IN A POLICE-COURT.
SCENE,—a small room of mean aspect, divided by wooden rails and balustrades into several compartments ; two desks at one end, the one higher than the other, and a table placed end on to the higher desk; time, about three o'clock on a summer afternoon. One or two solicitors are seated at the table, while a clerk and a policeman or two in another part of the room are discussing the day's business, after a somewhat technical manner. Enter, without any ceremony, a gentleman of unostentatious, business-like appearance, who takes his seat behind the higher desk, and the afternoon's work begins. First, appear the applicants for Summonses. The complainant in each case details his or her grievance to the Magistrate, who asks one or two questions in a hasty, somewhat peremptory tone, and either grants or refuses the application. In either case the applicant is immediately swept away by the police, very much as the dishes are removed by a prompt waiter; if the application is granted, the complainant receives a piece of paper, which is produced to a clerk outside, who prepares the necessary summons ; if refused, the grievance must be carried out of the building as fast as possible, and made the best of. It is a somewhat sad reflection on our civilisation, that so many of the applications relate to alleged assaults. Threats, the Magistrate does not believe in ; there must be some distinct blow or other injury, to induce him to authorise even the initial step in the proposed appeal to the law ; nor does he very willingly grant any application, unless the complainant is prepared to bring testimony beside his own of the alleged offence. But even when the cases are thus sifted —and it is obvious there may be much brutal oppression which falls short of the Magistrate's standard of violence—there re- mains a large excess of assaults over any other class of offence for which redress is claimed, and the important part played by physical violence in the lives of the poor is painfully brought home to one's mind. In some cases, if the complainant is to be believed, there is a total absence of motive for the commission of the act of violence. One woman, who complains that she has been knocked off a stool by a neighbour, when asked by the Magistrate why the man did it, knows of no better reason than that "he is a Radical sort of a fellow,"—an implied condemna- tion of advanced thought on political subjects which would glad- den the heart of Mr. Newdegate. Possibly, indeed, the apostles of Jingoism may see something Imperial in this readiness to resort to physical force, but one cannot but hope that to the extent, at least, of abolishing attacks on the weak and defenceless, the vigour of the nation may be emasculated by the glow-working but powerful influence of the School Board.
When this process of hearing and dealing with complaints has been going on for about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, the Magistrate announces that he can hear no more applications to-day ; and those who have not been lucky enough to. get a hearing have to postpone the statement of their grievances till to-morrow. What are known as the Night-charges are then heard. These are charges against persons who have been apprehended by the police since the last sitting of the Magistrate, and locked up in the cells of the police-station. Amongst these charges, what the policemen call " drunks " occupy, as might be expected, a prominent place. These cases, again, divide themselves into two great classes, the "drunk and incapable," and the "drunk and disorderly," and in the latter case very often the charge of assaulting the police is added.
If this is the ease, the matter at once assumes a much graver aspect. The slightest blow or attempt to offer any violence to the police is severely punished by the Magistrate, and, of course, quite rightly, for when it is considered what a very small body the police are in comparison even with the pro- fessedly criminal classes, and how absolutely insignificant, by the side of the large population which, without being deliberately criminal, stands in constant need of control, it is clear that if they were left to depend solely on their courage, their discipline, and their staves they would stand a very poor chance of defending even themselves, not to speak of the law-abiding public. As it is, they have behind them a very powerful arm ; they know, and every one with whom they have to deal knows, that their persons are in a manner sacred, and that any attempt to escape from custody, or to cap an offence by attacking a policeman, will bring down a substantial punishment, however trivial the original pecca- dillo may have been. If no assault or other harm is added to the initial drunkenness, the punishment is not serious—gener- ally 5s., or, in default of payment, a week's imprisonment ; but it is satisfactory to find that if any further offence does result, the Magistrate is not inclined to accept the plea of oblivious- ness as any excuse,—the offence is punished as it deserves, whether it may have been induced by drink or not.
