INN PARLOUR ETHICS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 18, 20 July 1907, Page 13

INN PARLOUR ETHICS.

It is tho first rule of Brtish criminal law to convict a man for the offence of which ho is accused and not for some other. Tho notion of saying that a man Wrongly convicted of forgery has little to complain of because there is good reason to beliove that he received corrupt commissions is abhorrent to every principle of justice. It reminds one of tha statement that Mr. Brck had no right to complain of tho false imprisonment ho admittedly endured because ho was alleged to be connoted with tho promotion of doubtful companies. Strange as it may seem, the Homo Office authorities do not appear tb rccognieo that a man must either bo guilty or innocent in the eye of the law, and that there is no middle term. If they still believe him guilty, th*n let him bear the burden of his guilt. If they believe that he was not proved guilty, and is therefore innocent in iho eye of the law, they should say so plainly, and refrain from any accusations of an indirect kind. "It teeems after all he didn't do it, but he's a precious shady sort of customer all the same," is well enough for the smoking-room or the inn parlour, but it is an impossible attitude for the representative of tho final authority in the State in a matter of criminal jurisdiction.