SHROPSHIRE JUSTICES OF THE PEACE. SOME years ago, the good
people of South Carolina, were surprised to find a number of scoundrels, who had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, walking about the country at Ml liberty. Upon inquiry, it was ascertained that the Governor of the State, who was a good-natured incapable, of pa pular manners, had, previously to his departure from Charleston to his country residence, left a number of blank forms of pardon, signed by himself, in the hands of his Secretary. The Secretary was a man of a merciful and money-loving disposition ; and in the course of the winter, contrived to make the office of gaoler almost a sinecure in South Carolina. This the Carolinians thought " too- bad ;" and though we never heard that they condescended to take much notice of the Secretary, they cashiered their Governor at the next election.
We were reminded of this anecdote by reading, in the Times of Tuesday, an account forwarded to that paper by Mr. Watronex, a Quaker gentleman of Birmingham, of. the " wrongous imprison- ment" of two poor Bavarian girls, whd were taken to Shrewsbury Gaol in the beginning of last month, upon the warrant of two clerical Magistrates of Wenlock in Shropshire. Mr. WALDUCK happened to be in the court-yard of the gaol when the prisoners were brought in ; and being struck by their extreme helplessness and distress, inquired into the circumstances of their commitment; when it appeared, that the constable who conveyed them in his cart to prison, and was paid for so doing, had actually obtained a blank warrant from the two Wenlock parsons, which he had filled up with the names of these poor girls, and then trundled them off to Shrewsbury Gaol. One of these worthy Magistrates being ap- plied to the next day, gave orders for their discharge, and said that he knew nothing about their commitment, but that the Con- stable was a great rascal. Yet he had not scrupled to intrust a blank warrant to this great rascal; thus putting any person, how- ever respectable, into his power for a time. The matter was not allowed to rest here. The Constable was made the scapegoat, and dismissed from his employment ; and. Mr. WALDUCK very properly applied twice to Lord MELBOURNE for an inquiry into the conduct of the Magistrates; but his Lord- ship vouchsafed no notice of the application ; and hence the com- munication to the Times, from which alone we derive our know- ledge of the above facts.
It so happens, that in this case- the sufferers were only two friendless foreigners—no person ofany consequence was personally wronged by the misconduct of the Magistrates. But that ought to make no difference at the Home Office. If the Constable, their. rascally subaltern, was rightly dismissed, his superiors deserve reprimand and dismissal also. If they were not aware of the ille- gality of granting blank warrants, their ignorance is so gross as to proclaim them at once unfit for their posts : if they knowingly offended against the law, the case is still worse against them; and their immediate dismissal is the slightest punishment they deserve., But that would be Republican, South Carolinian justice ; and perhaps the centlemen are proteges of Lord Powis, or more probably of Lord FORESTER : then, indeed, the case is altered, and the Birmingham Quaker may sue in vain for justice from a Whig Secretary of State.
" In such a cause the plaintiff would be hissed, My lords the judges laugh, and he's dismissed."
We have taken notice of this proceeding in Shropshire, because it is the first that has come before us in a tangible shape ; al- though it is a fact, that there is no county in England where the Magistrates carry matters with a higher hand, and where their conduct as regards the administration of justice generally requires- closer watching. But Shropshire is choked up with Tories ; and things which in other counties would be and are held up to pub- lic animadversion, are suffered to pass unnoticed there. It was the chance visit of a stranger to the prison, which brought this- affair to light. Few persons, indeed, telonging to the county, would have had the courage to attack that formidable and influ- ential body, the Shropshire Magistracy, in any one of its members.
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