CELEBRATED TRIALS,
AND
REMARKABLE CASES OF CRIMINAL
JURISPRUDENCE;
FROM THE
EARLIEST RECORDS TO THE PRESENT TIME.
EDITED BY
A MEMBER OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAR.
IN ONE LARGE 8VO. VOLUME.
Till the publication of the present volume, the English language was
possessed of no popular collection of celebrated trials and remarkable
cases of criminal jurisprudence.
The Newgate Calenders, as chroniclers of roguery and vulgar depravity
in their various forms, have usually been complied in language which
sympathize and accord with their subjects.
The State Trials, in seeking to exhaust all the legal and technical details,
degenerate into intolerable dullness, and are useful only as a body
of information, to be consulted by professional men in regard to analogous
cases which present themselves in practice; though, in this respect,
they are so valuable, that no law library ought to be without them.
At the same time, in forming a selection of interesting and important
trials from the range of the juridical proceedings of various nations, the
editor has adopted no existing model. The only one similar in its general
object is the voluminous series, in the French language, entitled Causes
Celebres. The best cases in that celebrated work have been transferred
to this volume.
The editor is aware that the interest of a trial often turns on small
points, and is increased by the reader being, as it were, carried into court.
This important principle he has never lost sight of; and in proof, he may
refer to the verbal examinations which he has retained, whenever they are
connected with the jet of the case, or with historical personages, and
curious traits of manners. If the general reader has reason to find any
fault with the work, it will rather be with the minutiæ of detail, than
with any deficiency.
