"At the Middlesex Sessions, last week, during-the time the Grand
Jury were in Court, two prosecutors, on different indictments, complained. that their bills had been ignored by the Grand.Jury, without having:examined the witnesses whose names were marked on the back of the bills. In one case, no less than six witnesses, who were in attendance, had been omitted to be called before the Grand Jury. The Chairman expressed his astonishment at the proceeding, but said he had no control over the Grand Jury; who made no- observation upon this extraordinary charge.."—Daffy Papers. This circumstance, the Globe assures us, is by no means .an extraordinary-one. Then. it is a pretty specimen of the mode in which justice is administered in this country. These Grand Jury- men-belonged to what are called the respectable classes of society ; they lay under the solemn obligation of anroath to discharge their duties faithfully.; and yet• they ignored bills sent up to . them, without examining. any witnesses in support of the charges they contained. For this they are liable to a criminal prosecution. But they may safely laugh at the threat of any such proceeding. For Lord MELBOURNE will let the affair pass over as unworthy of his dignified attention ; there is no Attorney-Gene:al for the People, no - public prosecutor; and what individual can be ex- pected to incur the expense and odium of bringing the delinquents to justice ? The events of the closing year, especially tinsse which re- late to the administration of justice in the Metropolis —the blunders of the Magistrates—the impunity of swindlers, owing to the mise- rably defective state of the criminal-law—and-now, this barefaced dereliction of duty on the part of the Middlesex Grand Jury— must, we think, have opened the eyes of the public to some of the causes of that alarming increase of crime which forms the topic of so much reflection and discussion. We are not informed of the nature of the charges contained in the bills which have at diffb- rent times been so irregularly ignored; but if they related to cri- minal offences, we have no doubt that the chances of escape arising from the misconduct of Grand Juries enter into the calculations of the offenders against the law. The uncertainty of punishment is now ascertained to be one of the most fruitful sources of crimes.
[Since .the above was written; we have-seen in the Times a letter from a Middlesex Grand Juror, in which it is stated that the prose- cutors were examined. as to the charges contained in the bills ionored • and that their evidence satisfied the Jury that there would be no use in examining the others. This is but a lame apology, but let the Grand Jury hate the benefit of it.]
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