The Criminal Code Bill

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 79, 30 September 1893, Page 2

The Criminal Code Bill

After many sessions of struggle the Criminal Code Bill has passed the Lower House with but one protest, from Mr Jackson Palmer, who doe.-* not think it clear in the matter of indictments, nnd Sir Patrick Buckloy is happy. This Bill is said to have been either framed or revised by Mr Justice Stephen, one of tbe most notable figures on the English criminal bench until an ovcr-worktd brain compelled his retirement a couple of jears ago. He it was who first decided that a dead person couldn't he libelled, for, as he said, the dead have no rights, and could suffer no wrongs. It was his ruling, too, tbat cremation waa not unlawful. A case was taken before him in which an old eccentric Celtic Druid had built a funeral pyre on a mountain top, and in it had cremated his infant son. Ai p Justice Stephen held that it was not illegal, immediately on which decision public crematories were built. His son was an extravagant literary genius, whose topsy-turvey couplet " Where the Rudyards cease from Kip ling, and the Haggards ride no more." has been quoted wherever the English language is spoken. It is the work of the great English legal luminary that has now found its wnj on the New Zealand Statute Book.— tl.B. Herald.