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beautiful object, which increases in magnitude on his riveted view, as he approaches its wide spreading base, till his ears are delighted by the harmonious sound of well regulated machinery, clanking to the tune of public utility.

This factory is built of brick, and in its structure, duration and utility are visibly combined. It measures 1533 feet in length, and is 48 feet wide. It was built in the summer of 1828, and put in operation on the 4th of March, 1829.

There are now in operation in this establishment, 2,200 spindles and 20 power looms, weaving 37 inch sheeting, in 800 reeds. We were highly gratified in observing the improvements in some of the power looms; and if experience can justify an assertion, we can safely say they have not been surpassed in any of the eastern manufactories we have ever visited.

This establishment is calculated to run 10,000 spindles, and 100 power looms. The steam engine was estimated, by Mr. Evans, at 100 horse power.

ton.

271

the cost for the whole distance of 46 miles is 37 cents a The ark costs $135, and being made rough, will last, say 20 trips only, is a trip, 1-to which add 37, is 381 46 miles 8 mills a ton per mile-being less than one-sixth the cost per ton per mile of the transportation on the rail road.

NAVY DEFARTMENT, March, 30th, 1830. Sir-It has been proved to my satisfaction, that Lieutenants Edmund Byrne and Hampton Westcott, passed Midshipman Charles H. Duryee, and Midshipman Charles G. Hunter, of the Navy of the United States, were recently concerned in a duel, which took place between the last named officer and William Miller, Jr. of Philadelphia, which resulted fatally to the latter. I respectfully recommend to you, that the names of the said officers, Edmund Byrne, Hampton Westcott, Charles H. Duryee, and Charles G. Hunter, be erased form the list of officers of the Navy of the United States. I am very respectfully, &c. JOHN BRANCH.

It must be highly gratifying to every lover of his country, to witness the progress of improvement, necessary for the comfort and convenience of its inhabitants. To the President of the U.S. Where history, well authenticated by living witnesses, informs the inquirer, that the appalling yells of Indian ferocity were heard, to disturb the timid settler who dared to encroach upon their boundaries, he views, in grateful silence, the splendid and magnificent buildings, erected for the benefit of an increasing community, the contrast is calculated to give rise to pleasing emotions. When he beholds the beautiful faces of the fair operators upon elegantly polished and well constructed machinery, he is irresistibly led to desire continuance of their happiness, and that success may crown the generous efforts of their enterprising and useful employers.--| Pittsburg Manufacturer.

Let the above named officers of the Navy be stricken from the Roll. ANDREW JACKSON.

MAUCH CHUNK RAIL-ROAD.

As the Mauch Chunk Company have been in practi-
cal operation with their rail road nearly three seasons,
and have had every facility attending a Company's op-
erations on a rail road, and also, in making and repair-
ing wagons and road every advantage which could be
naturally expected has been possessed, there being a
foundry on the ground belonging to the Company, and
fuel cheap and water power in abundance for all those
operations. All these facilities combined would we ap-
prehend result in producing the minimum average of
the cost of using said road. We have therefore sought
and procured an average statement of the work done
during the said three seasons, It is as follows:
On a transportation of 87,089 tons of coal.

Cost per ton-Cents.
Wear and tear, and repairing rail road wagons,
Oil for wagons,

Break ropes for do.

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March 31st, 1830. Immediately on the receipt of the foregoing communication and order, the following resolutions were offered in the Senate and House of Representatives of Pa. In the Senate on Friday, Mr. Fullerton offered the following resolutions, which were adopted: viz:

Resolved, That the President of the United States, and the Secretary of the Navy, deserve the thanks of the friends of good order and civil liberty for the promptness with which Lieutenants Byrne and Westcott, passed Midshipman Charles H. Duryee, and Midshipman Charles G. Hunter, have been stricken from the list of naval officers for being concerned in a duel, in which a citizen was unfortunately deprived of his life.

