Justice in the Dock
HE BBC Third Programme performed its customary gambit of stooping to conquer when it produced British Justice, an entertaining and valuable account of the development of the commodity in question from "time immemorial" to the present day. And all done by personification, or even apostrophe, since Justice herself was put in the dock and addressed in language less respectful than Wordsworth’s. The witnesses for the prosecution were many, and convincing. There was the Saxon serf who was tried by ordeal and didn’t like it, the Norman landowner who found her uncertain and coy, since she varied in behaviour from county "to county, the Poorman who found her too expensive for his means ("open to all, like the Ritz Hotel"). In her defence Justice was able to plead that throughout ‘her long reign she had consistently striven to improve herself, and that in her were .to be found peculiar virtues not found in other legal systems. The Juror figuring in the fantasy was described as having "the dazed expression of one who has done too much listening." The same cannot be said of the listening audience, for whom the hour-long programme passed with almost unseemly haste.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 491, 19 November 1948, Page 10
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199Justice in the Dock New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 491, 19 November 1948, Page 10
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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