12 



there are three classes of cases: first, a class of mhior 

 offences in which the judges of the jjolice and district 

 courts have the duty of imposing a penalty if the accused is 

 found guilty, always subject to his right to an appeal and to 

 a trial by jury ; that there is a second class of cases, some- 

 what more serious in their nature, in which the judges of 

 the lower courts have what is called concurrent jurisdiction, 

 that is either the power to impose a penalty within certain 

 limits, or to bind over the accused to await the action of the 

 grand jury ; and that there is a third class of cases where 

 the power of the magistrate of the lower court is confined 

 simply to committing the accused to await the action of the 

 grand jury, and to answer to their presentment in the 

 superior court. 



On the first Monday of October next, experience tells me 

 that there will come for the consideration of the grand jury, 

 a certain number of cases where the defendants have been 

 accused in the lower courts of crimes not within the power 

 of those courts to punish, and there have solemnly pleaded 

 that they were guilty. Under the law, the cases nuist 

 still be brought to the grand jury and proved against tiie 

 defendant, an indictment found, returned to the superior 

 court, and disposed of there. In the meantime, a man who 

 has pleaded guilty in May or June may be kept in confine- 

 ment until October, simply because no provision is made by 

 the law for the speedy punishment of a man who has con- 

 fessed that he is guilty and is ready to take the sentence 

 which the law affixes to his crime. Consider what an 

 amount of useless and expensive work is done. The pris- 

 oner is confined at the expense of the county for perhaps 

 several months. It is an injustice to him as well. The 

 time of the grand jury, itself valuable and expensive, is 



