To advertise a reward for the return of property stolen or lost, with words purporting that no questions will be asked, subjects the advertiser, the printer, and the publisher to a forfeiture of £50 each.

VIII. Common barratry is the offence of frequently inciting and stirring up suits and quarrels between her Majesty's subjects either at law or otherwise. The punishment for this offence, in a common person, is by fine and imprisonment; but if the offender belongs to the profession of the law, a barrator who is thus able as well as willing to do mischief may, besides the punishment, be disabled from practising for the future. Stat. 30 & 31 Vict., c. 59, enacts “that if any one who has been convicted of forgery, perjury, subornation of perjury, or common barratry shall practise as an attorney, solicitor, or agent in any suit, the court, upon complaint, shall examine it in a summary way, and if proved, the offender shall subject himself to penal servitude for seven, or not less than five years.

Another offence of equal malignity is suing a party in the name of a fictitious plaintiff. This offence is punishable by six months' imprisonment and treble damages to the party injured.*

IX. Maintenance is an offence that bears a near relation to common barratry, being an officious intermeddling in a suit that in no way belongs to one; by maintaining or assisting either party with money or otherwise, to prosecute or defend it. This is an offence against public justice, as it keeps alive strife and contention, and perverts the remedial process of the law into an engine of oppression. A man may, however, maintain the suit of his kinsman, servant, or poor neighbour, out of charity and compassion, with impunity. The punishment by common law is fine and imprisonment.

X. Champerty [campi-partitio] is a species of maintenance, being a bargain with a plaintiff or defendant 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

* See Larceny Acts, 24 & 25 Vict., c. 96; and 31 & 32 Vict., c. 116.

expense. It in fact signifies the purchasing of a suit or right of suing, a practice so much abhorred by our law, that it is one main reason why a chose in action, or thing of which one hath the right, but not the possession, is not assignable at common law; because no man should purchase any pretence to sue in another's right. Stat. 32 Henry VIII., c. 9, provides that no one shall sell or purchase any pretended right or title to land, unless the vendor has received the profits thereof for one whole year before such grant, or has been in actual possession of the land, or of the reversion or remainder; on pain that both purchaser and vendor shall each forfeit the value of such land to the Crown and to the prosecutor.

XI. Compounding of information is an offence against public justice. It is enacted by 18 Eliz., c. 5, s. 4, that if any person informing makes any composition without leave of the court, or takes any money or promise from the defendant to excuse him which demonstrates his intent in commencing the prosecution to be merely to serve his own ends, and not for the public good, he shall, inter alia, forfeit £10, and shall be for ever disabled to sue on any popular or penal statute.

XII. Conspiracy is a combination or agreement between two or more persons to carry into effect an unlawful purpose, hurtful to some individual, or the community or public at large. Thus a conspiracy to indict an innocent man of felony falsely and maliciously, who is accordingly indicted and acquitted, is an abuse and perversion of public justice, for which the party injured may have a civil action for damages; or the conspirators may be indicted at the suit of the Crown, and the delinquents sentenced to imprisonment and fine.

XIII. Wilful and corrupt perjury 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 false oath must be taken either in a judicial proceeding, or in some other public proceeding of a like nature. It must be taken before persons lawfully authorised to

administer an oath; for a mere voluntary oath, that is, an oath administered in a case for which the law has not provided, is not one in which perjury can be assigned; for such a proceeding is not required, and therefore it is not protected by law.

Subornation of perjury is the offence of procuring another to take such a false oath as would constitute perjury in the principal. Perjury and subornation of perjury are both misdemeanors, and the punishment by common law is fine and imprisonment; but by statute, the offender may be sentenced to penal servitude for not more than seven nor less than five years.

