A " West-Country Gaoler" points out in Wednesday's Times probably
by far the worst scandal in the modem English system of so-called justice,—or injustice,—the extraordinary delay in trying prisoners after they are committed for trial, and against whom, consequently, there is nothing but a prima fade presumption of guilt. " I have in my custody," he writes, " a girl charged with arson. She has been in gaol, confined on the separate system, since August, and we do not expect our assizes till April." Ought a humane man to desire that this girl should turn out to be innocent or guilty? If innocent, she will have been incar- cerated on the separate system for eight or nine months without deserving punishment at all. And even if guilty, she will have suffered almost a sufficient punishment before it was clear that she deserved any. Yet what must be the vices of a system which may make even a just man, because he is just, half hope that an offender is guilty rather than innocent of a crime, lest 'otherwise it should turn out that a greater injustice had been in- flicted by the law than any that was even charged on the accused? All persons committed for trial ought to be sent to the nearest Court where an assize is held, at least three or four times a year, .and even that rule would admit of a frightful amount of legalised injustice.
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