Both prompt and methodical is the mode of procedure. The offender is put behind a rail at the end of the room opposite the
Magi strate, th e witness steps behind another rail, closet° the Clerk of the Court, who takes a note of the evidence. If, as in most cases. the witness is a policeman, he stands very upright and rattles off his story as fast as his tongue can go, the Magistrate not being at all disposed to give him any unnecessary time. When he has
finished, the Magistrate asks the accused whether he has any questions to ask the witness ; this is the cross-examination. As a rule, the acmsed shows an utter inability to distinguish between asking the witness questions, and telliug his own ver- sion of the story, and it generally ends in his asking no question at all. Then the next witness, if there be one, is called, and the process repeated ; and when the case for the prosecution is com- pleted, if the charge is one upon which the Magistrate can finally decide, be asks the prisoner what he has to say for himself. When the prisoner denies the charge, he is asked if he has any witnesses. Not unfrequently he states that he has, but that they are not in attendance. The Magistrate's rule —and, no doubt, the right one—is to consider non-attendance as equivalent to non-existence ; and having taken a good look at the defendant through his glasses, he delivers his sentence— mostly a fine, with imprisonment in default of payment—and the prisoner is swept out of the room, and the next case taken. Sometimes, however, he offers the prisoner a remand, if he would like to secure the attendance of the witnesses he has re- ferred to, and mostly this offer discloses the hollowness of the prisoner's ease; he does not know where the witnesses are to be found, or he would rather have the case disposed of at once, and sentence goes. If the case is one which the Magistrate must send to a Jury for trial, the procedure is somewhat different. The witnesses' depositions are taken down by the Clerk, and signed by them, and the prisoner is asked if he wishes to say anything in his defence, being cautioned that he need not say anything, but that if be does, it will be taken down in writing, and may be used against him at his trial ; and the witnesses are then bound over bya, mystic formula to appear at the trial, the accused being either kept in custody or liberated on bail. Sometimes there are cases in which the Magistrate can deal summarily with an offence, if the accused person consents to that course, and a somewhat comical situation arises, the defendant at the bar being asked whether he would prefer the Magistrate or a Jury. This is like asking whether one would rather meet a lion or a tiger. The prisoner does not know what to say, and looks very unhappy. Mostly, however, he prefers the speedier judgment, and, notwithstanding the compliment thus paid to his jutige, must often, we fancy, the next minute regret that he did not postpone the evil day.
The Police-court we are visiting is in a southern suburb, and it is the day after what is known at the Wimbledon Camp as "the mid-Sunday." The heat on the Common on the previous day has caused some addition to the cases of drunkenness; there are also some rather bad charges of furze-burning, and one or two other cases arising out of the Camp and its circumstances. One of the most serious is distinguished by the rather odd fea- ture of a prosecutor himself the subject of a criminal charge. A youth is brought up, charged with being drunk and in- capable. He went to sleep, it appears, on the Common, with some money in his pocket. When he woke, he was iu the cus- tody of the police, and he had no money. After he has been duly fined 5s. (which he is able to pay), the story of the theft upon him is told. Some ladies visiting the Common with their friends were struck by the spectacle of the unconscious boy, and seeing how defenceless he was, endeavoured to rouse him. They were unsuccessful ; but keeping an eye upon him, they noticed a waiter from the refreshment pavilion relieving the sleeper of his money. The waiter declared that he knew the lad, and was actuated solely by the same desire as the ladies, that of protecting the boy from robbery. They, however, called the attention of the police to what was taking place. The waiter was detained, and upon the lad's regaining his consciousness, he declared he had never set eyes on his volunteer protector before. This is a case in which the accused has the option of being tried and sentenced by the Magistrate or sent to a Jury ; after some moments of painful indecision, he chooses the former, and receives three months' imprisonment, with hard labour.
This is one of the very few cases of theft with which the Magistrate has to deal this afternoon. There is one, however, of a peculiarly painful character, also connected with mid. Sunday. A boy of respectable parentage, and about fourteen 3 cars of age, is accused of a deliberate attempt to steal the watch of a visitor to the Common by picking his pocket. The two were on the edge of a crowd, where some fighting was taking place, and the boy's defence is that he was pushed against the man's chest, and accidentally caught hold of his watch-chain. In the prosecutor's view, however, this story is impossible, as the boy put his hand round hum behind. The- boy's aspect is very singular,—he betrays no emotion, and merely repeats again and again the same simple story ; but he- is most respectably dressed, and his father, who< appears, states that he is a hair-dresser, carrying on business on his own ac- count, and hands in some certificates of his boy'S good behaviour- at school. The case is a very strange one, and the Magistrate is, no doubt, glad to be relieved from the responsibility of deal- ing-with it, by sending the boy for trial.
Five o'clock strikes, and the Magistrate announces that he can sit no longer. Sufficient evidence is taken to juetify a remand in one or two instances, some eases which have- stood over from a preceding day are dealt with or ad- vanced a stage, and the Court rises. Such is an afternoon's work in a most important department of the Civil Ser- vice of the State; such a fragment of the task of preserving social order. Throughout the afternoon not a single member of the distinctly criminal class has appeared on the scene ; the troubles, the quarrels, the disorders arising from drink, from the crowding together of strong and weak, aged and young, in- dustrious and idle, from want of education, and the consequent power to enjoy a holiday rationally, have formed, in the main,, the subject of the Magistrate's inquiries. The method, the good-sense, the fairness with which justice is meted out in this necessarily somewhat rough-and-ready fashion, are greatly to be admired ; but the existence of some score or so of gentlemen thus employed in the Metropolis every afternoon of the year makes us realise how much Christianity and civilisation have- yet to do in improving the health of the body politic.
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