The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1871-06-13 00:00:00

MARY LOVELL : JUSTICES' JUSTICE.

The Daily Telegraph of Saturday has • second article
on tbis subject, and says "after due inquiry, it will
be neoeuary for Mr. Brunt to tell the country, through
Parliament, what his opinion is, as Minister of Justice,
upon the following questions. Is it conformable with
his idea of what is legal, that sentenced should be passed
upon any panne founded upon statements made in
private and without the sanction of an oath? Is it
decent, proper, or permissible that • prosecutor, because
he is a magistrate, should sit bedde the adjudicators of
his own case, and make communicitions to them in •
voice which does not reach the public? Finally, is it
oonsisteut with equal justice that, without weaning or
time to prepare defense, a child shoeld be snatched
from her home and parents, and in three hours from
the
taint cru
of
elsutrh6o.
surprise
gaol d l
should receiven a:el.: years u
sentence involvlng
hf exile
from her kindred; no time being given to explain, to
consult, or to call friendly testimony? These three cities.
tions affect every man, woman, and child in England;
and not one of them has been met by Mr, Bruce,
although the facts of the ease crest for a diatinet answer
frrin the responsible Minister of Justice, the Home
Secretary. They must be be dealt with; for, it such
things arerully done in the Dame of justioe,the question
will arise whether so outrageous an abuse of authority,
such shameful subserviency of magistrate to magistrate,
can any longer be allowed to remain • possibility.
Gladly shall we hear that Captain Foster did give due
iharge, ithd that Ve did not sr
far forget decency as to speak • word to his brother
magistrates while the trial proooodel. But on those
plain matters of feet Mr. Bruce must distinctly inform
himself, for the use brooks no trifling. As the account
stands, no more flagrant disregard of law in the letter
as well as the spirit, no more flagrant oporeision of
the poor by force of position and authority could have
been committed in barbarous Ulnas or in lauds still un-
civilised. We have far from done with the ease yet;
it
looks like a most uopleasantly typical question, and we
shall support Mr. P. A. Taylor in probing it to the very
bottom, as well a/ in havingjustice done with regard
to other and larger matters than that of the cracked
, milk-pot."

A CONTRAST : LORD MOHAWK AND
MARY LOVELL.
At the Marlborough-street Polioeilourt, Lord Marcus
Beresford, Mr. Charles Beresford, and Mr. John Leslie
were recently charged with stealing, from No. 4 Regent-
street, • marble sun-dial, the property of • marble
merchant. The defendants' solicitor said it was • joke;
and the magiatrates fined them each £5, costs, and
denim's. —Contrast, lays 1-400./ NCIDSPaPer --at •
reverent distenee, of course—the case of the three
gentleman with that of Mary Lovell, the child of
thirteen, who was recently sentenced by the Dorchester
magistrates to twenty-one days' hard labour and five
years' detention in a reformatory, for stealing a broken
milking. As Mr. Bruce explains the circumstances, the
child ' crime looks decidedly reprehensible. She had
probably been in the habit of thieving; she had, doubt.
less, grown up a confirmed sinner. had it not been for
the magistrates' merciful totem:don. Granting this
freely, we yet venttura bask if, at thirteen years of age,
• girl merits five years' imprisonment fer the theft of •
broken milking, to what punishment are liable three
eat/este:l gentlemen for defacing • merchant's house and
carrying off his property? In what consists the difference
between Mary Lovell and Lord Marcus Beresford? Is
it in the age? The nobleman is at • manifest disadvan-
tage. Is it in the station? The rank of the one pleads
against him; the other had probably lived her little
life through, beset with foul elamples. Or does the
disparity reside in the oontrast of milkjug and sundial?
But here, again, the lord has leas exclaim than the child.
Five pounds just covered his depredation ; five pence
would have compensated for hers. As to Coe motives
in the two cases we oontrut, they are apparently very
much alike, Both thefts were Beamingly committed
with no thought of ulterior gain, Mary Lovell deposited
her broken, worthless milking in her mother's house ;
Lord Beseafori was about to take his sundial to Alder.
shot ; only, the motive is stalled desire of amusement in
the lord, and • vicious love of crime for crime's own
sake, in the vulgar child. We trust the latter may
amend after her three weeks' imprisonment. But sup-
posing the vinous seed to be ingrained and ineradicable
in the young sinner. Let the counsel be given her—
hot rain front soiled raiment and broken milking',
lissome a lady if possible, and turn your attention to
marble sundial'. As for Lord Beresford and his friends.
we hope for admirable results from their courageous
efforts in the cause of pure humour. They may reverse
the received ideas on the subject in • very short time,
and at a marvellously cheap rate. At least, if they do
not win the applause of al friends to true wit, they
may be sure of immunity from the laws which hamper
common men, so long as English magistrates retain
their praiseworthy custom of imprisoning the child
robber of broken milkjegs, and of softly admonishing
and lightly fining the "gentleman "who steals, because
he has dined liberally and feels facetious.