the written law. They are merely instances of the practical application of the written law to the affairs of mankind. Secondly, they are cases decided, not by the judges, but by the legislature, by those who make the law, and who must know more certainly than any judge can know, what the law is which they mean to make." With what degree of perfection the definitions contained in the section which we have cited, or in any other part of the code, fulfil the intentions of the framers, we now leave it to competent judges to decide. We are sure that all such persons will find, even in the little we have quoted, enough to satisfy them that their labour will not be uselessly employed in perfecting a work which is already so considerable an advance on all which has preceded in its kind. The Indian Government has caused the Code to be printed and widely circulated throughout India, and has publicly invited criticisms and suggestions from all parties competent to give them. But in this country also, there is a Commission for the reform of the criminal law; which certainly has not yet effected anything upon a par with the expectations held out at the time of its appointment. A direction from the Home Secretary to these Commissioners, to report upon the present Code, would give India the benefit of their criticisms, would put into their hands a most valuable aid for the performance of their own work, and would be no inconsiderable test of their fitness to perform it. Moreover, both Mr Macaulay, and the ablest of the Indian members of the Commission, Mr Macleod (who, we have the best authority for stating, took a most active part and rendered signal service in the concoction of the Code,) are now in England. A government which should make any new appointments, either to the Criminal Law Commission, or to any other body constituted for Law Reform, without ascertaining whether these gentlemen, or either of them, were willing to serve on it, would do little honour to its own discernment. Their services, if attainable (of which we ourselves know nothing), would be secured without delay, by any government really in earnest about the Reform of the Law. are The notes to the Code, containing the reasons for such of its provisions as seemed to require explanation or defence, nearly as voluminous as the text. They are very able and valuable essays, and, we think, rarely fail successfully to vindicate everything in the Code, the propriety of which might otherwise have appeared doubtful. In one case, we think the defence eminently unsuccessful; and probably other such cases might be found. By the proposed Code, nothing which is true is a libel; or rather (for the Commissioners do not adopt that most ill-chosen word from English law) is defamation: no action can be maintained or penalty inflicted for attacks on reputation, unless the court, having entered into the evidence of truth or falsehood, pronounces the imputation to be false. And the Commismissioners defend this provision at some length in their notes; but in a manner which fails to convince us. Nothing can be more proper than that the truth of a charge should be its justification, in all cases in which either a court of justice or the public are competent judges of the subject. But in matters which relate to private life, how can either the one or the other be made cognizant of the circumstances on which the morality or immorality of the act principally depend? Take the case of a family quarrel, for example;-who is to blame, and in what degree, are questions depending upon the previous character and relations of the parties-upon states of feeling produced perhaps by long trains of circumstances, not one of which can be given in evidence, or if it were, could be duly estimated by any one not intimately acquainted with the parties. Let any candid person ask himself, how far advanced he would be, in any such case that he is well acquainted with, towards forming a just estimation of the conduct of the parties, if he knew only such naked facts as would have admitted of being proved in a court of justice? And this in fact is the principal reason for leaving any immoralities whatever exempt from legal punishment. If any sort of act is really blamable, and if the circumstances which make it such can be so clearly discriminated and made apparent to third parties, as to be susceptible of judicial investigation and proof, it would be difficult to find any sufficient reason for not making that kind of act an offence under the Penal Code. But to do justice to this subject would require a much longer discussion than can properly find a place here. That many other defects must necessarily be found in this Code, its framers would, we are convinced, be the last persons to deny; and the first to hail any, even hostile, criticism, which might furnish valuable suggestions for its amendment. Unfornately, few of the attacks of which it has yet been the subject, either from the Calcutta or the London press, bear, so far as they have come to our knowledge, marks of any but the worst motives and spirit. They mostly appear to proceed directly or indirectly from that party of English in India, to protect the natives against whose rapacity and tyranny, is one of the most difficult but most bounden duties of the Indian Government; and who are now venting, against what they consider as mainly the work of Mr Macaulay, the spleen excited by the part he took in framing what they call the "Black Act;" itself but one, and not a very considerable, step towards executing the declared intention of Parliament for placing Europeans and natives under one equal law. It gave us much regret that so upright and able a supporter of the popular cause as Mr Ward, should have made himself, on this subject, the organ in Parliament of a handful of foreigners attempting to make themselves a privileged oligarchy in a country of a hundred millions of inhabitants, and who, if the existence and regulations of the East India Company were not a perpetual barrier against them, would be in danger, under a conniving or passive ministry, of establishing a domination as much more tyrannical than that of the English party in Canada in the worst of former days, as the Hindoos are a more ignorant and more passive people than the French Canadians. S. Charles Knight. ART. VIII.