§ The Lord Chancellor moved for a Copy of the first Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Criminal Law of this country with a view to form a digest of the same. He observed that the importance of this subject was very considerable, and when the Report was laid before their Lordships he was sure that they would agree with him that it had been most carefully treated by the Commissioners whose sound views upon the subject of framing a digest of the Criminal Law would, he was convinced, be felt by their Lordships to be above all price. The object of the Commission had been to inquire into the practicability of forming a code or digest of the Criminal Law, which should teach all men, lawyers and those who were not lawyers, what the Criminal Law of the country really was. The Report would be found to contain not only the discussions upon this subject conducted by men of the highest practical knowledge, but also that without which these discussions would be of no avail, namely a specimen of a digest; and it would be found that the Commissioners 836 had given a most elaborate and masterly specimen of a digest of that extensive part of the Criminal-laws of the country, both written and unwritten, which related to the offence of theft. He should take the earliest opportunity of forwarding a Copy of the Report, even before it could be printed, to the noble and learned Lord near him, in order to give his noble and learned friend the fullest time for the consideration of it. The digest had cost the Commissioners seven months in preparation although it was very small, for it only occupied four pages, but then, as their Lordships must be aware, the Commissioners had felt the most anxious care that nothing should be omitted or ill-arranged; and he thought he might fairly say, that it was the most masterly digest that ever the labour of lawyers had produced. It would be decisive of the question of a code one way or the other. If it should prove successful it would be unanswerably in favour of the experiment; if unsuccessful, it would, of course, be against making the experiment; and if its success was doubtful, it would also be rather against than for the experiment, since such an experiment ought not to be made without some probability of success.
§ Lord Wynfordwas one of those who thought that the preparation of a digest of the Criminal-laws of this country would be attended with considerable difficulty. He could, however, promise his noble and learned friend that when he received a copy of the report and digest, he should employ the interval of labour afforded by the recess, thoroughly to examine the Report, and see whether the experiment of a code could be made with safety. If it could, he should be glad to see it made, although he must confess, that he was not much in favour of reducing the law to the state in which it was in France, where the shortness of it almost put absolute power into the hands of the Judges.
§ Motion agreed to.