American Law.

Evening Star, Issue 7237, 13 June 1887, Page 4

American Law.

The San Francisco correspondent of the ‘ Auckland Herald’ writes “ The theory of codifying all law is all very well, but the leges non scriplce, were better, left alone. With us it is a matter of common law that a madman is not responsible for his actions. The Americans have a lot of statutox-y provisions about it, and the consequence is there are twenty murderers in San Francisco gaol, and they cannot hang one of them, and it is this uncertainty of a criminal being punished that causes such a use of the revolver. The other day a doctor was brought up for seducing a girl; her brother, a young fellow, walked into Court, shot the man there and then, and walked out again, no one hindering him. Goldenson, a blackguard who shot a little school girl on her way to school for no reason but devilment, was up for trial when I was in San Francisco. Twice the jury panel was exhausted, twice the Judge summoned 200 fresh jurors, and it took a fortnight to empanel the jury, exceptions being taken constantly to the Judge’s ruling as to whether a juror ought to bo cmpannnlled or not. The sheriff and the manner of drawing the jury were challenged for bias, and so the fraud ■went on. Judge Lynch will do as as he has done before and does still, did the other day in Chicago, cut the legal argument short, and hang these villains without trial, and this is all the result of the boasted codifying of the law. As to the mercantile law, when I say that since the establishment of the Supreme Court in San Francisco, four years since, there have been 3,500 appeals, and the work of hearing these appeals is three years behind, so that anybody appealing can postpone a decision for three years, you can well understand that I am" impressed with the belief expressed by Mr John Smith, the author of the well-known treatise on “Mercantile Law,” that the co-operation of mercantile law is a national evil. Some laws are, however, the most excellent. The household law that protects the wife and children, and places 5,000d0l worth of property beyond the reach of an execution creditor, is one of the best of the earth, and also that which gives half the earnings of both to each other whilst they live together. If they cannot agree they go in for a divorce, and divide up. “ Fair play is bonnie play.”