text:  It has been often asked by some of these critical observers How is it that when great crimes or misdemeanours are to be punished when the bold and daring offender is to be brought to justice when the body politic is the offended party when the minister honours a supposed offender with his notice in the shape of criminal proceedings and the government condescends to prosecute--how is it it has been asked on such occasions when the first talent science and practical skill are all arranged against the unfortunate object of a nation's vengeance that the course of justice should be ever broken or impeded? Is the machinery then set in motion in truth defective--is there some inherent vice in the construction of the state engine? Is the law weak when it should be strong? Is its boasted majesty after all nothing but the creation of a fond imagination or a delusion of the past? Are the wheels of the state-machine no longer bright polished and fit for use as they once were? or are they choked and clogged with the rust and dust of accumulated ages? Or if not in the machine does the fault ask others of these bold critics rest with the workmen who guide and superintend its action? Are the principles of its construction now no longer known or understood? Are they like those of the engines of the Syracusan philosopher lost in the lapse of time? Is the crown less efficiently served than private individuals? and can it be possible it has even been demanded that those who are actively employed on these occasions have been so long removed on the practice of what is often deemed the simpler portion of the law and so long employed in the higher and more abstruse branches of the science that they have forgotten the practice of their youth and have lost the knowledge acquired in the commencement of their professional career? Lesser criminals it is said are every day convicted with ease and expedition--how is it therefore that the cobweb of the law holds fast the small ephemerae which chance to stray across its filmy mesh but that the gaudy insect of larger form and greater strength so often breaks through his flight perhaps arrested for a moment as he feels the insidious toil fold close about him? It is however only for a moment; one mighty effort breaks his bonds--he is free--and flies off in triumph and derision trumpeting forth his victory and proclaiming his escape from the snare in which it was hoped to encompass him