AMERICAN LAW.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1586, 16 June 1887, Page 3

AMERICAN LAW.

The San Francisco correspondent of the 11 Auckland Herald " writes :— " The theory of codifying all law is all very well. leges non scriptw, wero better left alone. With us it is a matter of common law that a madman is not responsible for his action*. The Americans have a lot of statutory provisions about it, and the consequence is there are twenty murderers m San Francisco gaol, and thoy cannot hang one of them, and it is this uncertainty of a criminal being punished that causes tuch a use of the revolver. The other day a dootor was brought up for seducing a girl ; her brother, a yonng fellow, walked into Court, shot tho man there ond then, and walked out aga'n, no one hindering him. Goldenson, a blackguard who shot a little school girl on her way to school for no reason but devilment, waß up for trial when I was m San Francisco. Twice the jury panel was exhausted, twice the Judge summoned 200 fresh jurors, and it took a fortnight to empanel tho juiy, exceptions being taken constantly to the Judge's ruling as to whether a juror ought to be empannelled or not. The sheriff atd the manner of drawing tho jury were challenged for bias, and so the fraud went on. Judge Lynch will do as he has done before and does still, did the other day m Chicago, cut the legal argument short, and hung 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 sinoe the establishment of tho Supreme Court m San Francisco, four yeors since, there have been 3,500 apper.ls, and the work of hearing these appeals is threa years behind, bo 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 ere, however, the most excellent. Tho hoy behold law that protects the wife md cbi'f en, and places 5,000d0l worth of property beyond the reach of an execution creditor, ia one of the best of the eaith, and also that which gives half the earnings of both to each other whilst they live together. If they cannot agree they go m for a divorce, and divide up. " Fair play is bonnie play."