THE JUSTICE OF PEACE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Ax old English dramatist has defined a Justice of the Peace to be a person "who for half-a-dozen of capons will dispense with as many penal statutes." Like all other things, the generic character of Justices has been modified by the lapse of years and altered cir- cumstances of society. The Rochdale Justices of the Peace have been in the habit of punishing men under an old and unknown statute for absenting themselves from church on Sunday ; and some remarks on the subject in the newspapers have elicited a couple of letters from one of their number, which, whatever be their value in other respects, throw considerable light on the cha- racteristics of that class in our own times. The first of these letters (addressed to a Manchester journal) contains this state- ment—" For myself, I beg to say, that though bad characters are occasionally brought before the Magistrates on a charge of neglect- ing to attend a place of religious worship, and convicted, yet this is never done except where their conduct in other respects on the Sabbath has been so grossly offensive and disorderly as to render punishment absolutely necessary." The unavoidable comment upon this strange statement was, that either those other acts were of a nature to subject the perpetrators to punishment, or they were not ; that in the former case they ought to be punished for what they had really done, in the latter they ought not to be punished under a false pretext because they had done something for which the Justice would have punished them but that the law did not give him the power. Some observation of this kind in the Morning Chronicle drew forth a second letter from this .Roch- dale mirror of Justices, in which he reasserts his doctrine more in detail. "A man is brought before the Magistrates, charged with drunkenness in its most offensive form on the Sabbath, and with neglecting church. On inquiry, it is found that this is his habitual practice, and that his conduct in this state renders him a pest to the neighbourhood. Perhaps even you will admit that such a character deserves punishment, and that he ought to be fined for drunkenness. Well, fine him. He refuses to pay, and has no goods on which to distrain. What then is to be done ? Put him in the stocks, the law says : but we have no stocks, and
the vagabond escapes scot-free. To prevent this result, and in respect to such characters only, recourse has been had to the statute enabling Magistrates to fine for non-attendance at public worship, under which committal follows in case of non-payment." We do not see how this enumeration of details mends the mat- ter. Mr. ASHWORTH, the Justice in question, admits that the non-attendance at church is a mere pretext to enable him to get hold of a man he would otherwise be unable to punish. Rather than see him get off, he will clap him up under some other pretext than that which has excited his indignation. He sends the man to gaol, not because the law says he ought to do so, but because he is angry at the law for not bidding him do so. Placed in the commission to administer the law only, he takes upon him to make the law which he administers. A puritanical justice, who really committed the man because he absented himself from church, we might regard as a narrow-minded fanatic ; but we would not entertain any apprehensions of his wresting the law to serve his own purposes. The legislators who allowed the law to remain on the statute-book, not the justice who enforced it, would be to blame. But Mr. ASHWORTH admits, that under certain cir- cumstances he would not enforce what is law ; and that under other circumstances he would ostensibly enforce it in order to do what the law did not entitle him to do. No man is safe at the bar of a judge so latitudinarian in his principles and practice. Mr. Asa- WORTH has been putting in force, not the law of the land, but his own will; and questioned for doing so, he, like all self-willed people, grows more resolute. In his first letter he says—" It may be a question whether it is judicious to punish apparently for neglecting church, when in fact it is for other offences ; and I confess I never cordially approved of this mode," &c. In his second, he va- liantly declares—" For pursuing this course you pronounce me unfit tot remain on the bench ; and you will doubtless think me more unfit when I tell you' that though I exceedingly dislike the course, I am not prepared to relinquish it entirely, being deter- mined to avail myself of the law even in its defective state, and thereby to punish such infamous characters as I have described." And again—" My sole object has been to insure good order and correct conduct on the Lord's day ; and I shall still pursue this, and in this tray if necessary, till convinced of its illegality." This is, in plain English, " Wilful will do't." Because the offender was likely to slip through his fingers, Mr. ASHWORTH' to gratify his min wilfulness, twisted the law, "though be never cordially approved of this mode ;" and the criticism to which his conduct exposes him only renders him more passionately wilful. The storm of news- paper censure only makes him cling closer to his determination, as physical storms have been said to make tilt Swiss cling to hii paternal abode- " So the loud tempest and the whirlwind's roar
But bind him to his native mountains more."
Were it not for the consequences of such perverted reason, we could laugh at the angry Justice, storming at the newspapers, and all because it never occurred to him that the purchase of stocks for the parish might enable him to enact the part of Justice Overdo with impunity. "Put him in the stocks, the law says; but we have no stocks." Then why &leo not he get them ? The ancient Jim- a,. atopeusect with a statute for a capon ; and the modern Justice breaks through a statute rather than pay the parish-carpenter to erect stocks. "When I or any other foolish Magistrate strain the statute to make it bear on poachers, teetotallers, church-rate de- faulters, &c. then indeed there will be some ground for the outcry you have raised." These extreme cases are not so impossible as Mr. ASHWORTH seems to suppose. We have known a man tried at the Circuit Court, having been committed by a Justice for an assault, the Justice himself having assaulted him under a suspicion, perfectly well grounded, but which he was unable to prove, that he was out poaching. The Justice in question disliked a poacher as much as Mr. ASHWORTH dislikes a drunkard; and, like him, finding one statute would not suit his purpose, attempted by a fictio juris to make another applicable. This comes of men substituting their likings and dislikings for the real written law ; and hence the almost uniformly oppressive character of "Justice's justice." Your Jus- tice of Peace in his private capacity is no worse than his fellows— a loving husband, it may be, and father—an obliging neighbour ; but set him on the bench and his nature is changed. He feels that he is placed there to be a "terror to evil-doers," without very clearly knowing whom the law designates as evil-doers, or what powers it puts into his hands to control them. He is told that he is devoting his time to the service of his country without fee or reward, and that in gratitude for this the superior courts will wink at his mis- takes in matters of law. He grows puffed up with his own conse- quence, reckless from his irresponsibility, self-willed from the idea that he is above receiving remuneration for his services. Under these influences, the quiet obliging neighbour and good-humoured family-man expands into a "tremendous Justice Midas." He pelts the poor creatures brought to his bar with statutes as the boys did the frogs—" it is sport to him though it be death to them." So much by way of contribution to the natural history of the genus J usricz: the practical application is, for the present, left to our legislators.
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