A tobacconist's shop-boy was brought up before Mr. MURRAY at
Union Hall, charged with stealing his master's cigars. The boy acknowledged his guilt, and said that he was "fond of backy," and stole them for his own smoking. The Magistrate asked his mother, who was present, if she had rather her sou were committed to gaol, or summarily punished by whipping ? She, like a sensi- ble woman, preferred the latter ; and the boy, who evidently had a greater dread of the dogging than a prison, was forthwith whipped
and discharged. In how many cases Of first offence would so salu- tary a course, by keeping the young offender from the corrup- tion of a gaol, save him from the hulks or the gallows! We are no friends to the exercise of arbitrary power in a magistrate, neither have we too high an opinion of magisterial discretion ; but there are many cases like this where there is no room for doubt or mistake : two or three days' solitary confinement to give the cul- prit time for reflection, and a sharp infliction of physical pain to aid the prickings of conscience, would do more to deter or reclaim embryo criminals than all the terrors of the Old Bailey. Prompt- ness and certainty in puni3bment, as in redress, double its value.
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