TILE CLERICENWELL CAMPBELL
But the Assistant Judge gives some further authority, and amongst ethers, his own "feelings "; for "he knew that in sen- tencing a man to transportation, he was giving him a chance of redeeming himself, and after passing the longest sentence of im- prisonment in his power he never went home comfortable." This is very convincing ! The Assistant Judge knows, somehow, from his "feelings," that when he is sentencing a man to transportation, he gives him a chance of redeeming himself, but imprisonment makes Mr. Sergeant Adams feel "uncomfortable ": ergo, Parlia- ment is to rely less on prolonged imprisonment, and more on transportation—Q. e. d. We admit the doctrine of "chances." Transportation is all a chance ; a chance that the criminal may be converted to a dmmon, as so many were at Norfolk Island ; or to a prosperous trader, as so many have been in Australia, or to an easy finder of nuggets.
But, we are told, "there is no judge who does not look deeply and carefully to the effect of his sentence, beyond the mere sen- tences themselves." This is consolatory : we are bound to suppose that the practice ruled the same judge when he passed an addi- tional sentence upon a woman, not long since, for the offence of calling a policeman "a pig." A rude unmannerly woman had been sentenced to seven years' transportation for stealing a watch; after the sentence was pronounced, she called the policeman a " pig "; and then the judge delivered a new sentence, of ten years' transportation. The strict legality of this supplementary sentence has been called in question, and the judge has been obliged to revise it. We do not know whether precedent can be cited for it from the superior courts, but we have heard of such precedents at quarter-sessions, and they are still more familiar in the domestic sentences,of motherly old ladies on impudent little boys. But in- deed there is a sort of bonhomie—if the term may be applied to a strictly feminine quality—about the judge, which smacks alto- gether of the domestic circle and the nursery ; only there is a doubt whether the graver graces of the nursery are quite suited to a tribunal which ought to be ruled by rigid law and stern justice.
Our contemporary speaks with peculiar unction and pride of agreeing with the Lord Chief Justice "on all occasions," and espe. cially so on this congenial subject of transportation. We presume that the satisfaction is reciprocal; and we congratulate the Chief Justice on his ally—perhaps we ought to say his organ. The pub- lic will be duly impressed, no doubt, in favour of a system which thus finds its grand support in the Chief Justice of England and the Cheap Justice of Clerkenwell.
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