Simon Stern, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, has posted Henry Fielding on Crime and Punishment:
In his own right as an author on crime, punishment, and questions of social reform and poor relief, and as a pioneering magistrate who organized the Bow Street Runners ("the first English detectives," as John Beattie has called them), Fielding is an important figure in legal history. This chapter discusses Fielding's career as a barrister and then turns to his practice as a magistrate, considering his methods of evidence-gathering and verification, particularly through his approach to cross-examination. The chapter examines the implications of these materials for Fielding's handling of crime and its detection. The discussion then turns to Fielding's doctrinal writings, including the surviving manuscript evidence concerning his ambitious but eventually abandoned treatise on criminal law, An Institute of the Pleas of the Crown, and his Treatise on the Office of Constable. These writings offer a valuable perspective not only on the subjects he addresses there but also on his understanding of a treatise's purpose.
Henry Fielding (NYPL)
--Dan Ernst
