and unadvised discourse, a heedless species of contempt which is punished by our law with fine and imprisonment. A contempt may also arise from refusing or neglecting to take the oaths, appointed by statute for the better securing the government; and yet acting in a public office, place of trust, or other capacity, for which the said oaths are required to be taken. But an act of indemnity is now passed annually, to relieve all such persons as through ignorance of the law, absence, or unavoidable accident, have omitted to do so.

5. Contempts against the royal palaces or courts of justice have always been looked upon as high misprisions; striking in the superior courts of justice, in Westminster-hall, or at the assizes, being still more penal than even in the royal palace. This offence was at one time punishable with the loss of the right hand, imprisonment for life, and forfeiture of goods and chattels, and of the profits of his lands during life; but would not now be so dealt with. A rescue of a prisoner comes under this head, being a high contempt, punishable by fine and imprisonment at the discretion of the court.

Not only such as are guilty of an actual violence, but of threatening or reproachful words to any judge sitting in the courts, are guilty of a high misprision, and have been punished with large fines, imprisonment, and corporal punishment. Likewise all such as are guilty of any injurious treatment to those who are immediately under the protection of a court of justice, are punishable by fine and imprisonment: as if a man assaults or threatens his adversary for suing him, a counsellor or attorney for being employed against him, a juror for his verdict, or endeavours to dissuade a witness from giving evidence.

CHAPTER X.

OF OFFENCES AGAINST PUBLIC JUSTICE.

Falsifying records-Obstructing process-Assaulting officers in the performance of their duty-Escape-Breach of prison-Rescue-Returning from transportation-Taking reward to help to return of stolen goods-Receiving stolen goods-Theft-bote-Common barretry-Maintenance Champerty -Compounding informations-Conspiracy-Threatening letters-Perjury -Subornation-Bribery-Embracery-Negligence in public offices-Oppression of magistrates-Extortion.

THE order of our distribution next leads us to take into consideration such offences as more especially affect the commonwealth, or public polity of the kingdom, which may be classed under five heads: viz.,

offences against public justice, against the public peace, against public trade, against the public health, and against the public police or economy: of each of which we will take a cursory view in their order.

First, then, of offences against public justice, some are felonious, others only misdemeanors.

1. Embezzling or vacating records, or falsifying certain other proceedings in a court of judicature, is a felonious and highly penal offence; for no man's property would be safe, if records might be suppressed or falsified or persons' names be falsely usurped in courts, or before their public officers. A great variety of statutes have accordingly provided for the punishment of offences of this nature; the earliest of which was in the reign of Richard II. But the law on this subject having been recently consolidated by the statute 24 & 25 Vict. c. 98, it is enough to refer the reader to that act.

2. A second offence against public justice is obstructing the execution of lawful process. This is at all times an offence of a very high and presumptuous nature; but more particularly so when it is an obstruction of an arrest upon criminal process. Formerly one of the greatest obstructions to public justice was the multitude of privileged places where indigent persons assembled together to shelter themselves from justice, especially in London and Southwark, under the pretext of their having been ancient palaces of the crown, or the like: all of which sanctuaries for iniquity are now demolished. The opposing of any process therein was by several statutes made highly penal; and so is any resistance or obstruction to, or assault committed upon, a peace officer in the execution of his duty. The wilful refusal, indeed, of any person to aid a peace officer in the execution of his duty in preserving the peace, is an indictable misdemeanor at common law.

3. An escape of a person arrested upon criminal process, by eluding the vigilance of his keepers before he is put in hold, is also an offence against public justice, punishable by fine or imprisonment. The officer permitting such escape, either by negligence or connivance, is evidently much more culpable than the prisoner; but private individuals, who have persons lawfully in their custody, are not less guilty of this offence if they suffer them illegally to depart, for they may at any time protect themselves from liability by delivering over their prisoner to a peace-officer.

4. Breach of prison by the offender himself, when committed for any cause, was felony at common law; but this severity was mitigated by the statute de frangentibus prisonam, 1 Edw. II. stat. 2.

To break prison and escape, when lawfully committed for any treason or felony, remains still felony as at the common law; but to break prison whether it be the county gaol, the stocks, or other usual place of security, when lawfully confined upon any inferior charge, is punishable as a misdemeanor by fine and imprisonment.

5. Rescue is the forcibly and knowingly freeing another from an arrest or imprisonment; and it is generally the same offence in the stranger so rescuing, as it would have been in a gaoler to have voluntarily permitted an escape. Aiding a prisoner to escape from gaol is equally and in some respects more penal. So strict indeed is the law with regard to offences of this nature, that to rescue, or attempt to rescue, the body of the murderer after execution, is itself a felony, punishable by penal servitude for seven or not less than five years.

6. Another and necessarily highly penal offence against public justice is the returning from transportation, or being at large in Great Britain, before the expiration of the term for which the offender was ordered to be transported, or had agreed to transport himself, or been sentenced to penal servitude.

