Mr. SUMNER. It is aphrase of the ancient Roman jurisprudence, derived from that, entciing into the jurisprudence of all continental Europe, and all that portion of our own jurisprudence which is dependent upon the ancient oman jurisprudence, the admiralty law, as the Senfrom Maryland suggests, and also in England the law administered in consiste rial courts. Now, in the Roman law, to go back to that, we find that the term probable cause plays an immense part. There is not a term in Roman jurisprudence, I presume, more important than that. Where a party could show “probable cause" for anything that he did it was a justification. I presume one could not err under the law of nations if he said that a public ship overhauling a merchantman on the ocean, having probable cause to suspect that the ship was not what it purported to be; then the very fact of probable cause under such circumstances would be a suficient defense; so important the rule of probable cause, in the original oman jurisprudence, and in those different countries who erived their jurisprudence from ancient Rome, been regarded. Now, as I understand it, this phrase is imported into our statutes; itjs not unknown in them before. Of course it occurs constantly in our revenue statutes, but there again, I take it, it is derived from this some original source. N ow, it is proposed to declare that where probable cause is shown for a prosecution, the bur den of proof shall be changed. As I have said, by that jurisprudence from which the phrase is derived, where probable cause is shown, it is a defense for any authorities in any seizure they make. They do not err. If the seizure be a ship, or if it be a man, or if it be any article of property, there is no mistake if the Government shows probable cause; and so, on the other hand, i there is probable cause to believe a man to be guilty, the burden of evidence under that jurisprudence absolutely changes and he has got to bring forward his evidence in order to overthrow that probable cause and now, to give a practical aplication to all this, it seems to me that in this c ause there is simply an attempt, and I must say it seems to me a properattempt, to give an increased stringency to the law for the represssion of smuggling, by making the showing of probable cause the occasion for a change of the onus probandi. I do not think there will be any mistake if we shall adopt it.