monstrance, declaration, or other address to both or either house of parliament, for alteration of matters in church or state, on any day on which the two houses or either house of parliament shall meet or sit, nor on any day on which the courts shall sit in Westminster Hall." Magistrates will exercise their discretion in dispersing unlawful assemblies, but they will not interfere on all occasions, although they are bound to be on their guard. (See Reg. v. Neale, 9 C. & P. 431.) 3. Evidence.] What has been said upon the nature of criminal participation will show the correctness of the leading principle as to the admissibility of evidence in charges against many persons acting in concert. If they are combined to effect a common illegal purpose, each is in law a party to every act which either has been done before, or may afterwards be done, by the confederates in furtherance of the common design. Thus, for the justification of injuries inflicted in the attempt to disperse the mob at Peterloo, it was allowed, in order to prove the illegality of the assembly, to show the nature of previous meetings in the neighbourhood, the conversations of strangers going to those meetings, the general alarm in consequence thereof, the conduct of parties going to the meeting in question, and even the nature of resolutions passed at a meeting held at a distant place some time before, but presided over by the same chairman. (Redford v. Birley, 3 Stark, N. P. 76, 128; Rex v. Hunt, 3 B. & Ald. 566.) So, also, the cries of a mob in the absence of the particular person may be evidence against him if shown to have been in concert with them, or their conduct at a previous period of the day in another place, or ballads sung and papers sold at the meetings, or inscriptions on banners and placards used, at or in the immediate vicinity of a meeting. But expressions used by persons returning from such meeting are inadmissible, for that would be equivalent to a narrative or description of past events, or at most a confession. (See cases already cited, and Rex v. Watson, 32 State Trials, 349, 351; Reg. v. O'Connell, 2 Cox's Crim. Cases, 397, 401, 403; Reg. v. Shellard, 9 C. & P. 277; Reg. v. Winckworth, 4 C. & P. 444.) From this will be seen the danger of joining in any combinations by which so much responsibility may be incurred by acts of others not directly sanctioned, or perhaps even known, but which are, in contemplation of law, no less criminal. Where improper acts are done by bodies legally collected, as, for instance, police or military engaged in dispersing the mob, each person is answerable only for his own conduct, or that which he directly sanctions and approves, if such conduct be beyond what is lawful for the execution of the lawful purpose. 4. Sedition.] The following extract from the fifth report of the Criminal Law Commissioners, taken in connexion with the previous part of this chapter, will show sufficiently the nature of seditious assemblies. "Although there is no offence or class of offences recognized by the law of England under the title of sedition, there are several which are punishable by reason of their seditious tendency, viz., seditious assemblies, seditious libels, and seditious conspiracies. Such offences, though inferior to that of treason, are so far similar that they tend to injure and endanger the political constitution, by engendering public dissensions, tumults, and conflicts, by exciting discontent in men's minds against the constitution and laws, or the manner of their administration, or by exposing the Sovereign or public functionaries to hatred and contempt, and thus exciting them to effect sudden political changes by unlawful means. Such offences, therefore, may be regarded in the light of assaults on the constitution, which, although they do not aim at its destruction, ought for the sake of its safety and security to be prohibited under proportionate penalties."— (p. 17.) CHAPTER XI. CROWN AND GOVERNMENT SECURITY BILL, 1. Object of Act.] The statute of treasons, 5 Edw. 3, was passed with the intention of limiting and defining the previously indefinite offence of high treason or accroachment on the royal power; but its very simplicity led to forced and subtle interpretations,-some resting on arguments of expediency and justice, and others the offspring of the most artificial reasoning, and irreconcilable with sound principles of criminal jurisprudence. But, by degrees, the precedents became law; and the 36 Geo. 3, c. 7, made perpetual by 57 Geo. 3, c. 6, which, with the exception of "open and advised speaking," was almost in the exact words of the third section of the present statute, only declared acts to be substantive treasons, which had been established as the strongest overt acts of the several treasons specified in the statute of Edward. (See per Lord Ellenborough, 32 State Trials, 579.) The cumbrous machinery applicable to the trial of traitors, however useful as a safeguard in some instances, is ill adapted to that species of treason which is personal, rather than political, in its nature. Accordingly, by 39 & 40 Geo. 3, c. 93, and 5 & 6 Vict. c. 31, the spurious dignity of traitors is denied to those who directly attempt the life of the sovereign; and such offenders are subjected to the ordinary mode of prosecution for murder, or, if they content themselves with acts of a minor degree of violence or annoyance, are liable to the undignified punishment of imprisonment and whipping. Again an altered state of circumstances has been met by an alteration of procedure; and the general aim of the present statute is to ensure the more speedy and effectual suppression of offences, treasonable in law, but in most cases practically exempt from prosecution, by declaring them to be punishable as ordinary felonies, and thus destroying one great incentive to crimes which frequently spring from a morbid love of notoriety. We proceed, then, to notice the statute itself. The first section recites the enactments of 36 Geo. 3, c. 7, and their continuation by 57 Geo. 3, c. 6, and that doubts exist whether Ireland is within those enactments, and repeals the 36 Geo. 3, c. 7, and all the provisions in the 57 Geo. 3, c. 6, in relation thereto, 66 save such of the same respectively as relate to the compassing, imagining, inventing, devising, or intending death or destruction, or any bodily harm tending to death or destruction, maim or wounding, imprisonment or restraint of the person of the heirs and successors of his said majesty king George the Third, and the expressing, uttering, or declaring of such compassings, imaginations, inventions, devices, or intentions, or any of them." The second section then in terms extends these unrepealed enactments to Ireland. 2. Treasons made felonies.] The third section enacts, "that "if any person whatsoever after the passing of this Act shall, within the United Kingdom or without, compass, imagine, invent, devise, or intend to deprive or depose our most gracious lady the Queen, her heirs or successors, from the style, honour, or royal name of the imperial crown of the United Kingdom, or of any other of her Majesty's dominions and countries, or to levy war against her Majesty, her heirs or successors, within any part of the United Kingdom, in order by force or constraint to compel her or them to change her or their measures or counsels, or in order to put any force or constraint upon or in order to intimidate or overawe both houses or either house of parliament, or to move or stir any foreigner or stranger with force to invade the United Kingdom or any other her Majesty's dominions or countries under the obeisance of her Majesty, her heirs or successors, and such compassings, imaginations, inventions, devices, or intentions, or any of them, shall express, utter, or declare, by publishing any printing or writing, or by open and advised speaking, or by any overt act or deed, every person so offending shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be transported beyond the seas for the term of his or her natural life, or for any term not less than seven years, or to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour, as the court shall direct." It would be impossible within any moderate limits to inquire fully into the meaning of these general phrases, either as they could be determined" on consideration of former precedents," or if a bolder course were taken, and the intrinsic authority of those precedents examined, as would probably be the case should there be a court of criminal appeal (a). But it may be stated generally, that any attempt by a large body of people (a) If there had been such a court, there would have been far less truth than there is in the following remark of Mr. Hallam :"It is an unfortunate circumstance that precedents, which from the character of the times when they occurred, would lose at present all respect, having been transfused into text-books, and formed perhaps the sole basis of subsequent decisions, are still, in ⚫ not a few points, the invisible foundation of our law." (Constitutional History, 3, 214.) |