Every man ought to have the fullest opportunity of establishing his innocence if he can. - Henry Hawkins, 1st Baron Brampton

I rejoice to think that since the days of Queen Elizabeth, our laws have been so far humanized that a bastard child is no longer a mere thing to be shunned by an overseer,—whose existence is unrecognised until it becomes a pauper, and whose only legitimate home is a workhouse, that it is no longer permissible to punish its unfortunate mother with hard labour for a year, nor its father with a whipping at the cart's tail; but that even an illegitimate child may find itself a member of some honest family, and that the sole obligation now cast upon its parents is that each may be compelled to bear his and her own fair share of the maintenance and education of the unfortunate offspring of their common failing.

No system of judicature can be suggested in which occasionally failure to insure complete justice may not arise.

Legality and oppression are not unknown to run hand in hand.