The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-02-09 00:00:00

COUNTRY JUSTICES' JUSTICE.

No country in the world has more loudly denounced
slavery than England. It is the boast of Englishmen
that as soon as a slave sets his foot on English soil
he becomes a free man. An Englishman points to
France, Spain, Austria, Italy, and Russia, and thanks
God he does not live under a despotic Government. He
rejoices in ha.ving a free press, and that he is in possession
of more real liberty than the denizen of any other country
in the world. Thin is the opinion of the higher and
middle classes; but it is more than questionable whether
the same opinion is entertained by the industrious
classes and agricultural labourers. The agricultural
class, at least the men who toil in the fields, have good
reason to ask if, after all, they do really live in a free
country, and if they are, though not in name, certainly
in reality, nothing more than mere serfs, at the beck and
call of their employers. It is true that an agricultural
labourer cannot be flogged or tortured as a slave in the
Southern States of America. He cannot be put up and
sold as if he were a horse or an ass, but if we look
beneath the surface into the relations of master and man,
the real difference between actnal slavery and English
freedom is less striking than would be generally
imagined. Mr. Roundel Palmer has brought t"e subject
before the House of Commons, and appears as the
champion of the agricultaral labourer against the
tyranny and cruelty of his employer, or rather
against the laws which give masters such great
power. Not many weeks since the public were startled
at the extraordinary conduct of Lord ti astings and some
of his brother magistrates in sending two men to a
common gaol, to herd with felons, bcause they had
killed a rabbit on what they considered their own land.
Six or seven months ago we found a narrow-minded
clerical magistrate, sending a man to gaol because he
chose to dig his own garden upon a Sunday. Some
Essex magistrates (clerical ones again), in June last
committed a man to prison because he chose, as be con-
sidered he had a perfect right to do, to take a half holiday
to be present at a review of the Militia, embodied from
amongst his own associates, and now Mr. Palmer
relates a case which. in point of hardship, perhaps sur-
passes all the others we have noticed. It appears
that a labouring man was told by his master on a certain
Saturday that he should not much longer require his
services. The man considered that this was his discharge,
and consequently did not go to work on the following
Monday or Tuesday, but busied himself in endeavouring
to obtain employment elsewhere, which he succeeded in
doing. No sooner did his former master find this
out, than he got a clerical magistrate to issue a
warrant to apprehend the man for leaving his work
before it was finished. The poor fellow was taken
before this second Solomon, and sentenced to one
month's imprisonment with hard labour, although he ex-
plained that he considered hie master had discharged him.
This clerical Solon was not to be moved from his purpose,
and the poor man was immured in a common gaol, and
treated as a common felon. The man bore an irreproach-
able character ; he was sixty eight years of age, and had
brought up a family of eleven children without parochial
relief. The man served his month, but, unfortunately
for him, whilst at work on the treadmill, or crank, he
caught a violent cold, which laid him up for several
months, and prevented him from working during harvest
time, from which he had been in the habit of saving
a certain sum to help him through the winter. But
the misfortunes of this poor man did not end here ;
one of his sons was in service, and was sent on
a message, in the execution of which he had to
catch a certain train, which he unfortunately missed.
He became frightened at the time he would thus lose,
and with the fate of his father before his eyes, dared
not return home to his master, fearing that he should bo
sent to prison also, and therefore fled, and has not been
heard of since. Cases such as these are sufficient to
make one's blood boil, and to ask whether this is a free
country or not. Talk of slavery ? why here we have it
with a vengeance, when we find hard working
industrious, honest men torn from their families
and thrown into prison on the mere whim and caprice
of a master, backed by a narrow minded magistrate. It
must be evident to even the most unobservant that an
immediate reform in the laws between employers and
employed is absolutely necessary, as well as a change in
the manner in which magistrates are appointed. Hitherto
parties have been selected to fill this important position
not with any regard to their fitness or qualifications,
but according to their political views. No sooner is
an election over, than the member, if he happen to be a
supporter of the reigning Administration, is inundated with
applications from his supporters to get them nominated as
magistrates. Many of these parties, especially those
ejsitging,t2 the Church, live in conlaratively isolated local--
them as so many stocks or stones, to be moulded according
to their will ; and when they are raised to the bench of
magistrates, puffed up with their importance, they seek out
old, obsolete acts of Parliament, under which they belly and
coerce the poor, ignorant countrymen within their reach.
But surely the time has come when all this should be re-
formed. Greater circumspection ought to be used in select-
ing candidates for the magistracy. Political opinions ought
to have nothing to do with the administration of justice, and
yet now political advocacy at the time of election is almost
the only recommendation far the appointment. Then, the
Statute Book contains a number of most absurd laws, which
are never enforced except by some wrong headed magistrate ;
and it is quite time that a thorough supervision of these
obnoxious laws should take place, so that, as far as possible,
magistrates may be prevented from perpetrating such egregi-
ous wrongs as we have enumerated.—Observer.

