Even where the administration of justice is seen at its best many people who have been wronged believe that there is so little likelihood that the offender will after all be punished that the cheapest and easiest course is to let the matter drop.

All this gives aid and comfort to the powers of darkness.
The widespread impression as to the uncertainty of the law is not entirely a misapprehension.

"We have long since passed the period when it is possible to punish an innocent man.

We are now struggling with the problem whether it is any longer possible to punish the guilty." It is a melancholy fact that at the present time "penal statutes and procedure tend more to defeat and retard the ends of justice than to protect the rights of the accused." The subject of criminal-law reform is too extensive to be discussed here even superficially, but historically the explanation of existing conditions is simple enough.

The present overgrown state of the criminal law is the direct result of our exaggerated regard for personal liberty, coupled with a wholesale adoption of the technicalities of English law invented when only such technicalities could stand between the minor offender and the barbarous punishments of a bygone age.