English Procedure to be modified.

• 15. In order that the system here sketched out should be complete, that is to say, should carry within itself all requisite powers up to the fall measure of the need, it will be necessary in cases between persons of the two races to allow a certain departure from the usual course of English procedure. I refer to the rigid separation between the civil and the criminal consequences of a wrongful act, which in England is even now so strict as to render necessary in most cases an entirely distinct set of operations to enforce each of those several consequences. This state of things appears to be traceable, not to any deliberate judgment or purpose of our forefathers, but rather to the historical circumstances under which distinct branches of our law grew and extended themselves, and especially to the old rule according to which certain forfeitures accrued to feudal superiors in consequence of such acts as were pronounced by the Courts to be felonious. The feudal lawyers, therefore, were led to mark very strongly the distinction between felonies and mere trespasses or wrongs. At this day the contrary principle is steadily infusing itself into our English system; and it is coming to be accepted as a maxim that, when two litigants are at issue in a Court of competent jurisdiction, the facts of the case should be then and there investigated once for all, and all the redress which the law will give be given at once.

  In conformity with this sound principle, the proceedings in the Commissioner's Court should be such as to give complete redress. If, for example, an unlawful taking of property be complained of, the Court should inquire into the case, and deal with it according to the result of the inquiry. If it be found upon the trial to be only a trespass, the complainant should be at liberty to adduce evidence of the damage caused by the trespass, and should recover accordingly. So if a man be wantonly assaulted and receive injury, either in person or otherwise, damages should be awarded and a fine imposed at the same time. The Colonial Ordinance of 1845 leaves room for carrying out this principle in cases of summary proceedings for assault, but falls short of the mark by leaving to the discretion of the Magistrate that which should rather be prescribed by the law.