QUEEN'S HALL, BOLD STREET.

HOFFMAN'S ENTERTAINMENT,

TO TEIE EDITOR OF THE NORTHERN TIMES,

Sir,—ln compliance with a wish so often ex-
pressed in the Liverpool journals, that I should
give all classes an opportunity of witnessing my
entertainment, and having found that it was
impossible to find accommodation for all the appli
cants to gain admission on the cheap nights, viz.—
Mondays and Saturdays—l now beg to state that
dnring the short stay of my company in Liverpool,
I will agree to the above request, particulars of
which I have sent you as an advertisement.—l am
sir, yours obediently,

HOFFMAN.

N/wsrAPEn REPENTANCE.—The Times has been very
much in the habit of transferring news into its own
columns from other journals without acknowledgement,
especially when that news is taken from the cheap papers.
Generally speaking it is first done by the evening Globe, a
paper that acknowledges nothing except it comes from
the Time,s, and the Times takes what the Globe has stolen,
sometimes putting the word " Globe" after it, but more
frequently nothing at all. However, the Times has re-
pented and will do so no more; forin a paragraph
speaking of these transactions, it says ;—" It recals to
mind the old story of the provincial editor, who, wander-
ing in search of the picturesque, discovered in a wood the
body of a man suspended from a tree. His own paper
was not to be published for three days afterwards, so, to
prevent a rival cotempirary from anticipating his own
announcement of the dreadful suicide,' he removed the
the corpse further into the wood for the sake of
concealment, and was subsequently arrested on suspicion
as a murderer. We feel bound severely to reprobate the
mean and dishonourable practice--too common on the
part of the provincial nress—of pilfering intelligence and
passing it off as original. A very ticket-of-leave man
would be ashamed of such petty thefts."—London Paper
LUDicnOUS ACCIDENTS.—The cook of a famed inn on the
Clyde having frequently been found fault with for serving
up a quantity of soot along with the steaks, &c., required
for customers, told her master that she could not help it,
as the vent required to be swept. A consultation was
held last week by the inmates of the inn upon the subject,
when it was resolved that, as sweeps are rather scarce in
the locality, the landlord should fire his gun up the vent,
as an effectual cure for the evil complained of. Accord-
ingly, all being in readiness, a huge cloak was placed over
the landlord's head, and he took his place in the chimney.
Off pops one barrel, and ignites the soot; off pops the
next, and loosens it, and brings it down, a burning mass,
upon his devoted head. A shout was heard by the ser-
vants, who were standing with a carpet firmly pressed
against the jambs to prevent an escape of soot, but who,
imagining that they were required to press tighter, did
so, and thus prevented their master's escape from his
perilous position. At length, however, he forced his way
out, in a deplorable condition, being very much burnt
about the head and face, and with the loss of a quantity
of his hair. A doctor being senti.for, he was properly
washed and dressed, and may nor" be seen going about
with a napkin tied round his head, to the no small amuse-
ment of those who are in the secret —Misfortunes seldom
come singly. Another innkeeper in the same village, and
upon the same day, had some high words with the toll-
man when curling. As the dispute increased the inn-
keeper got excited, and, with a violent force, dashed his
stone upon the ice, which, not being very strong at the
time, gave way under him. The landlord, being of a
portly appearance, floundered in the pond in the most
helpless manner, amidst the shouts and laughter of the
onlookers, till at length a good Samaritan, in the shape of
the village blacksmith, ventured to the edge of the hole,
and drew him safely so land. It being ascertained that
he was more drenched than hurt by the accident, a gig
was soon procured, and he was safely removed home, and
is now little the worse of the ducking.—Stirling Journal.
The Paris Meniteur published a few days ago, a note relat-