Resolved, That the Speaker be requested to transmit a copy of the above resolution to the President of the United States and the Secretary of the Navy.

In the House, Mr. Moore, of Erie, offered the following resolution, viz:

"Resolved, That the conduct of ANDREW JACKSON, President of the United States, in striking from the roll, the officers of the Navy, concerned in the late duel between Charles G. Hunter and William Miller, jr. meets with the entire approbation of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania."

Which was read a second time, when Mr. Petriken moved to amend the same by striking therefrom all that follows the word Resolved, and inserting in lieu thereof the following words, viz:

"That the President of the U. States, and the Secretary of the Navy, deserve the thanks of the friends of - 11.3748 good order and civil liberty for the promptitude with 7.4873 which Lieutenants Byrne and Westcott, passed Midship17.5113 man Charles H. Duryee and Midshipman Charles G. Hunter, have been stricken from the list of Naval offi36.3734 cers for being concerned in a duel in which a citizen was unfortunately deprived of his life," which was agreed to, & the resolution was adopted, yeas 67, nays7.

1.0000 The distance from the Mines to the Summit is three fourths of a mile, and ascent 46 feet; distance from the Summit to the end of road 8 miles, and descent 767 feet-making the total distance 9 miles: 36 cents, is 4 cents a ton per mile. The wear and tear of the road is estimated at one cent a ton per mile—thus making the total cost of transportation on this rail road (exclusive of interest account) five cents a ton per mile.

At this time the same company are now paying $24 a trip (and find the boats) from Mauch Chunk to Easton. It is taken at present in rough arks, composed of 4 or 5 sections, carrying altogether 65 tons of coal, and

A boat arrived from Middletown on the Susquehanna, by way of the Union canal and the Schuylkill, in four days and three hours. Her cargo consisted of 263 barrels of flour. This is the shortest passage ever performed between Middletown and Philadelphia.—Phila, Gazette.

A friend has presented us with a quill, 204 inches in length, taken from the wing of an Eagle, caught in a wolf trap in Conneat township, a few days since, which meas ured seven feet four inches between the points of the wings.-Crawford Messenger.

EXPENSES OF THE

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT

OF THE 'GOVERNMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA'-FROM 1791 to 1829 INCLUSIVE.

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on and was argued by Wall and Wood for the plaintiffs and Croxall and Southard, the Attorney General, for the defendants.

Dr. JOHN GODMAN, who died in this city, on Saturday last, (April 17th,) at the early age of thirty-two, was one of the most eminent members of our medical and scientific circles. In the branches of anatomy and The action was brought to recover penalties for a viphysiology, he was particularly distinguished, and the olation of a late act of the Legislature of New Jersey, lectures on those subjects, which he delivered to pri- prohibiting the use of gilling seines in the River Delavate classes in this eity, and from a chair in the princi-ware by individuals not owning fisheries attached to the pal medical college of New York, were deservedly pop. ular for their excellence, and never failed to endear him to his pupils.

adjacent shores. It was objected on the part of the defendants that this act was unconstitutional, in as much as it gave a preference to the Riparian Proprietors, who it was contended, had not an exclusive right of fishing in the pools or fishing places, fronting their respective shores. The Court, Judge Baldwin presiding, decided in favour of the Constitutionality of the law, and award

His beautiful volumes on Natural History, written under great disadvantages, are sufficient to attest his zeal and talents in that department of knowledge, whilst his literary and scientific contributions to various societies and journals, evince a mind of the most extensive ac-ed judgment to the plaintiff. quirements and persevering industry. The hand of sickness arrested him in the midst of his useful activity; and rarely has a career of more brilliant promise been prematurely terminated. Among his last labours were the translation of Levasseur's Tour of Lafayette, and some papers in the American Journal of Medical Sciences, but his strength was not equal to his ardent ambition." Morn. Journ.

LAW CASE.

