magistracy could not be established throughout the country without a complete reorganisation of our judicial system, involving great additional expense.
A deserter.
"Justices' justice" has long been a byword, and it is curious to note that it is usually administered in its most drastic and eccentric form by reverend gentlemen, whose religion one would think should guide them to more merciful decisions, even if they ignore the legal handbooks.
Prisoner: "Your wuship, I am subject to epileptic fits."
Magistrate: To epileptic drinks, you mean."
The practice of allowing clergymen to sit upon the bench is very objectionable for many reasons. They are often very narrow-minded, being for the most part unable to differentiate between sin and crime, and, knowing everyone in their parish, they are apt, when opportunity offers, to severely punish those who do not belong to their own denomination; and, further than this, they are too often the pliant tool of local aristocrats. There is undoubtedly a strong and apparently uncontrollable tendency on the part of country justices generally to accept the word of the constable rather than that of a poor man charged with an offence. The constable who assists in protecting game and in guarding the landlords and their farmers against trespassers, undoubtedly acquires a great deal of influence over the bench in many districts. The country justices, as a rule, know nothing of the law, and are obliged to rely on the advice of the clerk of the court, who is often a solicitor of some position, and probably acts as private solicitor to one or more of the magistrates. His knowledge of the law is usually not very extensive, and is generally derived for the purposes of each case as it arises from "Stone's Justices' Manual."
In many country districts, where the justices are old and incompetent, they are absolutely in the hands of their clerk, who for all practical purposes becomes not only a magistrate, but the sole magistrate present.
A vicious system prevails in most provincial districts, by which the police have the choice of the solicitor who prosecutes. The result of this is that, in order to ingratiate himself with the police, he is always more anxious to obtain convictions than to do justice, and is therefore obliged to abet the police in all the well-known tricks of suppressing facts, and even hard swearing in which they sometimes indulge. It would be more satisfactory to appoint a public official wholly independent of the police, resembling the Procurator-Fiscal in Scotland.
An inspector.
But although there is a good deal to be said against the great unpaid, they are perhaps not quite so bad as their numerous enemies delight to paint them. A strong bench, with a good clerk to keep them right in law, has many advantages, owing to the variety of mind and judgment brought to bear.
