AN ENQUIRING MAGISTRATE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 254, 2 November 1878, Page 5

AN ENQUIRING MAGISTRATE.

It is not of to a that we find a magistrate willing to place himself for a short spell in the position of a casual vagrant in a work-house and to break stones for six monthß or so continually. Such a magistrate, however, we (Lineaster Guardian, Aug. 10th) find in Mr Albert Simpson, of Elmhurst, near Gai'stang, Lancashire. He has had vagrants brought before him charged with uot completing their, task of breaking stonee in the workhouse, and the plea of the majority ot these men hag been lhat they were unable to do the work. Mr Simpson frankly tells us (in a letter to the Garstang Board of Guardians) that for a long time he saw no reason why the vagrants could not, or should not, do their allotted (aiks, and he has been compelled to send them to prison. But tho recurrence of the complaints of the vagrants of not being able to do the work given them eventually struck Mr Simpson as peculiar, and he was impelled to try the experiment himself of breaking a <! task" of stones. Mr Simpson, it appears, is not inexpert in the use of the hammer, but he found that he could not break the quantity of stones allotted to a vagrant in less time than five hours and a half about half the time allowed to a vagrant. Further, when Mr Simpson had finished his task, he wss " thoroughly exhausted," and his hands . were "raw in many places and bleeding." Alter this experience, he could understand how it was that the vagrants who had been brought before him (and whom he had, as by law bound, sent to prieon) wera unab!e to break the quantity of stones. Mr Simpson arrives at certain conclusions, all very juet and very proper, no doubt; but the concluaion &t which most plain people will arrive alter reading bia letter will be — lhat the system which allows sncb ihinga is harsh, cruel, and abominable. .How would it be, in further illustration of the hardness of vagrant labor, if the masters of a few workhouses and (he members of a few Boards of Guardians were compelled to do the work Mr Simpson voluntarilly did by way of ; education and change. Mr Simpson, in this matter, has proved himself to be preeminently a practical man and a just magistrate, and it is a pity we have cot more magistrates like him.