AbstractThe English have centralised justice in almost all the cases where great money interests are at stake; they have abandoned most criminal cases to the caprices of various sorts of petty tribunal. The Justices of the Peace decide without appeal almost all the crimes that do not carry the death penalty or that of transportation for more than fourteen years. The salutary guarantees which uniformity and the wisdom of a great central tribunal provide, are reserved for the fortunate; the uncertain application of the law by judges of doubtful competence has been left for cases that concern the life and liberty of men. There are several reasons for this, but this above all, that the rich bring cases of the first kind, whereas it is almost only the poor who are involved in the second.