Unpaid Fines The Act designed to secure that delinquents failing
to pay fines shall not be imprisoned without special inquiry into their means to pay, is now in force, and magistrates up and down the country are holding special sittings to comply with it. The first held in Manchester was reported last week at a column's length in the Manchester Guardian ; and the impression conveyed may well be true of the majority of well-conducted courts. Undoubtedly the Act means extra work for the magistrates concerned ; but no less undoubtedly it is already keeping out of prison a great many people who would otherwise automatically have gone there. That is a valuable result, worth a good deal of trouble to secure. It remains to be seen how far certain devices will prove satisfactory—notably that of sending offenders to " police cells " instead of to prison. Either a stigma will attach to a night in the cells, or it will not. If it does, they may be no improvement on prison. But if it does not, they may become only too popular, in the sense that large sections of the population would sooner go there than pay 5s.
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