2-043 (Text)

File contents

What is the state of our criminal law? It is not merely one, two, or three months that persons are kept in custody previously to trial, but frequently a much longer time previously to being committed; and afterwards again, how many have remained in gaol, a much longer period before their turn comes round, than the laws of England, which are professedly in force here, would award for the offence? Look again at Launceston, where there have been only three assizes since December 1825! and at Hobart Town, where there are upon an average from fifty to one hundred criminals for trial, there has only been two or three general gaol deliveries since the present Chief Justice Pedder assumed the administration of the laws, in May 1824. We draw no inference, but only state facts - broad unvarnished facts, leaving it to those into whose hands this day's paper may come . . . to derive what conclusions from them they may think proper.