it was held murder in the first degree. It must be noticed that premeditation, in the eye of the law, has no defined limits; and if a design be but the conception of a moment, it is as deliberate, so far as judicial examination is concerned, as if it were the plan of years. If the party killing had time to think, and did intend to kill, for a minute, as well as an hour or a day, it is a deliberate, willful, and premeditated killing, constituting murder in the first degree. The evidence by which intent can be proved or inferred has already been fully considered."

Our author has not failed to treat skillfully another question, which has been greatly mooted, and in which the respective rights of the court and jury, instead of being made to harmonize, have frequently been suffered to clash. A looseness of practice has to a certain extent prevailed, in ascertaining whether the jury are, in criminal cases, judges of the law as well as of the facts, and it has often been confidently asserted, that both trusts are committed to their final decision. This impression has gradually been effaced, and the modern tendency which it is hoped may prevail, has been, as well in criminal as in civil offences, to limit the rights of the jury to a decision of the facts of the case, under the direction of the court as to the law. Says our author:

"Whenever, and as often as the finding of a jury is in point of law against the charge of the court, a due regard to public justice requires that the verdict should be set aside. On this principle, it is true, the doctrine of autrefois acquit grafts an important exception; but this exception arises, not from the doctrine sometimes that the jury are the judges of law in criminal cases, but from the fundamental policy of the common law, which forbids a man, when once acquitted, to be put on a second trial for the same offence. When a case is on trial, the great weight of authority now is, that the jury are to receive, as binding on their consciences, the law laid down by the court; and after a conviction it is hardly doubted. in any quarter that if the verdict be against the law it will be set aside.

"For some time after the adoption of the federal constitution, a contrary doctrine, it is true, was generally received. In many of

the States, the arbitrary temper of the colonial judges, holding office directly from the crown, had made the independence of the jury in law as well as in fact of much popular importance. Thus John Adams, in his diary for February 12, 1771, in a passage which is probably either an extract from or memorandum of a speech before the colonial legislature, urges that in the then state of things, public policy demanded that not only in criminal but in civil cases juries should be at liberty to take the law in their own hands. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the early judges both of the federal and state courts should have continued for some time to assert a doctrine which, before the Revolution, they had found so necessary for protection against oppression and persecution. To this may be added what in another place has been noticed more fully, that the Federal Supreme Court in particular, which was for some years so deeply immersed in politics, as to withdraw from its judicial duties most of its interest and a large part of its attention, was unwilling to assert any prerogative which might draw odium on itself, or expose the new constitution to any additional shock. Hence it was that Judge Chase not only broadly denied that the courts had any power to pronounce on the unconstitutionality of statutes, but over and over again declared that the Supreme Court was to be treated as possessed only of such powers as the legislature might from time to time impart to it. At the very time that this eminent butarbitrary judge,-(whose arbitrariness, however, was much more of the temper than of the understanding, always impetuous in asserting authority, always backward in assuming jurisdiction,) was keeping the bar in an uproar by his assaults on counsel and witnesses, he was prompt in conceding to the jury as good a right to judge of the law as he had himself. Thus in Fries' case he said, 'The jury are to decide on the present and in all criminal cases, both the law and the facts, on their consideration of the whole case.' 'If, on consideration of the whole matter, law as well as fact, you are convinced that the prisoner is guilty, &c., you will find him guilty.' No better illustration of Judge Chase's character can be found than in the fact, that in the very case where he thus recognized the power of the jury over the law, he suc

ceeded, by stopping counsel when they undertook to dispute the law he laid down, in raising a turmoil, which ended in his own impeachment.

"That Judge Chase was not peculiar in his view, appears from the testimony taken during Judge Chase's trial, of Mr. Edward Tilghman, a lawyer not only of great eminence, but of political sympathies which would have kept him from any ultra democratic tendencies. The court generally hear the counsel at large, on the law, and they are permitted to address the jury on the law and on the fact; after which the counsel for the State concludes; the court then states the evidence to the jury, and their opinion of the law, but leaves the decision of both law and fact to the jury.' To the same effect, also, is Mr. Hays' evidence as to the state of practice at the time, in Virginia.