At the late Circuit Court of the United States holden at Trenton, the cause of Bennet against Boggs, came

A similar act to the one existing in New Jersey relative to gilling nets, has been passed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania.

Printed every SATURDAY MORNING by WILLIAM F GEDDES, No. 59 Locust Street, Philadelphia; where, and at the PUBLICATION OFFICE, IN FRANKLIN PLACE, second door back of the Post Office, (back room) subscriptions will be thankfully received. Price FIVE DOLLARS per annum, payable annually by subscribers residing in or near the eity, or where there is an agent. Other subscribers pay in advance.

THE

REGISTER OF PENNSYLVANIA.

DEVOTED TO THE PRESERVATION OF EVERY KIND OF USEFUL INFORMATION RESPECTING THE STATE.

VOL. V.-NO. 18.

EDITED BY SAMUEL HAZARD.
PHILADELPHIA, MAY 1, 1830.

DECISION RESPECTING MORTGAGES.

NO. 122.

In the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, for the Middle for the plaintiffs in error, and by Williston for the de

District: Sunbury, July 3, 1829.

William Willard, Jr. and Lyman]
Adams, plaintiffs in error.

23.

Writ of error to Tioga county.

Joseph P. Norris, who survived David Lenox, defts. in error. The case was as follows: 1815, December 22.-Elias Boudinot conveyed a tract of land to Lyman Adams.

Same day-Lyman Adams mortgaged the premises to Joseph P. Norris and David Lenox, to secure he payment of $

1819, Feb. 15.-Judgment entered in the C. P. of Tioga county, in favour of Robert Tabbs, against Lyman Adams and others, from a justice of the peace.

1819, April 28-Fi. Fa. issued on this judgment and levied on the mortgaged premises.

1819, June 25-Mortgage to Norris and Lenox recorded.

1821, Dec. Term-Sci. Fac. jun. mortgage returned

served.

1822, Sept. 17.-Judgment by consent for $336 63. 1825, April 22.-Sci. Fac. post annum et diem issued upon the judgment upon the mortgage, returnable to May term 1825.

1826, Aug. 19.-Judgment obtained by Seely S. Adams and others, for $156 82 in C. P. of Tioga.

1826, Dec. 19.-The mortgaged premises were sold by Sheriff under a fi. fa. on this judgment and others to William Willard, Jr. for $50.

1827, Feb. 17.-Sheriff's deed to Willard acknowl. edged.

After the argument in the Supreme Court by Lewis fendant in error, the opinion of the court was delivered by Ton, J. who after the facts and pleadings proceed. ed as follows:

The judgment on the first sci. fac. was confessed by the defendant (Adams,) on the 17th of September, 1822. The amount of it was settled at $336 63. The mortgage produced was of the date already mentioned, to secure payment of a bond for $987 66, conditioned for the payment of 493 83; on what day or from time it was to be paid, does not appear. Thus it appears that the judgment upon which the land was sold by the sheriff, was subsequent to the recording of the mortgage of the plaintiff below. The judgment, towards satisfaction on which the money was applied by the sheriff, was prior to the mortgage. There was judg ment entered in the court long prior to the sale by the sheriff, and against that sheriff's sale there was no alle gation of fraud. But as to the distribution which, has been made, depending upon the fact, that though the land was actually sold on a later judgment, yet that the money raised by the sale was appropriated to a judgment which had been entered up prior to the recording of the mortgage, that distinction appears to have been disregarded in the argument, and we shall not rely upon it in the decision. Then on this general demurer the question comes up directly, whether the title of a prior mortgagee and the lien of his mortgage are divested and extinguished by a sale of the land by the sheriff on a younger judgment. Perhaps it is a queswhich now comes before the court the first time for a direct decision. Yet I apprehend, that, incidentally and indirectly, it has often arisen and often been decided. I have endeavoured to make a collection of all the

1827, Sept. 21.-The Court of Common Pleas order-cases bearing upon this subject, from 1st Yeates and 1st ed the money arising from the sale to be paid over to the judgment of Tabbs and Adams.

