FAITHFULL & Co., PRINTERS, VICTORIA PRESS, 83A, FARRINGDON STREET, AND 1A, PRINCES STREET, STOREY'S GATE, WESTMINSTER. INDEX TO VOL. XXIII. OF THE Law Magazine and Law Review. An Essay on the Importance of the Preservation and Amend- Marriages of British Subjects in Foreign Countries, 362. Martial Law, 222. Mr. Chisholm Anstey and the High Court of Bombay, 145. Necrology, 188, 385. Contents of No. XLII. Criminal Procedure.-The Law of Slander: its Present State and Proposed Alterations in the Law of Master and Servant.-Rank of Queen's Serjeant.-The Case of Mr. George William Gordon. -Domestic Service.-Public Health.-Judicial Statistics.- Bribery and Corruption at Elections.-Recent Legal Appoint- The Statute Book for 1866.-Criminal Procedure.-More Judges: are they Wanted. Sir Edmund Saunders and Mr. Serjeant Williams.-Compensation for Improvements made by Tenants in Ireland, when and how far it should be Secured by Law.- Wheaton's International Law.-The Late Lord Justice of Appeal, The Right Hon. Sir James Lewis Knight Bruce, D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A.-Constitutional Law in the Latin Races.-Macleod's Theory and Practice of Banking.-The The late Mr. Justice Crompton.-Criminal Procedure.-Case of THE Law Magazine and Law Review: OR QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF JURISPRUDENCE. No. XLV. ART. I. THE LATE MR. JUSTICE CROMPTON. "An Epitaph must be made fit for the person for whom it is made; "for a man to say all the excellent things that can be said upon one, "and call that his epitaph, is as if a painter should make the hand"somest piece he can possibly make, and say 'twas my Picture." THE Selden's Table Talk. HE subject of this memoir, for many years a Puisne, and latterly the Senior Puisne Judge of the Court of Queen's Bench, Charles John Crompton, the third son of Peter Crompton, M.D., and of Mary his wife, was born at Derby on June 12, 1797. In the same year, a few months after the birth of his distinguished child, Dr. Crompton changed his residence from Derby to Eton House, in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, where he passed the remainder of his days. Thus was formed that connexion with Liverpool which was a stepping-stone to his son's success. The family of Dr. Crompton had been settled for some time at Derby. It was supposed to have migrated there from Yorkshire at an earlier period. The paternal grandfather of Charles Crompton (for his second name, which he never used, will be VOL. XXIII.-NO. XLV. B dropped throughout this narrative) was a banker at Derby. His family, which ranked amongst those of the gentlemen of England, was one of those good old stocks in the middle ranks of life, from which arose in the time of the Civil War between Charles and his Parliament some of the greatest and most steady supports of the endangered rights and liberties of the people. The Cromptons descended from Puritans and Roundheads, men who, whatever the faults or narrowness of many amongst them, were nevertheless grand specimens of a fine old English breed, a descent from whom, though once subject to obloquy, is now justly accounted an honour. The judge came therefore from a good old stock, and the rough strong wine, mellowed and matured by time, had lost neither its colour nor its flavour. His political creed was a somewhat popular version of the text of our mixed form of government, but his reading of the constitution, though democratical, was at the same time loyal, liberal and consistent. The law speaks of the king, of the peers, of the clergy, and of the commons of the realm. It ignores the accidental distinctions of rank amidst the commons, which society recognizes, and which have been made, perhaps unwisely, the basis of some modern legislation. Charles Crompton never sat in Parliament. He had no opportunity of testifying there to his opinions, though he twice presented himself as a candidate on the hustings; once at Preston in 1832, on the first general election after the passing of the Reform Bill, and once at Newport in the Isle of Wight, in the year 1848, when, though again unsuccessful, he made a nearer approach to success. His defeat can scarcely be accounted a misfortune. His subsequent elevation to the Bench could by none be ascribed to his votes in Parliament. No voice cavilled at the appointment, and all acknowledged the true cause of his promotion to be his well-earned fame as a lawyer. A family connexion existed between the Crompton family and some of the Parliamentary leaders in the Great Rebellion. President Bradshaw, who descended from an ancient Lancashire family, was connected with the Cromptons. The late judge |