LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2027, 23 August 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A FAILURE OF JUSTICE. [From “ Belgravia.” j ( I have always, I hope, entertained a due respect for the powers that bo, but I never fuily appreciated the position of those powers till 1 became one of them myself, by being ‘ made a magistrate ’ for Middlesex. Such was the common phrase by which the thoughtless throng described my accession to that dignity, but I need scarcely say that the correct description of it is that I was put in the Commission of the Peace. It is only men of war that are ‘ put into comnrssiou ’ on the water, but on land it is different. In ancient boroughs and other places where fine old English customs still survive, persons who are thus exalted even have a sword girt on them by the corporation or other important body, kneeling, but no such ceremony now ordinarily takes place. According to modern practice, the Lord Lieutenant of the county (after much mature thought, and perhaps prayer) selects the nr st honorable and fitting persons for this post and then appoints them by letter. In this simplicity there is perhaps as much significance—for those who can see below the surface—as ia the more ancient forms of investiture.

To all outward appearance I was the same man as I was the day before my elevation, ‘ but ah ? the difference to me !’

In my inmost heart I felt myself a custos rotulorum, which is not a thing to bs met with every day, let me tell you—nor every other day. I did not quite know what it meant myself, but like a professor of metaphysics— I wrs quite prepared to let other people know.

I caused cockades to be attached to the hats of my men servants, so large that, in the case of the page, some said it looked as if the page was attached to the cockade, which, sentimentally speaking he certainly was not, since he complained to my wife of its making him an object of ridicule. I sent for him to my study and harangued him—as if from the Bench-in a very satisfactory and telling manner, dismissing him after three-quarters of an hour ‘ without a stain upon bis character,’ but in floods of tears.

I found the phrase (an original one, I flatter myself), * I do not seek, nnhappy lad, to add to the poignanoy of.your position,’ exceedingly efficacious. was my first intention, in order to fit myself for my important duties, to read “ Burns’ Justice,” from title-page to closing line; bat after six attempts—all of which resulted in slumber, and the last one so deep and stentorions that :• apoplectic seizure—l gave that up, and fell back upon the police reports, where, after all, one ge s the essentials. I found it good practice, so far as deportment was concerned, to address myself to orgin-grlndeis in the street, beginning. ‘.Look here, my man, I am a magistrate,” and ending with a quotation from the fonrth section of the 13th Act of Victoria.

Before 1 had done they generally packed np their traps, white mice and all, and, muttering something about insensate which, 1 suppose, is the Italian mode of expressing penitence moved off pretty quickly. I am very far, I hope, notwithstanding what certain envious people (who have no more chance of becoming justices of the peace than members of Parliament) may chance to say, from being a busybody ; bnt I confess that I rather des&ed an opportunity of dispensing justice, not collectively as it were, upon the Ranch (where the individual is merged in the majority, or, what is almost as bad, in the minority), bat in my own proper person, and at last that opportunity came.

It happened, too, in the company of my nephew John, from Eton, which was all the more agreeable to me, as the boy was inclined to be frivolous, and needed perhaps to have impressed upon him a due reverence and respect for the high office into which I had been inducted.

We had been dining out at'Christmas time with another uncle of his in the northeastern district of London, and had been detained by the various amusements connected with that festive season —charades, snap dragon, forfeits, and gin-punch—till a late hour. It was a bitterly cold and snowy night. There was no cab-stanu near the house, and we had started home on foot with the intention of picking np the first four-wheeler my nephew called It a ‘ growler,’ though it is nowhere so described in the Act —we could meet with. At 12.10 we found one standing at the door of a public-house, which at that hour ought, of course, to have been closed, and to have harbored neither cabman nor any other customer. With the cunning peculiar to those who habitually defy the law, the landlord had put the lights out in the house, bat with the short-sightedness common to crime, he had forgotten that the presence of the empty cab outside betrayed his transgression. ‘ Here, ’ said I. * John, is a clear case of a breach of cap. 7, section 8, and you shall see how a magistrate deals with it.’ Perhaps it was not only the sense of duty which was actuating me. I was cold and tired, and quite resolved upon getting that cab to go home in. • All right, uncle,’ replied John, dutifully enough, but he added something which sounded like ‘ Here's larks,’ forwhioh I saw no appropriateness save of the very vaguest kind in connection with the inclemency ot the weather. I pulled out the front door heU to its fullest extent, and stepped back into the frosty street to mark the effect. There was no sign whatever of movement in the house; ao I rang again ; still nothing happened. ‘John,’ said I, ‘as sure as this man’s name is William Wilkins he shall lose his license. He has concealed the cabman on his premises, and is probably at this moment supplying him with liquor in contravention of the law. His object evidently is to persuade me that he and bis family gone to rest; but be not know your