1827, Dec. 21.-Judgment entered by default on Sci. Fac. post an. et diem, on the judgment sur mortgage, levari facias issued to February term, 1828.

1828-On the application of William Willard, Jr. to the Court of C. P. the default was set aside, and he was admitted a co-defendant.

1829, Feb. 18-Adams and Willard plead nul tiel record, and Willard pleads specially the fact of the judg. ment and sale, before stated.

Same day. The court allowed the Sci. Fac. to be amended by reciting the judgment on the mortgage of September term, 1822, instead of December, 1821.The plaintiffs replied, in substance, that the mortgage was still out standing, to which the defendant, Willard, demurred generally, and the plaintiffs joined in the de

murrer.

May term, 1829.-The court of Common Pleas gave judgment on the plea and demurrer for the plaintiffs, upon which the defendant took a writ of error to the Supreme Court, and several errors were assigned, of which the following is the only one material.

2nd. "In deciding that the land sold by the Sheriff to Willard, under the circumstances disclosed in the plea, was liable to be sold again upon a mortgage not recorded within the period required by law, upon which the judgment had been obtained long prior to the sale." VOL. V.

35

Binney, 97, to Barnet vs. Washebaugh, 16, Serg. and R. 409. Most of these cases were cited in the argument. In Petry vs. Beauvarlet, 1 Binney, 97; rule upon sheriff to bring money into court; that with the money he had paid off several judgments and mortgages upon the premises sold, which being prior to the judgment, in this case, were entitled to prior satisfactionand that he had charged a poundage upon the different sums so paid. Per curiam. "The construction of that clause (namely, 9th fee bill) has uniformly allowed to the sheriff a poundage upon the payment of all prior judgments and mortgages. He must therefore take his costs." That this decision was accordant with the sense of the community and of the bar, is strongly shown by the case of Brown vs. Brown, (1 Browne's Rep. 97,) where some contested items in the sheriff's bill of costs were referred to two gentlemen, among the most practical and experienced of the profession. The sheriff had sold land under the act of 11th April, 1799, after the execution of a writ of partition on an item, charging $10 39 paid by the sheriff, "for searches of judgments and mortgages, &c." The referees approved the charge and gave their reasons. "It appears necessary," 1 Br. 98, to "plaintiff who sells," p. 190. This award was confirmed by the court with the approbation of all as far as appears. Even though this case should not be held as a precedent in law, yet it seems to me nothing can more clearly show how notorious is the rule, that in

every judicial sale in Pennsylvania, the land goes to the mortgage deed within six months. The latter cases on purchaser clear of all liens of judgments and mortgages, the subject are still more conclusive. In Commonand that out of the purchase money, the sheriff, at his wealth vs. Alexander, 14 S. and R. 257, it was decided own risk, is to pay off all those liens according to their (Tilghman, C. J. pronouncing the opinion) not only that priority, insomuch, though the act of assembly about a prior judgment was to be paid out of the purchase mopartition makes no mention of liens, yet by mere analo-ney accruing from a sheriff's sale, but that a judgment gy drawn from the notorious usage of the common- still older and against another person who had been the wealth, an allowance was adjudged in this case to the preceding owner shall also be paid. Then as to mortsheriff for the fees paid for searches of judgments and gages. In M'Call vs. Lenox, 9 S. and R. 302, the land mortgages, the owners of which might afterwards call was sold on a judgment without any question, as far as upon him for their money. I refer also to Shoemaker vs. appears; the money was applied by the sheriff to the Houtford, 1 Browne, 251. satisfaction of a mortgage, and the residue, as far as it would go, to a second mortgage-both mortgages being prior to the judgment. The last two cases are full of other matter, leading as it seems to me to the same conclusion, that a mortgage is but a record evidence of a debt, and entitled on this question to no prerogative whatever above a judgment. Independent of the express authorities cited, I refer to Wentz vs. Dehaven, 1 S. and R. 312; Porter vs. Hoft, 11 S. and R. 223; other cases might be cited, but it would seem to be unnecessary.-Judgment reversed.

