Journeys to England and Ireland by Alexis de Tocqueville

Author:Alexis de Tocqueville [Tocqueville, Alexis de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Europe
ISBN: 9781412826990
Google: 9YKvBFLsUjUC
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 1958-01-15T01:30:39+00:00

Persecutions

Mr. Plunkett,1 a Dublin lawyer, said to me today (22nd July 1835): ‘It is only since 1792 that Catholics could own land. Before that time the law prevented it. One should not therefore be the least surprised that the Irish population is excluded from the land and that the land is so little divided.’

Waterford

Waterford County Assizes (22nd and 23rd July 1835)

Sixteen murder cases. All these affairs turned out to be manslaughter or homicide by negligence. But in all of them, I believe, men had been killed. These Assizes gave us the strong impression that the lower classes in this county are very prone to quarrels and fights, and that almost every village forms a kind of faction with a code name. Factions which started nobody knows when, and which continue nobody knows why, and which take on no political colour. When men of different factions meet, at a fair, a wedding or elsewhere, it is exceptional if they do not come to blows just for the love of fighting. These quarrels very often end in someone getting killed; generally speaking, human life seems of little value here. I base myself on what we have seen ourselves and also on all we hear.

In a civil case heard by the same court, a ‘gentleman’ was accused of striking another with a cane. The latter cited him before the court and, to excuse this legal way of acting against accepted prejudices, his lawyer said, ‘What would happen, gentlemen, if the state of barbarism and violence in which the lower classes in this country unfortunately live, were to spread to the higher classes ? If men of the upper classes resorted to physical force at every turn like the people, would not civilisation soon disappear from this country ? ‘ This was clearly everybody’s opinion.1 Most of the accused and the . . .2

[The jurors are called and take the oath. The first witness is called at once. (The others remain present in court.) The Prosecutor for the Crown examines the witness. Counsel for the defence undertakes the ‘cross examination’. If the Judge thinks that a question being asked by one or the other is ‘improper’, he stops it being asked. After the witnesses have been heard, the Judge, who has taken notes, makes his summing-up in which he often openly shows the jury what he thinks. Then the jury retire. They give their verdict. If the accused is found guilty, the Judge immediately pronounces sentence, or acquits if innocent. Throughout the entire hearing the accused looks like a spectator. He says nothing; he is asked nothing. He speaks if he wishes to, but nobody asks him to speak.

My general impression is that English procedure is much more expeditious than ours; that it often excludes incriminating evidence; that the system of ‘examination and cross examination’ is better than ours for petty cases; that the position of the accused would be infinitely better than in France, if there were not under the Judge’s robes an

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