The Express.
London, England, 1855-04-02 00:00:00

Kim 001D021. The lady pays,.that t
migrated; and the
L n$ tee le to ea
oillicient fir us thatefdle pleaded
said tbet she weis peeper to pay a
might tie imposed ppm h 46 Wm can warmly 1101 W
ISiefore, that elm will ba Isaidid down to posterity
along with Hacroz,the horse-tailar, and Alava DUI
the conqueror of India. In fact, her own confemim
was rather a damaging one. She admitted that/
aefleg under advice, She tried a little violent vetiri-
nary surgery. She had been told of two cures. for
a confirmed "jib :"one was to apply a hot iron to
the animal's hocks; the other, to out the pony
slightly near the tank, and apply a little
turpentine to his wounds. The tender-hearted
young lady, after some consideration, let us
hope, chose the knife instead of the red-hot
iron. She out, or, in the coarse language of the
witness, "jobbed" the pony, and " it was her in-
tention to have applied some turpentine next day."
" she was wrong (!) she was sorry, and would
undertake not to do so again." She concluded by
remarking that she was prepared to pay any floe that
might be inflicted upon her. In other words, she
asked "What was the damage?"—not to the pony,
but to herself.

The bench—who, to do them justice, acted with a,
laudable conscionsnees that they were dealing, not
with a rough-and-ready ocetermonger, but with a
"lady of ample means, elegantly attired, and the
daughter of a Scotch baronet "--seem to have thought
that the plebeian evidence which had been brought
forward could not be held as sufficient he
each a ease. The young lady, " Alga*
attired," was not to be sacrificed blau,
vulgar men swore she was guilty. One don meths
effort must be made for hir. The whole of the iamb-
tastes waddled out of court to have wake ems.
aeration of the state of the pony, and found, alas l that
the ease was hopeless. All that remained was to
spare the feelings of the unitive young lady as math
as possible. They "regretted exceedingly, that a
person in her position should have been guilty of
cruelty to a brute animal." "They were willing to
believe to moans extent the story she had told." "It
was probable she had acted upon bad advice given
her by improper parties." Of mune ; it was not
likely that a lady of condition could do wrong with-
out being shown the way to do 4by "improper
parties "—low people. After all this rigmarole, how-
ever, they were obliged to come to the soul*
Rion that " the defendant had been guilty of
great cruelty." " They should not be justified
in pawing over the affair lightly; the sentence
was that she pay a fine of 61., or in default be com-
mitted for one month." They at first refused to
allow the costs, but ultimately ordered the lady to
pay 11.95. in addition to the penalty. "The deku
dent," says the report, " threw down a 101. note, awls
reosiving the change, walked out of court in the meet
unconcerned manner."
Why should she not P If she had any qualms be-
fore u to the nature of the offence she had committed,
they must have been pretty nearly removed by the
tender care of the magistrates. When she came into
court, it appears by her own words that she had ar-
rived at the conclusion, that sticking a knife into a
peey could scarcely be mgarded in the light of a harm-
lees amusement. She was not quite sure, indeed; bat
" if she had done wrong, she was nrry, and would
undertake not to do so again." The magistrates who
meted in this instance as confessors, seemed
Musk with the ingenuousness of her confession, and
gave her absolution at the price of a nominal penance.
They comforted her with the assurance that she was
net so much to blame as the " improper parties "
under whose &dries she acted. And they ooneladed
by fining her five pounds; something km than the
prim of a silk dram.
It may be said that the magistrates inflicted the
MOW penalty in this case, and that they could do
se suers, unless they went to the extreme length of
a ammaittal to prison. Thin is tree; but then the
question remains to be considered what is the mean-
ing of a pecuniary penalty, the payment of which
senstitutes no hardship to the person mulcted? Is •
pecuniary penalty to be considered in the light of a
pigment to be made in purchase of a license to commit
sin, or of impunity after the commission of it ?
If so, the poor have nothing to complain of in the
present administration of justice. If the permission
to cut and maim animals is fixed at • certain price,
Bill Sykes, who longs to " out the heart out of that
cantankerous donkey of his," has no more right to
munplain that the law stands in his way, than that he
cannot keep a coach and four, or dress his wife in
silks and satins. He knows that luxuries are for the
del, and that there is no good in lamenting the non-
enjoyment of luxuries which he has no means of buy-
lag. But we are not aware that ;any such emplane-
ties of pecuniary penalties has ever been given.
They are inflicted solely as punishments. The
law, it is reiterated nape ad isaiseam, makes
no difference between poor and rich in the
matter of punishment. Bill Sykes has had
this precious maxim instilled into him by his
betters ever since be was a boy. Now, in the
cue of Miss Clowns, he knows that the payment of
Ike pounds is no punishment at all. She has given
him tyke five pounds for a King Charles's spaniel,
and flu pounds again for the trouble he took in
!adios it for her after he stole it. Bill knows very
me that, bad he treated him donkey after the fashion
abgtod by Mimi GOZDON in the matter of her pony,
the amikkates would have been very willing to
WA to the evidence of the witnesses, and would
wee have thought of taking the trouble to examine
the animal for themselves. They would have called
Ida a hardened ruffian, lamented that they had no
pow to give him an adequate punishment, and
have Mir him experience the whole weight of the
indignation of the law. And it is not only
the Bill Sykesse who reason after this manner.
Large numbers of the industrious poor are led by
the occurrence of incidents like that which we have
described to the belief that there is one kw for them
awl another for the rich, and that one tee of riches
is to swum impunity for offences.
It may be said that, in the ow of Miss Ooanom,
the disgrace of being brought before a beach of
magistrates is an element in the punishment of the
mime which is far larger than the pecuniary pushy ;
just as in the case of Mrs. RANSBOTUAX it is urged
that the mere publicity given to the scounttiom
spinet that lady is es grievous an affliction to her as
any punishment that can be inflicted, supposing she
should be found guilty. Bat if these considera-
tions are taken into the account, what be-
comes of our pet maxim of "ea* law for
the rich and the poor." If the respectability
of the criminal is to be pleaded is extenuation
rather than aggravation of Famishment, on account
of the damage done to their sensibilities—say so at
once. Let the preambles to penal laws proclaim the
prple. Until this is done, peewee people will be
found who will say that a rieh and wen-educated
person who commits a crime is in reality more culpa-
ble than a poor and ignorant person. The former has
been better instructed in the Ware of his duties than
the latter, and commits the mime generally without
like temptations that beast the poor MIL Finally, if
we are to have a system of pecuniary snide fix
mimes, let; us copy our Saxon ancestors and beam
the penalty in properties to the rank of the disk&
.-Des7y SWIG