case of any sudden death of a patient taking place in a lunatic asylum, a coroner's inquest should be held, and that the result should be sent to the Commissioners in Lunacy; that no license of an asylum should be granted except to a duly educated medical man; and that some further regulation should be made. as to enforcing the residence of the proprietors of private lunatic asylums, which is now only insisted on in the case of a person receiving a licence for the first time after the passing of the late act. It is to be observed that by an ordinance of the 18th December, 1835, art. 30., the keeper of a French lunatic asylum must be resident in the establishment; and if he is not himself a physician, he must, by art. 19., provide a physician, who must also be resident.2 In calling the attention of the Society to these various points, your Committee feel they have by no means exhausted the subject of the reference. They have forborne to touch on many of those topics and histories connected with it which appeal to the feelings, which raise the indignation, and excite the horror of mankind. But though they have not thought this Society the fitting place for such recitals, it must not be supposed that they either doubt their truth, or are insensible to their just claims on the sympathies of the Society and the protection of the legislature. They wish however in this, as on all other occasions, to proceed cautiously, and not lightly to recommend alterations in the law, however plausible they may appear to be, without seeing how they may be carried practically into operation. But on the points to which they have adverted in this Report they believe that much benefit would result from specific legislation as to them. Before concluding they would remark, that there is a fourth class of lunatics, viz. those who live under the care of their friends, and who are not placed under the restraint of any lunatic asylum, and are not therefore strictly under confinement. As to this class, your Committee do not conceive that they come within the terms of the present reference, and they are not prepared to offer any observations. 18 & 9 Vict. c. 100. s. 25. Pulleine on Foreign Lunatic Asylums. ART. VI. FRENCH JUDGES SINCE THE REVOLUTION. We have more than once adverted to the gross blunders of our good neighbours the French in their jurisprudence, and especially in that most important branch of it, the judicial system. The revolution of last February did nothing to improve those worthy people; on the contrary, we find the most outrageous of all the demagogue acts was pointed to the utter destruction of judicial independence. The Provisional Government, the child of the Revolution, issued a decree that all judges should be chosen by the people, and that all should hold their places during pleasure; thus subjecting every decision of every tribunal, criminal and civil, to the hourly varying caprices of the mob, and making the mob, in fact, administer the justice of the country. How any men of ordinary regard for decency, or for their own character--how such men as M. Arago, or even M. Lamartine-nay, or even M. Cremieux, inconsiderable as he may be reckoned could put their names to such a decree, it passes our comprehension to conceive. Yet so it is. They signed it, and the unheard of decree, unheard of even in the worst times of Jacobin rule and of the Convention's tyranny, was the law of the land until the new Assembly met in May. To repeal this law was one of the Assembly's first acts, and its constitution declares the judicial office to be only conferred by the executive government, responsible to the legis lature. So far so good. But then it also declares the judges to be irremovable — to hold their high offices for life, or until convicted legally of crime. If this had been really and honestly enacted, and all the existing judges declared independent of the government, all would have admitted that every thing was done which sound principles demanded. But nothing like this was the case; and we question if so gross a fraud was ever practised as this law of the new Con stitutional Assembly. The irremovable office was only to be that of the judges hereafter appointed! Thus, under pretence of making all judges independent, this dishonest assembly confines the independent office to a hundredth part of their number, making every one of the many hundreds now in office absolutely dependent on the good pleasure of the executive, in whose hands soever that power may be vested. No one can easily, in this country, form to himself a notion of the eagerness for office which prevails among our neighbours. It is their habit, their nature, or their second nature, to consider that no person has any importance unless he bears some relation to the state; in other words, unless he holds some office under government. The failing of the late Mr. Canning was an extreme lust of place, and this he chose to cover over with the semblance, the outside show, of a principle, as men are too prone to do when they want to gratify a desire. He said no one could efficiently serve his country out of office; he must have power, else he could do little. Hence his life was a struggle to get place and to keep it; nor was there probably ever a poor man more out of his reckoning, than he who thought, when he tried to trip up Lord Castlereagh's heels in 1809, and received a stiff kick for his