Peroration

“ This is probably the sense in which it is used in peroration, for the close of a lecture should be oratory at its utmost.
The speaker who has failed to observe the previous rules about “beginning easy,” and “speaking deliberately” will pay the penalty here. If he has spoken rapidly, he will be unable to increase the pace—at least, sufficiently to get the best results. ”

“ And as every defence should be conducted upon one uniform plan, nothing can be more improperly contrived, than to re-commence it by assigning the peroration, or pathetical part of it, to a second advocate. ”

“ Yet moving the passions will be acknowledged necessary when truth and justice can not be otherwise obtained and when public good is concerned in the decision. All agree that recapitulation may also be employed to advantage in other parts of the pleading, if the cause is complicated and requires many arguments to defend it, and, on the other hand, it will admit of no doubt that many causes are so short and simple as to have no occasion in any part of them for recapitulation. The above rules for the peroration apply equally to the [Pg 102] accuser and to the defendant's advocate. ”

“ We have libelled no man's character, we have invaded no man's person or property. This crime is a constructed crime, originally manufactured by priests in the interest of their own order to put down dissent and heresy. It now lingers amongst us as a legacy utterly alien to the spirit of our age, which unfortunately we have not resolution enough to cast among those absurdities which Time holds in his wallet of oblivion."
My peroration is the only other part of the defence which I shall extract. ”

“ The Commons, after the revolution, entered on the subject, and summoned two of the late judges, Pemberton and Jones, to their bar. Pemberton answered that he remembered little of the case; but if the defendant should plead that he did arrest the plaintiff by order of the house, and should plead that to the jurisdiction of the king's bench, he thought, with submission, he could satisfy the house that such a plea ought to be overruled, and that he took the law to be so very clearly. ”

“ If, therefore, a peer of the realm, a member of the supreme judicature in the kingdom, had really been guilty of a conspicuous and grave violation of the law, which all are required to obey with implicit reverence, those who demanded inquiry ought to have been given credit for acting on public grounds. The peer should not escape, where the plebeian would be condemned. ”

“ I ask you because I know nothing about peerage law.”
“The House of Lords has inherent rights of its own in regard to the granting of any claim,” replied the lawyer carefully, “rights as the guardian of its own privileges. I do not think, however, that your claim would be rejected. The line of descent is clear, if the proofs of your brother’s statement are found. The Turrald barony is a parliamentary peerage which descends to a sole daughter. You can only succeed your brother in the line of descent if she is illegitimate.” ”

“ While that does not always and necessarily constitute error, yet, under the circumstances, as disclosed by the record, we are of opinion that injustice has probably resulted, and that there should be a reversal of the decree, and a further examination in the circuit court. ”

“ The worst thing for the character of the Administration would be the use of insufficient charges against Mr. Pearson as a mere pretext; the next worst thing, his rejection for partisan reasons frankly avowed; the best thing, his reappointment if his record is found good, or, if not, a frank avowal of the reasons which compelled his rejection. Those reasons being sufficient, they will be most promptly and heartily approved by those who most earnestly advocated Mr. Pearsons reappointment. ”

“ If any person lawfully sworn as a witness or as an interpreter in a judicial proceeding wilfully makes a statement material in that proceeding, which he knows to be false or does not believe to be true, he shall be guilty of perjury, and shall, on conviction thereof on indictment, be liable to penal servitude for a term not exceeding seven years, or to imprisonment with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding two years, or to a fine or to both such penal servitude or imprisonment and fine. ”

“ The commons have the deepest interest in the purity and integrity of the peerage. The peers dispose of all the property in the kingdom, in the last resort; and they dispose of it on their honour and not on their oaths, as all the members of every other tribunal in the kingdom must do; though in them the proceeding is not conclusive. We have, therefore, a right to demand that no application shall be made to peers of such a nature as may give room to call in question, much less to attaint, our sole security for all that we possess. ”

“ The rulings of the praetor urbanus had originally followed the forms of the legis actio, but in matters affecting peregrini a custom had grown up for the praetor to devise formularies of action (formulae) which bound the judex in his decision. The convenience of this procedure extended its use to almost all cases, and by a lex Aebutia of uncertain date the simpler formulary procedure almost wholly replaced the more complicated provisions of the legis actiones. [934] The formula was a conditioned acquittal or condemnation ”

“ But there is a wide difference between a pardon, that is remission of punishment after the fact, and dispensing, which is giving a previous licence to break the law. A general dispensation is, in fact, a repeal, and a particular one is a repeal quod hunc, and therefore can belong only to the legislature. The Roman emperors, and the popes, as legislators, assumed this power, and Henry the Third, an apt pupil of his lord and master the pope, introduced the practice into England. ”

“ He had such a jurisdiction as the secretary of the treasury deemed competent. And as he has exercised it, and the paper has been used as an affidavit or sworn paper by the party, the objection of the want of jurisdiction will not lie.
It is not necessary at common law, in a prosecution for perjury, to show that the oath was expressly directed by an act of parliament. Perjury may be committed in false swearing in a court of equity, ecclesiastical, military or maritime. 1 Hawk. ”

“ Without the repeal of a single statute favourable to the peasants, it became a fundamental principle of the constitution, that 'Henceforth no temporal court in existence can grant the peasant redress against his lord, though property, honour, or life be at stake.' The peasant was thus handed over to an arbitrary power, which had no limit, except that which the excess of an evil imposes on the evil itself. ”