AN ACT CONCERNING LIENS.

In case of Bank of North America vs. Fitsimmons, 3 Bin. 358, Tilghman, C. J. says, "it has been a practice of long standing in this state, where the sheriff sells land by virtue of an execution, to sell it for its full value, and apply the money to the discharge of those liens." The consequence was, that the sheriff retained the money in his hands till he could ascertain the amount of old judgments. In Wall vs. Loyd's Ex'rs 1 S. & R. 320, Tilghman, C. J. said, "I know that by the practice of this court, sheriff's have been allowed poundage out of the money they pay, not only for the satisfaction of the debt of the plaintiff in the execution, but also of other judgments by which the land was bound"-and in the same case, Yeates, J. said, "this Section 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House court has determined in Petry vs. Beauvarlet, that the of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvaconstruction of the act of April 25, 1795, uniformly has nia, in General Assembly met, and it is hereby enacted been to allow the sheriff poundage for all debts which by the authority of the same, That from and after the he has paid on sales." The case in 2 Dall. 131, Nich- passage of this act, where the lien of a mortgage upon ols vs. Postlewhaite, would, I apprehend, if any ques-real estate is, or shall be prior to all other liens upon the tion was yet remaining as to the usage of Pennsylvania, requiring all liens to be paid on sheriff's sales, end the doubt. There it was expressly decided, that legacies charged by will on land sold by the sheriff on a subsequent judgment should be paid out of the purchase money, which goes far beyond any payment of a prior Section 2. And be it further enacted by the authormortgage. It is argued that this is but a nisi prius deci-ity aforesaid, That no sale made by virtue or authority sion, and that the same case is not at all mentioned in of any writ of levari facias, issued upon a judgment in a Yeates's Reports. As to the authority, the judges ap- suit upon a mortgage, shall destroy, or in any way efpear to have been Bradford and Shippen; and Judge fect the prior lien of any other such mortgage as aforeYeates reported no decision made at a Circuit whereat said. he did not attend; besides the decision in Nichols vs. Postlewhaite, is cited with express approbation by Duncan, J. in Gauze vs. Wiley, 4 S. and R. 535; by Tilghman, C. J. in the Commonwealth vs. Gurney's Ex'rs. vs. Alexander, 14 S. & R. 263, and by the whole court, in Barnet vs. Washabaugh, 16 S. and R. 413, in which the very same point was decided. It appears hard to name a reason why prior legacies shall be paid by monies raised out of a sheriff's sale, yet that prior judgments or prior mortgages shall not be paid.

I am not aware of any decision of this court contradicting the usages which have been mentioned, and which I think there is reason to believe have existed beyond all memory of man. But the incidental dicta of the judges have varied very much indeed. Judge Yeates seems to have taken the lead in support of what he deemed the ancient usage, and his reason, which may be found in the case of Keen vs. Swain et al. 3 Yeates, 561, cannot in my opinion be easily and satisfactorily answered. Judge Brackenridge was foremost on the other side. On every occasion he seems to have declared his mind most unequivocally, that by a sheriff's sale of land all prior liens, whether by judgment or mortgage, are left wholly untouched, and he gives his reasons most fully in his miscellanies, p. 258, and from some dicta in his books from the judges incidentally, it seems probable that one or more of them were of the same opinion with Judge Brackenridge. But this it appears to me could not have lasted long. In the case of Patterson vs. Sample, 4 Yeates 308, there was a mortgage and the land sold under a subsequent judgment. There was an application by the mortgagee to receive his money from the sheriff. The case was tried before Smith, J. The only ground upon which that judge seems to have placed the case, was the recording of the

same property, except other mortgages, ground rents, and the purchase money due to the commonwealth, the lien of such mortgages shall not be destroyed, or in any way effected, by any sale made by virtue or authority of any writ of venditioni exponas.

