14 Feb y 1808

IV

1. No Reporting

1. Analogous practice

1. From the Circuit in criminal cases - seldom but in capital or not capital, cases are sent off /referred/ for decision referred to the 12 Judges: from the single-seated ambulatory judicatory to that many-seated fixt one /judicatory/.

But the circumstances in which the sort of reference is made and those in which the reference is made from [...?] Ordinary to the Inner House, there is a [...?] and natural difference or rather no resemblance. In the case of the English references the facts of the case are all determined, the determination of them forms no part of the reference. The question /parts/ in which the opinion of the twelve-seated judicatory is called for, are already liquidated[?] and narrowed to a part: most constantly[?] but one single question: always in some determinate number and that a small one.

For the reference thus made there is a /two/ particular reason, and that a reason which has no /neither of them having/ application to the reference made from /by/ the Scotch Lord Ordinaries. The English Judge is travelling past: and which travelling lest he is sitting /dealing out/ in life and death. The Scotch Lord Ordinary are almost exclusively causes purely civil: and be the cause what it will, whether he decides it or sends it up undecided - whatever he does with it - any thing or nothing, he takes his own time for doing it.