termed " Death Warrants." Such, however, not only is not the case in England, but, so far as our knowledge goes, never has been. The only au thority for the execution of a criminal is the verbal sentence of the judge, pronounced in open court, in a prescribed form of words. This the sheriff or his deputy is bound to hear and to execute. After the offenders are tried, the judge (or, at the Old Bailey, the Recorder) signs a list containing the names, offences, and punishments of the convicts, and the names of the prisoners acquitted; and a copy is given to the sheriff. The list (commonly called a calendar) is, however, a mere memoran dum, and of no binding authority whatever. Lord Hale, in the second volume of his " Pleas of the Crown," records the case of a judge refusing to sign any calendar, fearing, he said, it might grow into a rule; the sheriff, believing that the calendar was really necessary, neglected to execute a crim inal who had been capitally convicted, and he was heavily fined in consequence; the law being dis tinctly laid down by Lord Hale, and the other judges of the time, that the verbal sentence was "the only and sufficient authority." So important, indeed, does the law deem this verbal sentence of death to be, that it is very reluctant to use it in cases where probably it will not be carried into effect; and in such cases the judge is empowered by act of Parliament to abstain from passing sen tence of death, and to order such sentence to be recorded only. At the Old Bailey the custom for merly was for the Recorder, at the termination of each session, to wait upon the sovereign with a list of all the prisoners lying under sentence of death; and after explaining the several cases, to receive the royal pleasure thereon, and then by a warrant under his (the Recorder's) hand, directed to the sheriffs, to command execution to be done on a day and at a place therein named. This practice continued until the accession of her pres ent Majesty, in the first year of whose reign Mr. Baron Parke (afterwards Lord Wensleydale) tried a man at the Old Bailey for a certain offence still, by the letter of the law, capital. From motives of delicacy it was deemed highly inexpedient to lay the details of the crime before the Queen; and in order to prevent an infringement of the law by neglectmg to do so, a bill was hurried through Parliament, the rst Victoria, cap. 77, by the first section of which it was enacted that for the future it should not " be necessary that any report should
be made to her Majesty, her heirs and -her suc cessors, in the case of any prisoner convicted be fore the Central Criminal Court, and now or who may hereafter be under sentence of death." Thus the practice at the Old Bailey is now assimilated, to that of all the other courts in the kingdom, and the sovereign is never consulted about any capital offences whatever. (" Things Not Generally Known," by John Timbs.) Phocius, in his Bibliotheque, dwells with great satisfaction on a decision of the Athenians as to the conduct of one of their judges sitting in the Areopagus. That court sat upon a hill in the openair; and one day a sparrow pursued by a hawk darted into the midst of them for refuge. It took shelter in the bosom of one of the judges, who was of a harsh and passionate temper. Taking hold of the little trembler, he threw it off with such vio lence as to kill it on the spot. The whole assem bly were filled with indignation at this cruelty. The judge was instantly arraigned for it, and by the unanimous vote of his colleagues he was de graded and ejected from his seat on the bench. Under the statutes of the State of Minnesota, any person who shall use, in reference to and in the presence of another, abusive and obscene lan guage intended and naturally tending to provoke an assault or any breach of the peace, is guilty of a misdemeanor. Under this statute a justice of the peace in one of the interior counties of Minnesota drew a com plaint upon which a warrant was issued and the defendant brought into court for trial. The com plaint and warrant were substantially as follows : "The complaint of J. D. of said county, before A. J. S.. one of the justices of the peace in and for said county, being duly sworn on his oath, says : That on the first day of January, 1S92, at the town of Blank, in said county, one R. F. did commit the crime of criminal conversation, in the presence of said complainant, which naturally tended to provoke an assault or breach of the peace, and prays that said R. F. mav be arrested and dealt with according to law." A white woman called on a Justice of the Peace in a Southern State some time since, and asked him to issue a " Peace Warrant for some negroes that she alleged had been giving her some
