of time, but assuming the particular period of limitations has run and is pleaded, then in that case the adversary has the right to put the party setting up the statute on his oath, i.e., has the privilege of insisting that he swear the debt has been paid. Naturally, while a party may be only too ready to plead the statute of limitations, yet when it comes to making oath that the debt has been paid that is quite a different matter, and may well cause him to pause, especially when a false oath under such circumstances subjects the offender to imprisonment from at least one to five years; to a fine of from 100 to 3,000 francs, and in addition may deprive him of certain civic, civil, and family rights at least from ten to five years, during which period he may be placed under the surveillance of the police.

Perjury under the French law is a progressive crime not depending for its punishment on the offence itself, but upon its attendant circumstances and surroundings. The law should, however, look at the act of a perjurer as inimicable to and destructive to the morality, order, and well being of society, and stamp the conduct of those who give false testimony with its condemnation, accepting no excuse and refusing all mitigating circumstances. Without truth the. fabric of all civilised authority will tumble in ruins, and social order become riot. Truth is the foundation of all religion; it is the groundwork of our schools and the basis of our education; it is the moral fibre of every great people; it is the guiding star to all success and progress; the one cardinal principle that, inculcated in the hearts and minds of a nation, will enable it to triumph' over every adversity with courage and determination. Truth admits of no shading, no qualification, no degree. A thing is either true or it is false, and once let a deliberate false statement be proven, it merits but one condemnation and one punishment. In this particular the French Criminal

Judicial System is wrong, because it is founded on a mistaken idea of a great fundamental principle. As there can be but one right and one wrong, so a thing can only be true or false, and he who seeks to take away or destroy life, liberty or property, by falsehood, should be punished for the crime itself-purely and simply for the wrong doneand irrespective of consequences of the perjured testimony. A severe, and what might be considered harsh law is that against vagabondage or vagrancy. It may account for the absence to a large extent of the tramp class, for in France, once a vagabond falls into the clutches of the law it is likely to go very hard with him, for the Legislature has left very little discretion with those before whom an individual so unfortunate as to be charged as a vagabond may be brought. Vagabondage is a misdemeanour. Vagabonds and vagrants are those who have neither a fixed domicile or the means of support, and who do not regularly exercise any profession or occupation. Vagabonds and vagrants over sixteen years of age who have legally been declared such, are liable for this fact alone to from three to six months' imprisonment, and after having served their term, they remain under the surveillance of the police for a period of not less than five or more than ten years. An alien declared by a judgment to be a vagabond can be conducted to the frontier by order of the Government and put out of the country.

No account of the French Criminal Judicial System would be complete without referring to the semi-theatrical aspect it sometimes assumes, and which, from long custom and habit, it seems almost impossible to avoid. The reconstitution of a crime is an almost every-day occurrence, and yet, it is terribly dramatic and spectacular—it is re-enacting the tragedy with living persons-frequently with the dead body lying as originally found—and in the presence of and before the eyes of the alleged criminal. Sometimes it is too much

for the nerves even of a hardened desperate murderer, and before this mise en scène of his crime he weakens, breaks down, and confesses. Courts have taken occasion, however, not only to criticise, but even condemn, this time-honoured custom, and it is doubtful whether it will long survive modern and more liberal ideas of criminal procedure. Besides the reconstitution of a crime is the dramatic spectacle of confrontation, or bringing an accused person before his victim, or a witness, for the purpose of identification, and as this often occurs when one of the parties is in extremis, the scene becomes a theatrical and terrible ordeal.

An amusing as well as tragic scene, illustrating the natural theatrical tendency of those connected with the administration of criminal justice, occurred when the desperado Lacombe, momentarily escaping the vigilance of his warders, scrambled up a wall, and finally, perched like a bird on the ridge of the prison building in temporary security, not only defied all orders to descend, but hurled vile language and invective back at the officials gathered below in the prison yard. Such an escaped prisoner is no more than a wild beast, and under the circumstances, it would not only have been proper, but fitting, that he should have been shot down by the guard in the same way that any criminal seeking to escape should be shot. This, however, was the thing furthest from the mind of the officials who not only did not shoot him down, but on his demand, sent for his lawyer, and then calmly awaited his arrival. When he came the lawyer was assisted to approach his client, the criminal, on his perch on the roof, by means of a ladder, and permitted to have an interview with him. Imagine such an exhibition-what a theatrical picture for a drama. When this scene, which occupied an hour or two, had been played, and the avocat had descended from the ladder, his client proceeded to dash his brains out by plunging headlong into the stone courtyard below!

With all that is admirable in the French Judicial Criminal System there is that one great bulwark of personal liberty lacking that is essential to the liberty of the citizen-the writ of habeas corpus. In France this does not exist: in France there is no writ that secures the liberty of the individual from illegal restraint. With few exceptions, no matter how wrong and illegal his arrest may be, the accused when once taken into custody and confined in prison incurs the risk of awaiting the outcome of the investigation that the Juge d'Instruction makes into the charge, which may be a matter of days or weeks or months according to circumstances; and even if discharged and entirely exonerated from the charge, the accused may have had to linger in a common prison for months without the possibility of seeking release. One sees on every hand the words: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," and France is called a Free Republic; but the history of the world has demonstrated that no country can be so called where the sacred writ of habeas corpus is unknown. In England and in the United States the writ of habeas corpus is now regarded as the greatest and most important remedy known to the law. From the assent of King John at Runnymede (June 15th, 1215), until the famous Habeas Corpus Act of 31 Charles II, c. 2 (1680), followed by the Statute 56 George III, c. 100 (1816), the life and existence of this right passed through many trying vicissitudes only eventually to be saved and secured to future generations by the statutes above referred to.

C. A. HERESHOFF BARTLett.

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VI.-LORD CHANCELLOR HARDWICKE.

VALUABLE addition has been made to historical

literature by the recent publication of the Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke by Mr. Philip Yorke.1 This important work in three volumes sets forth in the light of the most recent historical research the wonderful career of one of

the greatest of English Chancellors. It contains a considerable amount of matter hitherto unpublished, which throws fresh light not only on the character and life of Lord Hardwicke himself, but on the inner history of his times. The biographer approaches his subject in a spirit of warm appreciation. Carlyle says, in his essay on Voltaire, that no character can be rightly understood, unless it has first been regarded with a feeling of sympathy, and the biographer of Lord Hardwicke writes of his hero in a spirit of sympathetic admiration. His point of view is strongly Whiggish and anti-Jacobite, but it is impossible to write of the eighteenth century without yielding to what Herbert Spencer called the political bias, and Mr. Philip Yorke's Whiggism is an excusable fault. The biography is extremely interesting reading, and no serious student of Lord Hardwicke's age can afford to neglect it.

Philip Yorke, first Earl of Hardwicke, who was born. in 1690, was the son of an attorney in Dover, and the grandson of a well-to-do wine-cooper of Puritan proclivities in the same town. His home was one of the best type, and, as his biographer says, "from the first were instilled in him austerity of morals, untiring industry, perseverance in the face of disappointment and difficulty, calm equanimity of temper, steady and unbending uprightness, clear sense of duty, a strong and simple religious faith, and courageous and firm convictions." After a sound education young Yorke 1 London: The Cambridge University Press. 1913.