-1. The Industrial Series. The Guide to Service. IN N the announcement of the Industrial Series,' we are told that its "chief object is to prepare young persons for the choice of an occupation, by instructing them in the peculiar duties, and, as far as requisite, in the technical details of the various departments of Service or Trade in which they are likely to be engaged as they advance in life." It is understood that the young persons chiefly kept in view in the preparation of this Series are the children educated in the work-house schools, under the new Act: though these publications are equally suitable for all who are entering upon the occupation of trade or service, which is to be the business of their lives. A double benefit may be expected to arise from such a set of books. Pauper children, and poor children generally, have hitherto been apprenticed, or put to service, without consideration, except in rare cases, for their aptitude for particular occupations. Boys have been parcelled out among carpenters, shoemakers, and bricklayers, without question whether some of them were not better fitted, as well as more inclined, to be printers, gardeners, or apothecaries. Many a girl may be in the scullery, who might have been a treasure in the nursery; and others may be toiling over cookery, whose eye, hand, and taste would have fitted them for millinery. The young people them selves do not usually know how to choose an occupation, if choice were allowed; for they are ignorant of all, except perhaps the one which they may have witnessed at home. By the circulation of these little books among them,-complete representations as they are of the trade or service which each has for its subject, the young people will be enabled to form an idea of different occupations, and will indicate tendencies by which their guardians will be partly guided in placing them out. The gain both to themselves and to society will be great, of having so large a number of individuals employed with some regard to their capacity, rather than by blind chance. The other benefit contemplated is, the furnishing apprentices and servants, whether placed out by charity or not, with some systematic knowledge of their occupation at the outset, instead of leaving them to pick up what they can from masters and mistresses who, whatever may be their good qualities, may not have the faculty of skilful and consistent teaching. The entrance of an apprentice upon his business, or of a girl upon her service, is too often a scene of bewilderment to the pupil, and irritation to the teacher, from want of knowledge on the one hand, and skill on the other. This is likely to be remedied by the pupil having as comprehensive a view of his work as the master, and by his being aware of the purpose of each operation confided to his hand. Though no books can teach him skill, they can help him to it by giving him confidence in the object of each thing that he does. The due succession of operations is known to him beforehand: and the departments of his business are parcelled out before his mind's eye. The work of the servant maid is, in like manner, facilitated by her setting out intelligently. Instead of her wandering about the house, and taking up one thing after another at the command of her mistress, without perceiving connexion or end, she finds the day's work laid out with a succession like that of noon to morning, and evening to noon. These books are intended for presents to young people whom they may concern, leaving home or school: and if the Series answers to the promise of the few forthcoming numbers which we have seen, no little improvement may be looked for in the various departments of trade and service, improvement in skill, and, what is of much more consequence, improvement in spirit and temper. Considerate persons know that all the improvement which is likely to be attained, is too little for the needs of society in England at the present time. The relation between our employing and employed classes is sufficiently uncomfortable to annoy the most light-hearted and benevolent,-sufficiently perilous to alarm the bravest. To such, every attempt to interest employers in the moral and intellectual welfare of the employed, and to enlighten the understandings, and ameliorate the tempers of the working classes, is welcome as the rising of the moon in a dark night. Though we hear little said in general society on the large subject of the spirit of the poorer orders, symptoms of disturbance and fear meet the observation of students of men in almost every house in the land. Rick-burning is the name of the disease one year, and Trades' Unions another, while the chronic evil of corrupt Domestic Service continues without intermission. Now there is a transportation and recall of Dorchester labourers; now a procession of the Trades to the Home-office; now throwing vitriol into people's eyes, compulsory emigration, and systematic assassination. Sometimes the immediate occasion is an actual or desired variation in wages: sometimes the New Poor Law serves as the pretext, occasions which, be they just or unjust, would not call forth violence of feeling and action, if the temper had not been previously one of exasperation. This The misunderstanding between the richer and poorer classes of Great Britain is the growth of many centuries. Both parties are ignorant and unjust in blaming any existing individuals of their foes for the ill-temper of the present hour. temper is, in all, original sin, imputable to a remote generation of their fathers. It was once true that laws were made to gratify the rich and coerce the poor; and this ancient fact makes the poor hate the rich of the present day as oppressors. It would probably require a century of unalloyed good works on the part of the aristocracy of England to dissolve this traditionary enmity. It has been true from the day that Cain rose against Abel, that men have hated those whom they have injured; and the lofty few of every land have therefore always misregarded the lowly many, believing them turbulent, malicious, inaccessible to kindness, to be reached only by flattery, while deserving little but contempt. When not to be used as creatures, they have been treated as foes.-While the two classes have been thus regarding each other, nothing that an individual here and there could say or do could avail to improve the relation. A just and benevolent employer finds his efforts spent in vain upon the callous temper and immovable prejudices of his work-people and an enlightened operative may act the mediator for a life-time without enabling the capitalist to enter into the feelings of his labourers, or the labourers to put faith in their employer. The opposing currents of feeling are so strong that it is not only impossible to make them mingle, but indivi |