7. A seventh offence against public justice is taking a reward, under pretence of helping the owner to his stolen goods. This was a contrivance carried to a great length of villany in the beginning of the reign of George I., the confederates of the felons thus disposing of stolen goods, at a cheap rate, to the owners themselves, and thereby stifling all further inquiry. The famous Jonathan Wild had under him a well-disciplined corps of thieves, who brought in all their spoils to him; and he kept a sort of public office for restoring them to the owners at half price. To prevent which audacious practice, to the ruin and in defiance of public justice, the offender was by 4 Geo. I. c. 11, liable to suffer as the felon who stole them; unless he caused such principal felon to be apprehended and brought to trial, and also gave evider.ce against him. Wild, still continuing in his old practice, was at last convicted and executed upon this very statute; which has, however, been superseded by more modern enactments, making the offence a felony, punishable with penal servitude or with imprisonment, with or without hard labour and solitary confinement.

8. Receiving of stolen goods, knowing them to be stolen, is also a high misdemeanor and affront to public justice. This offence, which is only a misdemeanor at common law, has been the subject of several enactments, many of which have been recently consolidated by statute 24 & 25 Vict. c. 96. The receiver of goods feloniously stolen, is now guilty of felony; and may be indicted and convicted either as an accessory after the fact, or for a substantive felony; and in the latter case, whether the principal felon shall or shall not have

been previously convicted, or shall or shall not be amenable to justice. Where the original stealing or converting of the property is a misdemeanor, the receiver is guilty of a misdemeanor, and where it is punishable on summary conviction, the receiver is liable to the same punishment.

9. Of a nature somewhat similar to the two last species of offences, is theft-bote; which is where the party robbed not only knows the felon, but also takes his goods again, or other amends, upon agreement not to prosecute. This is frequently called compounding of felony; and formerly was held to make a man an accessory; but is now punished only with fine and imprisonment. To advertise a reward for the return of things stolen, or lost, with no questions asked, or words to the same purport, subjects the advertiser and the printer or publisher to a forfeiture of 50l. to any person who will sue for the same, who is entitled also to his full costs of suit.

10. Common barretry is the offence of frequently exciting and stirring up suits and quarrels, either at law or otherwise, and was the subject of a prohibitory statute as early as the reign of Edward I. The punishment for this offence, in a common person, is by fine and imprisonment; but if the offender, as is too frequently the case, belongs to the profession of the law, a barretor, who is thus able as well as willing to do mischief, ought also to be disabled from practising for the future. Many such offenders flourish among us, as it seems to be next to impossible to prosecute or convict them. Hereunto may also be referred another offence, of equal malignity and audaciousness; that of suing another in the name of a fictitious plaintiff; either one not in being at all, or one who is ignorant of the suit. This offence, if committed in any of the superior courts, is left, as a high contempt, to be punished at their discretion. But in courts of a lower degree, where the crime is equally pernicious, but the authority of the judges not equally extensive, it is directed by statute 8 Eliz. c. 2, to be punished by six months' imprisonment, and treble damages to the party injured.

11. Maintenance is an offence that bears a near relation to the former; being an officious intermeddling in a suit that no way belongs to one, by maintaining or assisting either party with money or otherwise, to prosecute or defend it. A man may however maintain the suit of his near kinsman, servant, or poor neighbour, out of charity and compassion, with impunity. Otherwise the punishment is fine and imprisonment; and by the statute 32 Hen. VIII. c. 9, a forfeiture of ten pounds.

12. Champerty, campi partitio, is a species of maintenance, and punished in the same manner: being a bargain with a plaintiff or

defendant campum partire, to divide the land or other matter sued for between them, if they prevail at law; whereupon the champertor is to carry on the party's suit at his own expense. These last two offences relate chiefly to the commencement of civil suits: but,

13. The compounding of informations upon penal statutes are offences of an equivalent nature in criminal causes. Accordingly, to discourage malicious informers, and to provide that offences, when once discovered, shall be duly prosecuted, any person making any composition without leave of the court, or taking any money or promise from the defendant to excuse him, forfeits 107., and is liable to fine and imprisonment. It has not yet occurred to the legislature apparently, that this and many cognate offences might be prevented, by assigning the duty of prosecuting the offender to a public officer.

14. A conspiracy also to indict an innocent man of felony falsely and maliciously, is a further abuse and perversion of public justice; for which the party injured may either have a civil action; or the conspirators, for there must be at least two to form a conspiracy, may be indicted at the suit of the crown, and were by the ancient common law to receive what is called the villenous judgment; viz., to lose their liberam legem, whereby they were discredited and disabled as jurors or witnesses; to forfeit their goods and chattels, and lands for life; to have those lands wasted, their houses razed, their trees rooted up, and their own bodies committed to prison. But the villenous judgment is by long disuse become obsolete; it not having been pronounced for some ages: but instead thereof the delinquents are sentenced to imprisonment and fine.

To this head may be referred the offence of accusing any person of a crime, or of an attempt to commit a rape, or infamous crime, with a view to extort money, an offence of so atrocious a nature that it may be punished with penal servitude for life.

15. The next offence against public justice is the crime of wilful and corrupt perjury; which is defined by Sir Edward Coke, to be a crime committed when a lawful oath is administered, in some judicial proceeding, to a person who swears wilfully, absolutely, and falsely, in a matter material to the issue or point in question. The common law takes no notice of any perjury but such as is committed in some court of justice, having power to administer an oath; or before some magistrate or proper officer, invested with a similar authority, in some proceedings relative to a civil suit or a criminal prosecution: for it esteems all other oaths unnecessary at least, and therefore will not punish the breach of them. The statute 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 62, however, substituting declarations in lieu of oaths in various cases, subjects all false declarations to the penalties of perjury; and a great