1871. See Kinglake's 

 Invasion of the Crimea (8 vols. 1863-87), and books 

 on the war by Sir E. Hamley (1891), Sir D. 

 Lysons (1895), Sterling (1895), and Sir W. H. 

 Russell (1855 and 1895). 



Criminal Conversation. See ADULTERY. 



Criminal Law is that branch of law which deals 

 with crimes and their punishment, and is in use in 

 one shape or another wherever human society exists. 

 The earliest form of penal law seems to have rested 

 on a principle of private vengeance, and to have 

 taken shape in the lex talionis, the law of retalia- 

 tion formulated in the familiar passage in Exodus 

 which lays down as a fit punishment an eye for an 

 eye and a tooth for a tooth. The severity of this 



doctrine was mitigated when the right of persona 

 vengeance was satisfied by a money payment, a. 

 custom which can be traced in the early laws of the 

 Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, and which is par- 

 ticularly characteristic of early Teutonic systems. 

 of penal law. According to these a family is 

 made pecuniarily responsible for the offences of its 

 members, or accepts a fine as a compensation for 

 the life of a lost kinsman (see WEREGILD). When 

 a man was killed, a part of this fine was paid to- 

 the king or head of the community to compen- 

 sate the clan's loss of a fighting member ; and 

 in the distinction established between injuries- 

 done to the individual and injuries done ta 

 the community, the foundation of a system of 

 criminal law was laid. The sovereign power in/ 

 a community or state took up the wrongs of private 

 persons, and exercised a right of public vengeance. 

 Legislation upon this principle had for its object 

 the intimidation of the wrong-doer, and was 

 specially characterised by the great variety and 

 severity of its punishments. It was not until the 

 18th century that a more enlightened jurisprudence 

 prevailed. Beccaria's work, On Crimes and Punish- 

 ments, published in 1764, has exercised a strong 

 influence on the criminal legislation of Europe by 

 urging the claims of criminals to humane considera- 

 tion, and examining the basis in morals upon which 

 criminal law rests. The principle which Beccaria 

 opposed to the older theory ot public vengeance 

 was that of a legitimate defence restrained within 

 the limit of the common interest. The true object 

 of criminal law was set down as the amendment of 

 the criminal, and the restoration to him of the 

 rights of a free man. From this point of view 

 many jurists have opposed Capital Punishment 

 (q.v.), and some go so far as to oppose all forms of 

 corporal punishment on the ground that they de- 

 grade the criminal. The modern view gains ground 

 that crime is to be looked upon as a disease of the 

 social body, and that the remedy is to be looked for 

 rather in improved education and social well-being 

 than in a repressive system of arbitrary punish- 

 ments. The criminal law of a particular state is 

 the body of legal rules affecting the commission and 

 prosecution of crimes. See CRIME, and the several 

 articles on MURDER, THEFT, PERJURY, &c., also- 

 JUDGE, WARRANT, &c. ; and for the criminal 

 courts, see COMMON LAW (COURTS OF), ASSIZE, 

 JUSTICE (HIGH COURT OF), JUSTICIARY COURT,. 

 JURY, JUSTICE OF THE PEACE. 



The proced ure in criminal cases differs in England 

 and Scotland. In England the prosecution is at 

 the instance of the private person injured, and 

 the trial resembles an ordinary civil litigation to 

 a greater degree than is usual in other countries. 

 The proceedings begin before justices by an ' infor- 

 mation,' upon which the justices issue a summons 

 directed to the party charged, or grant a warrant 

 for apprehending him. When the person charged 

 appears, the witnesses for the prosecution are 

 examined in his presence, and he is at liberty 

 to put questions to them, either personally or by 

 counsel. After the examination the accused may 

 say anything he desires in answer to the charge, 

 but what he says is taken down, and may be given 

 in evidence against him at his trial. After the 

 statement of the accused, he may call witnesses, 

 and the justices are bound to take the statement 

 of these. Thereafter the justices may, according 

 to their opinion of the evidence, either discharge 

 the accused, or commit him to gaol, or admit him 

 to bail. The commitment is for trial, either at 

 quarter sessions or at the assizes. The first step in 

 the trial is the presentment of an indictment to the 

 grand-jury, who are chosen from gentlemen of 

 standing in the district. The grand-jury having 

 been charged by the judge, and having heard the 



