London Legal Letter. can be let off safely, it will be a gain to so ciety and to himself. In due time he will re veal himself for what he is; and if he makes a bad use of his chance, he ought not to be suffered to escape a second time under the plea of first fault. Under the new French law, or in any law of the kind, there must necessarily be a very large discretion vested in the court. There are forms of crime to which no leniency can be shown, which carry with them their own evidence of a depravity beyond cure. But in the majority of instances, account ought to be taken of the prisoner's antecedents and of the circumstances under which he has lapsed into guilt. The object of punishment has been very variously stated. If it is to the reform of the criminal that we ought especially to look, the new French law may be thought to have the best prospect of attaining the desired end. If the aim is the safety of society, a system which tends, as we have shown, to reduce the number of criminals, gives no bad security for this. But however
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leniently the law may deal with a first, or even sometimes with a second, offence, it is mere folly and weakness to show leniency to habitual and systematic crime. The crim inal profession is not without charms of its own. Its long predatory war against so ciety has the excitement of the hunter's life, attended by a spice of danger which makes it hardly the less attractive to its true votaries and devotees. Those who have taken it up in earnest are as unfit subjects for leniency as they are hopeless subjects for reform. To catch them and presently let them loose again is only to give them new opportunities for mischief. Such punishment may deter others, but it will not deter them. Their case is beyond cure, and it must be dwelt with on a more drastic plan. Only while they are in prison are they harmless; so that society has no choice except to protect itself by keeping them there, or to put up with the certain consequences of allowing them to go at large." The working of this law will be watched with interest.
LONDON LEGAL LETTER. London. Oct. 9, 1891. TV NOTHER of the ancient landmarks of Lon don is in course of removal. Clement's Inn, associated by those who know not our city with Shakspeare's " Justice Shallow," is fast disappearing before the workman's axe and hammer, and this quaint vestige of antiquity will be replaced by highstoried buildings of familiar modern aspect. A few of these old inns still survive; and those who way faring through the great thoroughfares of Holhorn or Fleet Street, have wandered in at their vener able gateways and stood in the old courtyards surrounded by houses scarcely changed through several centuries, have lived for at least a few moments in the past of England. As was expected, the Ixird Advocate for Scot land, Mr. J. P. B. Robertson, has become Lord President of the Court of Session, in room of the late Lord Inglis, of whom I wrote in my last letter.
Sir Henry Hawkins, one of the most popular of our judges, has now almost entirely recovered from the very serious illness which prostrated him dur ing the earlier part of the vacation and caused the most serious anxiety to his many friends. He has benefited very largely by a trip on the Continent. Mr. Justice Hawkins practises frequently on the bench that great gift of cross-examination which was his leading characteristic when at the bar. Over and over again, when the most eminent counsel are browbeating a hostile witness before him without the slightest success, the Judge will put a few quiet questions, stroking his nose with a quill the while, which secure from the witness the admis sions denied to a less adroit style of interrogation. I remember being present at a trial which took place not very long ago before Mr. Justice Hawkins. It was essential for one side to prove that a certain person had been drunk at a given time. The man in question had been spending the afternoon and