CHARGE

Of the Honorable EDWARD KING, President Judge of the
Court of Oyer & Terminer, for Philadelphia Co.
Gentlemen of the Grand Jury:

You are convened upon the present occasion to aid in the administration of the highest department of criminal jurisdiction known to the laws of this commonwealth. The offences which may be submitted to your scrutiny and adjudication, are those most dangerously affecting the peace of society, and justly visited with denunciations and punishments of the most imposing character. Death itself-long protracted imprison. ment at hard labour, and consequent infamy, may speedily follow the accusations formally tendered from your body to this court; for those accusations once made, must in the discharge of an official duty be steadily carried out to their consequences, however afflicting or awful, by us and all the other ministers of justice, to whom they are confided. What you initiate we must consummate and either release innocence from the tor ture of your suspicions, or impose upon proven guilt an appropriate measure of its prescribed penalty. The important results, however, that may follow your presen tations, only call for additional firmness and energy in the fulfilment of your duties. As you are the exclusive authority through which the sanction of the penal law can be directed against offenders, a failure on your part to exercise the high trust confided in you fearlessly and faithfully, would shake the foundations of social security.

But emerging from the mass of a community into which they must soon return, without prepossessions to indulge or enmities to prompt, ignorant in general of

1830.]

CHARGE TO GRAND JURY.

275

be considered as supplied by those of the Constitution of the United States, and acts of Congress, and such as remain unaffected by these causes, are so unlikely to be called into operation, that the recapitulation of their provisions is on this occasion uncecessary. The highest offence known to our law is the crime of murder, and the only one now punishable with death. No of fence seems to have attracted more the consideration and care of the legislature which reformed the penal code of the state. It is defined with care; it is distin guished into degrees and the appropriate punishment awarded according to its comparative atrocity. discrimination, however, of the two degrees of murder, namely of the first and second degrees, is the task of the jury which tries the indictment, not the grand jury.— The grand jury decide on the question of murder generally as it stood at the common law, and are therefore relieved in some respects from the solemn responsibility which rests on the court and traverse jury by whom this important discrimination is made.

The

the unhappy persons over whose future fates and characters they deliberate, the grand jurics of Pennsylvania can only be actuated by a desire to maintain the laws, vindicate the public peace and confirm the common safety. Their intelligence has always been distinguished; their independence unsuspected; their integrity unassailable. In a preparatory tribunal thus constituted and thus characterized, the community have every reason to place an unbounded confidence. While it exists, conscious virtue may scorn the machinations of hatred and the intemperance of prejudice; while it exists, courts of trial are sanctuaries against malice and oppres ́sion; while it exists, crime in vain seeks shelter behind the glitter of wealth, the pride of connection, or the mask of hypocrisy, &the great objects of social organization guarded by the criminal code must remain inviolable. I am aware, gentlemen, that in thus remarking upon the excellence and dignity of your office, I only repeat what others have more ably enforced. But I believe it to be useful, commencing as we do now the fulfilment of painful though necessary duties, briefly to advert to Murder, then, as defined by the common law, is, the solemnities of our undertaking; to withdraw our when a person of sound memory and discretion unlawselves for a while from ordinary feelings and pursuits, fully killeth any reasonable creature in being, and in the and to fix our minds on the importance of the task we peace of the commonwealth, with malice prepense or have actually in hand. Let us go to it with a full and aforethought, either expressed or implied. Each branch fresh impression, that it calls for an exercise of our best of this definition must be carefully attended to in decifaculties, as well of the understanding as of the heart.-ding on the application of the crime to an act of homiIn this manner only, shall we reach its termination, sat-cide, but the last requiring that it be done with malice isfied with ourselves and approved by our country.

