Tuesday's debate on Mr. Wilberforce, the Sussex magis- trate, who
flogged—at the father's request—two little boys for digging out a rabbit from his hedge, and who was severely repri- manded both by the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary for so doing, does not seem to have hit the exact point at issue. It may be true that the flogging was trifling, and the child- ren not really hurt,—that is a matter in dispute,—and it may even be true that Mr. Wilberforce's fault was much more of the character of an indiscretion than of a cruelty. But the true question is whether the con- fidence in English justice,—a matter only second in im- portance to justice itself,—does not suffer more by leaving any magistrate on the Bench who has been notoriously censured by the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary, than can be compensated for by any consideration for the individual himself. No doubt, if the lenient view of Mr. Wilberforce's error be the true one,—a matter on which we express no opinion,—he may be a just magistrate, quite up to the average of English magis- trates. But how is the judicial Bench to be kept high in public respect if, merely in order to avoid the slur cast upon a man by his removal, a magistrate is retained upon it who has incurred grave censures from his superiors ? Surely such a man, be he as just as he may, is in a false position for commanding that confidence which gives half its value to a judicial tribunal.
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