uncle.’ Again I pealed the bell and knocked smartly at the door with the handle of my my umbrella. A window on the upper floor was now opened—- « Well, what’s the matter ? ’ inquired a gruff and sleepy voice that simulated sleepiness. < The matter is,’ I said in an austeretoae, « that you have got the cabman belonging to this vehicle under yonr roof, where he is, I have no doubt, drinking.’ 1 Your’e a liar,’ interrupted the voie with great distinctness. Before I could express my indignation John burst into such a fit of laughter as I should have thought no Eton boy could have indulged in; a very loud, coarse, vulgar laugh, indeed, I am sorry to say. • Now, yon had better trot off —you two,’ cried the voice at the ‘ It’s plain you’ve had as much as you can'carry.’ ‘Sir,’ cried I, authoritatively, ‘let me tell you I am a Middlesex Magistrate.’ < Oh, yes ; a likely story 1’ was his audacious reply 1 You’ve got ’lghbury Barn written upon your countenance, you have. Go to blazes!’ And he slammed down the window. I regret to say that my humiliation of mind, which was extreme, was greatly increased by the misconduct of my nephew, who, far from expressing sympathy either for myself or with the majesty of the law which had’boen thus outraged in my person, indulged in the most unseemly merriment. He * made night hideous,’ as I subsequently observed (borrowing the phrase from a little book of quotations which I sometimes refer to and find very handy on the Bench) with his uproarious laughter. ‘ Come away,’ I said sternly, * this innkeeper is evidently drunk. It is more than ever necessary to sift this infamous case to the very bottom. We must now find a policeman.’ I did not care for the cab now. I was bent on—no, not vengeance - on redress, and on the administration of justice. I would teach this contumacious publican, at whatever personal inconvenience (and it was snowing like mad) that a Magistrate for Middlesex was not to be set at defiance, I believe that the British schoolboy is allowed to have less reverence in his constitution than any Zulu Kaffir, jet it will hardly be credited that, throughout that painful search for the officer of the law, John was half in hysterics, and perpetually quoting that most offensive observation of the innkeeper’s (in which I confess I could see no sort of humor.) ‘You’ve got ’lghbury Bara written on your countenance, you have.’ It seems to me a ' pity that a Magistrate cannot commit a person for contempt of I Court unless bo catches him in Court, for a

little discipline would have done John good. However, I do not wish to dwell upon any personal matter. At the end of the next strset wo found a policeman. And kete again John was nearly the cause of my being discredited, for no sooner did £ observe to the man, by way of introduction, that I was a Magistrate for Middlesex than the boy broke out into a fresh burst of laughter, which caused the policeman to remark, ‘Had you not better get home, both of you ? ’ in a most incredulous manner. However, X procured my card, and that very soon brought him to his senses. He accompanied us bach to the ‘Seven Star*’ (which was the name of the public house), and there stood the cab in front of it and the inn in darkness, juit as before. * This must be a very old offender,’ I said, ‘policeman.’ But he did not seem to know whether ho was cr not, for he only sfco .k his head. Oar united exertions at the door—and I will a»y that John hammered away at it with praiseworthy vehemence—once mere brought the landlord to the window.

‘Oh, there yon are again, are you,’hesaid, ‘and in custody ? That’s what generally comea of Mghbury Bara.’ I was so speechless with indignation thatI was obliged to get the policeman to speak for mo J(as for John, he was sitting on the* pavement in apparent convulsions, with his gloves in his mouth). ‘ This here gentleman, landlord, ia a Middlesex Magistrate ; there’s no blooming error about it; I've seen his card. He says ac you’ve got a cabman on your premises drinking after hours.’ •He’s a liar, as I was th« impudent rejoinder. (Jehu here grew worse than ever, muttering plaintively, • Oh, dear, I shall die.’) ‘So, no,' said the policeman, ‘the gentleman ia O. K., and you had better give him no sauce, or you’ll lose your license. ‘He shall lose it,’ I murmured to myself, ‘ as surahs his name ia William Wilkins.’

‘ Well, all I can say is,’ retorted the landlord, with mitigated gruffness, ‘ I turned that there cabman out of my premises before 12 o’clock.’

‘Bat here’s his cab,’ I exclaimed, incredulously. * Why, Lor’ bless me ; the man’s inside of it!’ cried the policeman, suddenly—and there, indeed, he was, as fast church.

Of course, John had a fresh convulsion. Mr Wilkins inquired from the window whether I was quite sure now that I had made fuss enough about nothing, or whether there was any other practical joke upon on honest householder which, as a Middlesex magistrate, I should like to play. Finally, he inquired, with a rapid change from irony to earnest, what I was going to stand in th» way of reparation? 1 felt myself so considerably—l will not say in the wrong, but a victim to misapprehension that I pave Mr Wilkins a sovereign. I thought five shillings to be a judicious investment in the ease of the policeman, which I gave him to understand was a fee for forgetting that he had ever ret eyes on my card And I tipped my nephew handsome’y, because, as I explained to him, it was Christmas time, when to boy who hoped to grow to be a gentleman ever told tales ont of school abont anybody, and far less about those connected with him by the sacred ties of blood.

I drove home in silence (says for same occasional gasps and gurgles from my young companion), meditating upon the failure of good inter tions, and on the miscarriages of justice that had taken place in the history of the world.