out by Stat. A, c. 8, of the existing university statutes in these words: "All causes and contentions which belong to the cognisance of the university shall be submitted to the judgment of the Chancellor or the commissary unless one of the litigants be a person having the degree of M.A., or some equal or higher degree, in which case the Chancellor shall have jurisdiction. They shall be determined with as little delay as possible and without the formalities of law." The only jurisdiction over non-members of the university appears to be over women of bad character.1

An appeal from a decision of the commissary lies to the Chancellor within six hours, from the Chancellor to the Senate within two days. There is no further appeal to the High Court of Justice as there is from the Oxford court.

2

The jurisdiction of the Chancellor's court is protected by the doctrine of conusance of pleas. The court being a franchise, its jurisdiction will be recognised by the High Court on the claim being duly proved by evidence. On due proof, the case, if brought in any other court, will be remitted to the university court. Conusance is still competent, having been acknowledged by the King's Bench Division as lately as 1886. At Cambridge the right is limited by 19 & 20 Vict., c. xvii, s. 18, which abolishes the right of the university to claim conusance of any action or criminal proceeding where any person who is not a member of the university is a party. The earliest recorded claim. seems to have been made in 1367. At one time the claim was allowed in cases where it would not now be admitted.

3

1 See the chapter on discipline. The jurisdiction inter extraneos given by the statutes of 1570 in nundinis Sturbrigiensibus et iis quae ad festum Sancti Johannis Baptistae apud Barnwell tenentur seems obsolete.

2 It is also called cognisance or cognitio, in criminal matters significatio or notificatio. Cognisance in this sense must be distinguished from cognisance in replevin. They have nothing but the name in common.

3 Ginnett v. Whittingham, 16 Q. B. D., 761.

It lay at Oxford in the case of members of matriculated1 guilds of tradesmen, of college servants, and of non-resident members of the university. Conusance may be claimed in four different ways: (1) by the King, (2) by the Chancellor, (3) by the Vice-Chancellor, (4) by the defendant. The King appears to claim by virtue of his invaded franchise. But

as a matter of practice the second and third modes are the only ones now in use.3 It cannot be claimed in every case -for instance, where the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor is sued, for that would make him judge in his own cause.* It did not lie against the Exchequer when that was a separate Court, and possibly does not lie now where the question to be tried is a purely equitable one. To support the conusance a charter must be proved, it will not be presumed. The privileged person must show that he was privileged at the time of action brought, it is not enough to show that he was such at the time of claim of conusance. The Chancellor claims conusance at his peril. "If the Chancellor should certify falsely that a person is resident who is not, there is no doubt that an action upon the case would lie against him." A good illustration of the working of the claim is afforded by a seventeenth century case. Plaintiff filed a bill

1 The Chancellor of Oxford still has nominally authority to constitute incorporationes artificum intra universitatis praecinctum by the statutes of the university, xvii, 1, 2, II. Matricula seems to be derived from matrix, and means a register. It is so used in the Theodosian Code. Its use in this sense is not unlike its use in Scotland, where it means the insertion of armorial bearings in the Register of the Lyon King of Arms, regulated by an Act of the Scottish Parliament of 1672.

2 Such claim appears in one or two old cases, as in Anon. [1630], Litt., 304, where it was granted on the non-intromittant clause in the charter of 14 Hen. VIII. 3 The form of claim by the Chancellor, the Marquess of Salisbury, will be found in Ginnett v. Whittingham, above, and a much more voluminous one in the older style by the Earl of Arran in Welles v. Traherne [1740], Willes, 241.

4 Unless in trespass, Chase's Case, above.

5 Wilkins v. Shalcroft [1662], Hardr., 188, the reason being that only the Justices of either Bench were named in the charters of exemption.

GY. B., 40 Edw. III, 18, 8; Y. B., 18 Hen. VI, 18, 6.

Fryer v. Dew [1628], Godb., 404.

8 Lord Camden in Hayes v. Long [1766], 2 Wils., 310.

to have a bond for £100 delivered up, the sum secured having been paid. Answer that the defendant was a Doctor of Law resident in Oxford. The Chancellor certified and demanded conusance. The court dismissed the bill.1 It has been already stated that a college may make the claim.2 Conusance or significatio need not necessarily be claimed; it is entirely at the discretion of the Vice-Chancellor or other person entitled to claim. There is a tendency at present to leave small cases to be tried by justices of the peace in the ordinary course.