“ The application of the doctrine of corruption of blood to peerages arises out of their close connexion with the tenure of land, peerage dignities never having been regarded as personal until well on into the 14th century. Conviction for any kind of felony—and treason originally was a form of felony—was always followed Attainder and Corruption of Blood. by attainder. This resulted in the immediate corruption of the blood of the offender, and its capacity for inheritance was lost for ever. Such corruption with all its consequences could be set aside only by act of parliament. ”

“ The practice was therefore a grave menace to the King's peace.
The prohibition was renewed 8 Edward IV., c. 2., which inflicted a penalty of one hundred shillings for every person "other than his menial servant, officer, or man learned in the one law or the other," so retained by anyone "of what estate, degree, or condition that he be." The fine was to be repeated for every month "that any such person is so retained by him by oath, writing, indenture or promise," and a similar penalty attached to the person retained. ”

“ Perjury has been a common-law crime since at least the Seventeenth Century. Quite generally the conception empbodied in the common-law definition of perjury has been embodied in statutes. This is true of section 125. But it cannot be said that there is any respectable body of authority under the common law or statute in England or in the United States to support the respondent's position. ”

“ The clause which establishes a time of limitation for prosecutions protects us all alike. To every Englishman accused of the highest crime against the state, whatever be his rank, we give the privilege of seeing his indictment, the privilege of being defended by counsel, the privilege of having his witnesses summoned by writ of subpoena and sworn on the Holy Gospels. Such is the bill which we sent up to your Lordships; and you return it to us with a clause of which the effect is to give certain advantages to your noble order at the expense of the ancient prerogatives of the Crown. ”

“ Being brought uniformly before unjust tribunals—that is, tribunals corrupted and bribed by their own vanity—it is not wonderful that this great question should have been stifled and overlaid with peremptory decrees, dogmatically cutting the knot rather than skilfully untying it, as often as it has been moved afresh, and put upon the roll for a re-hearing. ”

“ Anyone who violates or subverts the written law shall forfeit his wergeld on the first occasion; on the second occasion the penalty is twice the wergeld; and anyone who ventures to do it a third time shall lose whatever he possesses. "Each person is to be judged by men who are of equal status and from the same district as himself." "No one of high status shall be condemned by the judgment of lesser men." "Whoever gives an unjust judgment shall forfeit one hundred and twenty shillings and shall lose his judicial authority unless he redeems it from the king." ”

“ Prisoner, what my brother Wiltshire says, the law is clear in: there is no precedent for what you ask, and the contrary practice stares us in the face for centuries. What seems to you a partial practice, and, to be frank, some learned persons are of your mind, must be set against this, that in capital cases the burden of proof lies on the Crown and not on the accused. ”

“ Any man, whom a magisterial neighbour chuses to insult under pretext of suspicion, is liable to a domiciliary inquest. Our houses are no longer our castles. 2. A justice of peace [1] cannot indeed immediately disperse an assembly of petitioners, but he can prevent them from deliberating: he can stop every speech and seize every speaker, if he chuse to suspect it or him to be seditious:—and if by the wanton and moorish exercise of this privilege he can ensnare the assembly into marks of indignation, then the clause (withdrawn only in appearance) commences its bloody work. ”

“ Where the making of a false statement is not only an offence under this Act, but also by virtue of some other Act is a corrupt practice or subjects the offender to any forfeiture or disqualification or to any penalty other than penal servitude, or imprisonment, or fine, the liability of the offender under this Act shall be in addition to and not in substitution for his liability under such other Act. ”

“ The Criminal Code, § 125, provides: 'Whoever, having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, . . . shall wilfully, and contrary to such oath, state or subscribe any material matter which he does not believe to be true, is guilty of perjury. ”

“ But if any one thinks that too great power is thus given to the guardians of the law, let him bring his adversaries into the court of the select judges, and there have the points in dispute determined. And he who loses the cause shall have censure and blame from the legislator, which, by a man of sense, is felt to be a penalty far heavier than a great loss of money. ”

“ We err in looking for a visible and material penalty, as if God imposed a fine of mishap for the breach of his statutes. Seldom, says Horace, has penalty lost the scent of crime, yet, on second thought, he makes the sleuth-hound lame. ”

“ The lex enacted that the praetor peregrinus should annually appoint 450 judices for the trial of this offence: the judices were not to be senators. The penalties of the lex were pecuniary and exsilium; the law allowed a comperendinatio. [Judex.] Before the Lex Servilia, the pecuniary penalty was simply restitution of what had been wrongfully taken; this lex seems to have raised the penalty to double the amount of what had been wrongfully taken; and subsequently it was made quadruple. Exsilium was only the punishment in case a man did not abide his trial, but withdrew from Rome. ”

“ Parry, who having spoken warmly against the bill inflicting the penalty of death on jesuits and seminary priests, as being cruel and bloody, the Commons not only ordered him into the custody of the serjeant, for opposing a bill approved of by a committee, and directed the speaker to reprimand him upon his knees, but on his failing to make a sufficient apology, voted him no longer a burgess of that house. ”

“ The Lord High Steward puts the question to each peer in his seat, after the evidence has been heard;
"Is the prisoner at the Bar Guilty or Not Guilty?"
Then each Peer, rising, says, "Guilty," or, "Not Guilty upon my Honor," as the case may be. A Peer cannot be [Pg 316] taken into custody unless for an indictable offence. This is also a parliamentary privilege of the members of the House of Commons, who cannot be arrested for debt while the House is in session, or while attending the proceedings, or going to or from Parliament. ”