Professor Tidy, of the London Hospital. has drawn attention in
the Times of yesterday to a long-standing nuisance,—the arrangements, or want of arrangements, for the comfort of those -who attend, as witnesses or for any other purpose, the sittings of the Central Criminal Court. The more serious crime of the largest city in the world is dealt with in some thirteen sessions in the year in a court-house which is inferior to that of many assize-towns in aceommodation. A hideous congestion results in the ill-ventilated passages of the Old Bailey ; witnesses are brought there day after day, as it is never certain when their case may come on ; and while the police, acting under the rigorous orders of the City authorities, guard the Courts themselves as though they were inner sanctuaries, the crowd of involuntary frequenters is detained anyhow and anywhere, with no regard to their comfort. Perhaps when London has a central government, it May also have granted it a continuous and unintermittent gaol-delivery, the Recorder, or a Judge of the High Court, sitting daily ; still, it is not easy to hope for this with any sanguineness of expectation, seeing that of the whole scheme of improvements introduced by the Judicature Acts, none have failed so thoroughly as the arrangements for continuous sittings throughout the year.
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