intrigue, that he should only go out gracefully to come in more powerfully a few weeks after, but who remained excluded six or seven years, the most important of his time, and was only solaced by being sent for to receive the orders, and do the bidding of his rival, as his "most obedient and very humble servant," at Lisbon; while that prosperous competitor was ruling the House of Commons at home. But all this love of place in Mr. Canning was connected with power and splendour. Every Frenchmɛn of any rank above the labourer or the small shopkeeper-every lawyer, every author-all the class of proprietors, both in money and in land- all whom it is possible to put in any kind of place under the government, are greedy of such advancement in a degree, and with a voracity far beyond what our English habits and tastes render easily conceivable and a voracity very far from keeping any proportion at all to the value of the post so fiercely desired. It is not the - gain; it is not the patronage, which is little; not the power or influence, which is none but the vanity gratified, the importance bestowed by being a public functionary; by having some connexion, how humble nay, how mean soever, with the state. In old times, the public executioner used to appear with a bag and a sword in some turns on the public walks; and we doubt if it would be difficult to find men who had rather hold that last of places under the government than lead a wholly placeless existence. This strange desire of office, so very different from anything seen among ourselves, is partly, no doubt, owing to the small incomes of independent men; the non-existence of landed gentry; the abolition of all feudal rank; the extreme insignificance of the peerage, even before late changes; the impossibility of any one obtaining distinction by the independent exercise of his individual rights. "M. le Juge," "M. le President," "M. le sous-Prefect," "M. le Conseiller," are titles which, on the individual's entrance, fill the ears of the assembled society, and the sound tickles those of the happy functionary himself. The judge, in this way, finds himself in company with men of much larger income as well as far more talents than himself, but all of whom he is used to regard with the eyes of the multitude, who care for nothing but official rank. While he practised at the Bar, his income was double or treble what he receives as a judge; but his importance was nothing. Elected to the Bench, he may have no more than the wages of an upper servant in England, or he may have double their wages; but he is a judge, and that is enough. As long as he remains on the Bench his place in society is assured; he is respected; he is looked up to; he is part of the state, the object of all men's devotion. Remove him, and he sinks into absolute insignificance. Nay, let him have regulated his whole judicial career by the greatest integrity, the most profound learning, the most extraordinary perspicacity, he becomes of no more importance, the morrow of his descent from the Bench, than the grocer who lives in the next street; and all men's respect is forthwith transferred to his unknown, it may be his incapable successor. Need we say more to show how powerfully the right of remaining a judge must operate in favour of the government and against the judge's independence. In England, we most justly consider as the best gift of the Revolution, 1688, the securing the independence of the judicial body. Yet, what was the judge's dependence with us compared with that position of absolute subordination which we have just been contemplating? An eminent lawyer, taken from the Bar and restored to his lucrative and honourable profession for doing his duty honestly and fearlessly in the Bench, presents rather an enviable object to our contemplation. In France, besides that the judge, in most cases, never had professional eminence on which he can retreat, he loses all the respect with which he had been encircled while he filled the Bench. He sinks into a private and an obscure, possibly a despised station; he is for ever extinguished. To avoid this grievous infliction what pains will he not take! - what circuitous paths pursue to avoid giving offence! - what scrupulous care, not use, to trim his words with all tenderness for the feelings of the men that rule! what efforts leave untried to conciliate the powers that be! In political cases how surely will his sentiments go along with those of the government! How steadily will his principles be squared by the rule and the plumb line of the existing administration! "It is not corruption "—"it is not subserviency." "Such are his real feelings his independent opinions. Were he to speak or to act otherwise, he would be a dishonest, and not an independent man." In examining the great matters-the most grave of all— connected with judicial independence, we must never lose sight of one obvious consideration. A judge is not independent and honest who merely avoids committing gross and flagrant infractions of the law or violations of justice. Cases but rarely occur when any government can require any judge can even secretly wish any judge so to stain the ermine. Most governments would lose fully more than they could gain by exacting such base compliances. But there are thousands of ways in which obsequious servility can help its masters without glaring exposure of itself. A formidable |