"But it was not long before it was found necessary, if not entirely to abandon the rule, at least practically to ignore it. If juries have any moral right to construe the law, it became essential to know what was the construction they would adopt; and the most strenuous advocates for the abstract doctrine soon confessed that the notions of juries even on fundamental questions, varied so much that it was difficult to report, much more to systematize them. And yet, if it were really settled that a jury's view of the law of a case was authoritative, it was vital to the community to know what such view was. Take, for instance, the statutory cheats growing out of the laws abolishing imprisonment for debt. The tendency of legislation in late years, has been to relieve a debtor from imprisonment in all cases except where a willful false pretence is the consideration for the debt, or where there has been a subsequent fraudulent disposal of the acquired property. The tendency of judicial decision is to construe these exceptions strictly, and to hold that to entitle a creditor to avail himself of them, he must show that he had not the opportunity of detecting the false pretences at the time, that it related to an alleged existing fact, or that the property secreted was actually and fraudulently detached from an honest and vigilant execution. These views are well known to the community; they enter into every contract, and are binding with

the courts. But what would a jury say? At one time a false promise would be held within the statute, and thus the whole nonimprisonment for debt laws repealed, for the chance of such a thing happening would be even more fatal to a systematic business dealing, than its certainty. At another time, nothing under a most flagrant act would be held a false pretence at all. Or take, for instance, malicious mischief at common law, about which even among the courts there is already sufficient diversity of opinion. Certainly with jurors, no settled rule could be had as to what the offence is, or if there was, no one could undertake to report it, and its reasons. Or again, when the question whether the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice is enough to convict in a particular case, a question in which the judiciary of almost each State holds a distinct shade of opinion,-where would be the chances of uniformity of adjudication, if juries, acting on the particular circumstances at hand, were to be the arbiters?"

We cannot make further extracts from the volumes under consideration, without extending our article to an unusual length. The practitioner who confines himself principally to the civil courts, will find treated in the book on criminal law, with great care, those subjects where both tribunals afford remedies, and where, for the immediate redress of a wrong, or the assertion of a right, a prosecution may be a more efficacious and speedy remedy than the tedious process of an action. We instance the questions growing out of the statutes relative to false pretences, and the various decisions relative to forcible entry and detainer, and malicious mischief, some knowledge of which is indispensable in the daily routine of busi

ness.

We can safely commend both these works into the hands of the student and practitioner. To the former they will prove text books of great value, and serve to impress upon the mind a branch of jurisprudence which is of great utility in the formation of professional character. To the latter they are invaluable as works of reference, and there are few whose practice is so limited as not from time to time to render a standard work on criminal practice an indispensable portion of a library.

RECENT AMERICAN DECISIONS.

Circuit Court U. S., East. Dist. of Louisiania, November, 1854. In Admiralty.

THE STEAMERS MAGNOLIA AND AUTOCRAT.

SHUTE vs. GOSLEE; GOSLEE vs. SHUTE.

1. Duties of steamers in the navigation of the Mississippi.

2. A steamer leaving the ordinary and usual track of vessels under the circumstances, is bound to show some palpable necessity for the deviation.

3. An ascending boat, running at great speed in a dark night, at a time when a descending boat is visible, of whose course she is doubtful, takes the risk of a collision: she ought to ease or stop her engines, till she is assured of the course of the other.

4. A steamer is responsible for a collision which a better lookout than she had might have prevented.

5. Where a collision is produced by the fault of one boat, she cannot complain that the other had not used extraordinary measures of precaution before, or the clearest judgment in the selection of the method of extrication after, the collision became imminent.

The facts of this case are fully stated in the opinion of the Court, by

CAMPBELL, J.-These are cross appeals from a decree of the District Court, pronouncing a division of the damages sustained by the respective parties in a case of collision.

In February, 1851, the steamboat Autocrat, (of the largest class,) bound on a voyage up the Mississippi river, had a collision with the steamboat Magnolia, (of the same class,) near Butler's plantation, in the parish of Iberville, and was sunk, occasioning the death of several persons and the loss of the boat.

The libel charges that the Magnolia was seen rounding out from Robertson's wood-yard, on the east bank of the river, and going apparently square across. That the pilot of the Autocrat tapped