IMPROVEMENT OF THE CRIMINAL CODE.
Although out of office Mr. Peel still proceeded with his improvements of the criminal code. By his enlightened exertions five acts were passed, which consolidated into one body the whole law regarding offences against property, purified from an incredible quantity of ancient rubbish, and advantageously simplified in all its arrangements. The first of these five acts repealed about one hundred and thirty-seven different statutes, wholly, or in part, commencing with the charter De Foresta of Henry III., and ending with the session of 1826. The second statute removed doctrines which had hitherto been useless lumber in the statute-book, or laid down general rules applicable to the whole criminal code. It abolished in toto the benefit of clergy in cases of felony; appointed certain punishment for offences to which no special statute affixed any particular penalty; relieved discharged prisoners from severe official expenses; and purified the law from a load of obscure and unnecessary verbiage. The third act contained the law of offences against property in its new and simplified form; bringing the various species of crime into one view; assigning to each its plain description, with its punishment; and removing distinctions which had frequently given rise to subtile and embarrassing doubts. It abolished the distinction between grand and petty larceny; defined the true nature of burglary; and removed many subtilties regarding possession, and the conversion of possession in the law of embezzlement, as well as in the distinctions of larceny and fraud. It also mitigated the rigour of the penal law, while it recognised four classes of punishments, the offences being distinctly set forth to which each was applicable. The first of these punishments was death: the second, transportation for life, or any term not less than seven years, with the alternative of imprisonment for not longer than four years, with public whipping; the third was transportation for any period under fourteen years, or imprisonment for three years and whipping; and the fourth was transportation for seven years, with the alternative of imprisonment for two years and whipping. The fourth statute comprised those offences which consisted of maliciously injuring the property of another. This act reserved capital punishment for arson, for the demolition of buildings or machinery by rioters, for showing false lights to a vessel, &c.; but left other kinds of injury to be repaid by transportation or imprisonment. Altogether the number of capital offences was considerably diminished; and in many cases a summary mode of proceeding was introduced, which was so far a limitation of trial by jury. The last statute regulated the redress to be sought from the hundred by persons whose property had been injured by rioters, and laid down the mode for applying for such remuneration.