Some General Reflections on the Law
| Published date | 01 October 1935 |
| Author | John Carlyle Reid |
| Date | 01 October 1935 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3500800414 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Some General Reflections on the Law
By
DETECTIVE-SERGEANT
JOHN
CARLYLE
REID
Bradford City Police
Difficulties
of
the Uniform Branches
of
Police
"THE
mass of new legislation has made
it
necessary to
increase to some extent the size of this volume, and,
unless some steps are taken in the direction of codification,
it will soon be impossible to produce a work of this character
which will be of any value." 1
Here is the considered opinion of an eminent lawyer
with regard to the exposition of the criminal law. What is
the attitude of those who are required to enforce it, and how
does that attitude affect the efficiency of the machine of
which they form part ?
A famous French lawyer once remarked:
"It
is a funda-
mental principle with English lawyers that Parliament can
do everything but make a woman a man, and a man a woman."
One saw in the eighteenth century a gradual increase in the
activity of Parliament, but although at that period a relatively
greater number of statutes of a so-called public nature may
have been passed, we find that many of these statutes were
more in the nature of privileges. There are statutes dealing
with the paving of a certain town, the erection of a house of
correction in another, the licensing of a theatre in another,
and so forth.
In
other words, comparatively little was done
to augment the existing public law of the time, and it is not
until the nineteenth century that we find any material addition
in this direction.
The
present century bids fair to supersede
1Principles and Practice of the Criminal Law, by S. F. Harris,
B.C.L.;
edited
by A. M. Wilshere, LL.B. Preface to the 15th Edition.
492
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