The real demerits of crime are varied by the degrees of intention, of temptation, of age and of circumstances in which individuals are placed as well as by its pernicious consequences to society. Yet to assign to each its exact proportion of punishment is not within the power of the law. But no system of criminal jurisprudence is just or salutary that does not aim as far as practicable to proportion the measure of punishment to the grade of offence. In this particular, many governments in other respects highly intelligent, have lamentably erred, some assigning to almost every serious infraction of social duty the extreme of punishment, others commuting flagrant crimes for a pecuniary mulct.

aforethought demands peculiar consideration Malice, in the legal acceptation of the word, does not, as in the popular one, denote a spite or malevolence, against the deceased in particular, but that the fact has been attended with such circumstances as are the ordinary symptoms of a wicked, depraved, and malignant spirit; a heart regardless of social duty, and deliberately bent on mischief. Every act which apparently must do harm, and without provocation, and of which death is the consequence, is murder. Express malice is where one person kills another, with a sedate deliberate mind, and formed design; such formed design being evinced by external circumstances, manifesting the inward intention, as lying in wait,antecedent menaces, former grudges, and concerted schemes to do the party bodily harm. Within this class of cases are embraced those homicides that result from the detestable practice of Duelling. In these meetings of blood, each party comes with the formed design of taking away the life of his opponent, and when death results to either, the survivor is, as well in the eye of the law as in that of religion and morals, a murderer of the most unequivocal character.

The successful labours of enlightened men of modern times, have happily established as axioms in criminal justice; that it is the certainty, not the amount of punishment, which tends to repress crime; that the punishment of death being the utmost limit of buman power, ought to be reserved for a few cases of the deepest dye: And that the infliction of suffering upon the criminal ought to be subsidiary to the great end of effecting his reformation. It is a matter of just congratulation that the adoption of a system founded on these humane prin- He who in the fantastic language of this systematized ciples by our own commonwealth, at an early period af murder, is termed the second of the party killing, is ter her emancipation from colonial subjection, has re-equally as obnoxious to the law as his principal. Our sulted in the demonstration of the practical correctness penal code sternly regarding homicides of this kind in of these principles. For whether we compare the a- their true character, only views the successfuel duellist mount of crime with that of other nations or of our own as the hardened wretch who employs skill and delibestate under the ancient system, we discern a striking ration in depriving his fellow man of life-as one who amelioration; and are encouraged to persevere in the regardless that vengeance belongeth to the most High,' maintenance of the present one in its substantial fea- tramples on all laws, divine and human, in vindication tures, exerting at the same time every means to improve more frequently of a fancied than a real injury, or in the and bring it nearer to perfection. assertion of a principle of honour always fantastic, and never based on sound moral principle. If the public feeling, however, is outraged by crimes of this kind; if the peaceful, the virtuous, and the estimable, are ever shocked by their open perpetration, it is not because our laws are not sufficiently energetic to reach the of fenders. Such a reproach does not rest on them. The comparative impunity which accompanies the duellist, is the consequence of a mistaken public sentiment, that admits the possible case in which one man is justified in imbruing his felon hands in human blood, and which supposes that there may be injuries where men are at liberty to seek redress by separating themselves from the pale of civil society, and by setting all public law at defiance. Every friend of social order, every friend of humanity, ought to unite in frowning down a sentiment

As it is, gentlemen, made your duty to present all such matters as shall be given you in charge, it has been usual and it is proper for me to notice those crimes which come more peculiarly within your cognizance-I mean those which were capital offences at common law and punishable with death. It is true that you have jurisdiction in all cases of infraction of the criminal law, yet those of a minor character are left to the courts of ordinary criminal jurisdiction, and except in special cases rarely interfere with your graver duties.

The offence of treason against the commonwealth, is fortunately become a crime unknown in our days. We have still in force acts on that subject, passed during the war of the Revolution, when Pennsylvania was an independent sovereignty, but most of their provisions may

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