XIV. Bribery is an offence against public justice, as when a judge or other person concerned in the administration of justice takes any undue reward to influence his behaviour in his office. This offence has always been looked upon as one of a very serious nature. Stat. 11 Henry IV. enacts that all judges and officers of the king convicted of bribery should forfeit treble the bribe, be punished at the king's will, and be discharged from the king's service for ever.*

XV. Embracery is an attempt to influence a jury corruptly to one side by promises, persuasions, entreaties, money, entertainments, and the like, and is punishable by fine and imprisonment.

XVI. Extortion is an abuse of public justice, which consists in any officer's unlawfully taking, by colour of his office, from any man any money or thing of value that is not due to him, or more than is due, or before it is due. The punishment is fine and imprisonment, and sometimes a forfeiture of office.

XVII. Negligence of officers intrusted with the administration of justice; as a sheriff, coroner, constable, and the like, is punishable by fine, and may entail a forfeiture of office.

* As to bribery at elections of Members of Parliament, see 22 & 23 Vict., c. 48; also 32 & 33 Vict., c. 55, an Act to shorten the term of residence required as a qualification for the Municipal Franchise, and to make provision for other purposes.

CHAPTER VII.

OFFENCES AGAINST THE PUBLIC PEACE

Let us now consider the offences against the public peace, the preservation of which is entrusted to the Sovereign and the Executive.

Explain those Offences which are either an actual Breach of the Peace, or "constructively" so, by tending to make others break it?

I. Riotous assembling of twelve persons or more, and not dispersing on proclamation, is a crime against the peace. The Riot Act* enacts generally that if any twelve persons are unlawfully assembled to the disturbance of the peace, and any one justice of the peace, sheriff, under-sheriff, or mayor of a town shall think proper to command them by proclamation to disperse, if they contemn his orders and continue together for one hour afterwards, such contempt shall be felony. The Act contains a clause indemnifying the officers and their assistants in case any of the mob be unfortunately killed in the endeavour to disperse them.

Besides the Riot Act various enactments have been made with the view of checking the destruction of property by rioters and others. The punishment is penal servitude for life, or for not less than five years; or imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour and with or without solitary confinement.

II. Sending, delivering, or uttering, directly or indirectly causing to be received, knowing the contents thereof, any letter or writing threatening to kill or murder any person, or to burn

** See 1 Geo. I., stat. 2, c. 5, materially amended by 24 & 25 Vict., c. 97.

or destroy property, or threatening to accuse any person of a crime with a view to extort money, are felonies, and punishable by penal servitude for seven years, or imprisonment with or without hard labour.*

III. An affray (from effrayer, to frighten), is the fighting of two or more persons in some public place, to the terror of her Majesty's subjects; for if the fighting be in private it is no affray, but an assault. This is a misdemeanor, and the punishment is fine or imprisonment, or both.

Two persons may be guilty of an affray, but

IV. Riots, routs, and unlawful assemblies must have three persons at least to constitute them. A riot is where three or more actually do an unlawful act of violence, either with or without a common cause or quarrel; as if they beat a man, or hunt and kill game in another's park, chase, warren, or liberty; or do any other unlawful act with force and violence; or even do a lawful act, as removing a nuisance, in a violent and tumultuous manner.

-A rout is where three or more persons meet to do an unlawful act upon a common quarrel, as forcibly breaking down fences upon a right claimed of common or of way; and make some advances towards it. -An unlawful assembly is when three or more persons do assemble themselves together to do an unlawful act, as to pull down enclosures, to destroy a warren or the game therein; and part without doing it, or making any motion towards it.

The punishment of unlawful assemblies, if to the number of twelve, as stated by the provisions of the Riot Act, may extend to penal servitude; but from the number of three to eleven, by fine and imprisonment, with or without hard labour.

An assembly of persons to witness a fight is an unlawful assembly, and every one present and countenancing the fight is guilty of an offence, which is punishable by fine and imprison

ment.

Nearly related to this head of riots is the offence of tumultuous petitioning, which was carried to an enormous height in the times preceding the Grand Rebellion. Wherefore by stat. 13

* See 24 & 25 Vict., cc. 96, 97, 100.