Some of the authorities state that Castle v. Lichfield [1670] Hardr., 505, is the oldest reported case in which conusance was allowed. But the dates of other cases show that this must be erroneous. It was an indebitatus assumpsit for tobacco supplied and the claim was admitted.

JAMES WILLIAMS.

IV. CRIMINAL STATISTICS, 1907.3

HE common-places of an idealistic system of philosophy strike the ordinary person as fantastic and absurd. The analysis of the sensations of taste or touch creates in him an uncomfortable feeling and robs him of his easygoing unthinking belief that the material world somehow exists quite independently of him, in just the same way as it exists for him. He becomes impatient with this foolery and approves heartily of Dr. Johnson's short way of refuting Bishop Berkeley. The idea that knowledge is something to which "the subject" is as necessary as "the object," seems to him preposterous; he much prefers to banish such

1 Bushby v. Cross [1676], 22 Vin. Abr., 3.

2 Magdalen College Case, above.

& Judicial Statistics (England and Wales), 1907. Part I.—Criminal Statistics. London: Wyman & Sons.

unprofitable speculations and to remain contentedly satisfied with the belief that sugar is in itself sweet, and that the relation of cause and effect is somehow inherent in the nature of things. He is in short incurious about the psychology of knowledge, and would be astonished to learn that his constant habit of compiling statistics with the object of drawing inferences from them is really a manipulation by himself of material which would otherwise remain formless and chaotic. There is a natural tendency in every man—even in the philosopher in his unphilosophic hours to think that somehow the categories of the human mind correspond to real differences in things, and it is difficult to escape from the sub-conscious belief that the division of history by the reigns of kings and emperors, or by centuries, has some special significance, apart from the fact that such divisions are merely a convenient device for obtaining a general survey of things. Our habit of taking stock, so to speak, at the end of say 50 or 100 years, is merely one result of our decimal system of numbering. This reflection may serve to lessen the feeling that the volume of criminal statistics for 1907 is of less interest than the volume issued in 1908. Last year's volume was the fiftieth of the series which gives statistics of crime, and it contained in addition to the figures for 1906, comparative tables which showed the variations in the statistics over a period of 50 years. The present volume contains the statistics for 1907, and its comparative tables are restricted to the years 1903-1907. There is no reason in the nature of things why the 50th rather than the 51st year should be the "natural" year in which to review the variations of recorded crime, nor is there any reason why 1856 should be the starting point of the series of volumes. The interest, however, of the study of statistics lies in the examination of the figures, as compared with corresponding figures for other periods, and in the attempt to explain the variations

which appear and the greater the area over which the comparison can be made, the greater is the interest of the study. It therefore remains true that the present volume with its restricted comparative tables is of less interest. than the preceding volume.

Last year we expressed the view that the great majority of the serious crimes committed may be traced to the unsatisfactory conditions in which the poorest classes live, and we maintained that the astonishing diminution in crime during the last half-century could only be explained by the general rise of the standard of life among the less fortunate strata of society. The diminution is so remarkable that it is worth while again to recall the figures-in 1857-61 the average number of persons tried for indictable offences was 52,346, and in 1906 the number was 59,079: yet in the meantime the population had nearly doubled itself. It would be unreasonable to expect that each year should show a distinct advance over the preceding year-the infinity of forces which affect the general condition of a people, leads us to be prepared for occasional set-backs. And, in fact, this was the case: though the general results of the period of 50 years were entirely satisfactory, there were from time to time slight relapses. It is obvious, for example, that a year of trade depression, or of bad harvests, tends to drive below the margin of subsistence many who would otherwise have lived comfortably enough: and it is not unnatural that in such a year there should be an increase in the number of larcenies. It is therefore no cause for despair if the statistics for any given year seem to compare unfavourably with those of the preceding year. The wise reformer is too aware of the complexity of human affairs to be disheartened because the tide of progress occasionally seems to ebb.

It is with this view of progress that we must approach the statistics for 1907. It may be remembered that for the purpose of these statistics offences are divided into three