One hundred years ago
On Monday, the Government agreed to choose the Judges who are to try cases without a jury by a fixed vote settled by ballot, instead of leaving their nomina- tion to the Lord-Lieutenant; and they further agreed to pay the expenses of witnesses and of persons accused, but acquitted, of crime; and further, to assign and pay counsel for all poor per- sons accused of crime. It was also con- ceded that the Judges should assign their reasons for convicting of crime, in open Court, and that a shorthand writer's note shall be taken of those reasons. Ultimately, there was a final debate on the motion that the first clause stand part of the Bill, in which a great many gloomy predictions were repeated by the Irish party; but the clause was carried by 227 votes against 39 — Mr Trevelyan having shown, in a most effective final summary of the argument for trying many of these cases without a jury, that when the culprits were taken red- handed, and the evidence was quite unimpeachable as to the outrages com- mitted by them, they had been repeated- ly acquitted by juries, and conducted amidst triumphant plaudits from Court.
Spectator, 10 June 1882
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