These problems are unknown to the law, but they are beginning to stir among the community. A girl of twelve not long since murdered a child of four, as she herself subsequently confessed, in much the same manner as Marie Schneider murdered Margarete Dietrich. The jury acquitted her. They acted in defiance of the evidence and of the law. It is clear that what they said to themselves was this: The law will send this girl to prison for some ten or fifteen years. We do not believe in the advantage of that, and we prefer to deliver her from the law altogether. They were, as the judge said, a very merciful jury. But it is not by shuffling evasions of law that civilisation progresses. We need just and reasonable laws, not merciful juries. It is not to the advantage of society that young murderesses should wander at large, though it may very possibly be better than throwing them into the prison as at present constituted. The "merciful" jury, as in the south of Italy, becomes the hysterical and too often venial jury. We cannot be too grateful for the courage and honesty with which, as a rule, English juries and judges fulfil their functions; it is to this adherence to law that many intelligent foreign observers attribute the fact that criminality in England is in some respects less serious than one might be led to expect. If, however, this attitude is to be maintained, and we are to avoid the dangers of lying and cowardly verdicts, we must see to it that our law keeps pace with our knowledge and with our methods of social progress.
The institution of the jury is well rooted in England, and on the whole very efficient. There is not likely to be any agitation for some time to come for its abolition, as there has been in Italy and France and Switzerland. But there is at all events one modification in our criminal courts which is urgently required. It is entirely opposed to the interests of justice, and therefore of society, that the scientific conclusions in a case should be thrust into a partisan position. Experts will often differ as lawyers often differ, but the lawyer is not more competent to decide on the science of the expert than the expert is competent to decide on the law of the lawyer. It is not for the interests of justice that one expert, representing perhaps only his own opinion, should weigh against another representing perhaps the general body of scientific opinion on that subject. It is not calculated for the ends of justice that the judge, however quick and intelligent, should have to pronounce on matters concerning which he can only speak as a layman, and necessarily falls into frequent errors of judgment. Special points involving special knowledge or skill must be submitted to a commission of experts, and the verdicts of the commission on these special points must be accepted by the court, though subject to an appeal to a supreme medico-legal tribunal. Some such method as this is now being widely demanded by intelligent opinion in the interests of justice. At the International Congress on Forensic Medicine, held in Paris in 1889, this tendency came out very clearly, and was formulated in the following proposition which the Congress adopted:--"To guarantee the interests of society and of the accused in all medico-legal investigations, at least two experts shall be employed. These shall be appointed by the judge." It is to be hoped, in the interests of justice, that the pressure of public opinion will hasten the adoption of this reasonable and moderate reform in criminal procedure.