The Best Of Law-Systems, No Doubt, Is But A Compromise.

Science being one thing, and public order another, the most enlightened of legislators may well tremble to engraft the fruits of modern psychological research upon the tree of law, lest the scion prove too vigorous for the aged vegetable.

But some compromises are better than others; and the Italian code, which reads like a fairy tale and works like a Fury, is as bad a one as human ingenuity can devise. If a prisoner escape punishment, it is due not so much to his innocence as to some access of sanity or benevolence on the part of the judge, who courageously twists the law in his favour. Fortunately, such humane exponents of the code are common enough; were it otherwise, the prisons, extensive as they are, would have to be considerably enlarged. But that ideal judge who shall be paid as befits his grave calling, who shall combine the honesty and common sense of the north with the analytical acumen of the south, has yet to be evolved. What interests the student of history is that things hereabouts have not changed by a hair since the days of Demosthenes and those preposterous old Hellenic tribunals. Not by a single hair! On the one hand, we have a deluge of subtle disquisitions on "jurisprudence," "personal responsibility" and so forth; on the other, the sinister tomfoolery known as law - that is, babble, corruption, palaeolithic ideas of what constitutes evidence, and a court-procedure that reminds one of Gilbert and Sullivan at their best.

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