The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-16 00:00:00

with him that.a clergyman who properly discharged his
duties--1e regretted. that there were many who did not,
but a gentleman who filled the pulpit, and performed the
duties of a church had enough to attend to, in supplying
the spiritual wants of his congregation, and had no
business to interfere in political meetings—(Cheers)—nor
had any right to decide questions on the Bench. It had
been said by Lord Brougham that by combining the
office of Clergyman with that of Magistrate, two good
offices were spoiled.—(Hear, hear.) If he devoted all
his attention to one, he must neglect and probably spoil
the other. He would now ask them to take into con-
sideration the appointments under the Municipal Act,
and in doing so he would refer first to the appointments
in this borough. When the Municipal Act came into
operation he believed it was intimated that the Govern-
ment would appoint those gentlemen as Magistrates
whose recommendations were sent up by the Town
Council ; for the majority of the Magistrates he believed
that such a recommendation was sent up, and certain
gentlemen were appointed. But after those appoint-
ments, by an act of the late Government, two gentle-.
men were, to use the language of the Conservative,
" pitchforked" into the Magistracy. If there was one
act of the late Government which Whigs ought to
frown at more than another, he thought it was this
one, that of "pitchforking" on the Bench (he quoted
that term from the Conservative) two gentlemen not in
the original recommendation from the Town Council.
Ought they to see the temple of justice thus desecrated
to political purposes ?—(Loud cheers)—he was sure
there was-not an honest man before him who would not
agree with him that this act was a blot on the conduct
of the late Government.—(Cheers.) It was a bad pre-
cedent that had been in ttoduced by the late Government.
—(Hear' hear.) It had, however, been copied by the
present Government at Bristol, Worcester, and many
other boroughs ; and because in those places the
Whigs had gained a political ascendancy, six, or eight.
or ten Tory Magistrates were now to be nominated.
These were all evils connected with the present system,
and those evils ought to be remedied.—(Hear, hear, and
cheers,) The gentleman who filled the chair, (and it
was with great pleasure he had heard him named, and he
should bow with respect to him in private life), might
possibly be one of those who was intended to be placed
on the Bench, and if co, lie begged to say to him that it
was not his wish, nor did he, come there to make this a
party question, nor to make a personal attack against
him or the gentleman (he alluded to Mr. Rees) who sat
on his left.—(Hear, and cheers.) The object to which
he would direct their attention was this : the Magistrates
were petty judges, and he could prove from his own ex-
perience of five years—and when he gave them his
word that it was truth he told them he trusted that
every man present would believe him—his own ex-
perience would go to prove the fact that the present
men were incompetent to fill the offices they held,
or at least that they had not that legal know-
ledge which he trusted they would agree with
him in saying was necessary ; Magistrates ought not
to be appointed because they were partisans of the powers
that be ; they ought only to be appointed from their
knowledge of the law, and their power of being able to
give their decisions unbiased and unprejudiced, and with-
out any local attachments on the questions that were so
often argued before them.—(Cheers.) He had just told
them that he was prepared to show them from the result
of his own experience that the gentlemen who filled the
Bench were incompetent to discharge the duties of the
Magisterial office. A few months ago he himself had a
case of a poor woman, the wife of an artisan in this dock-
yard, which was brought before the Magistrates of this
borough ; she was charged with stealing a cotton gown.
He had attended as the advocate in that case, he was not
often in the habit of doing so for prisoners, but he did so
in this case. conscientiously believed she was inno-
cent, and he therefore entered with more than ordi-
nary spirit into the merits of the case. She
solemnly assured him that she had not stolen the pro-
perty, and. he was strongly induced to take the Matter
up, and he did so. The whole evidence against the
poor woman was this: the prosecutor lived in Cornwall-
street, and the prisoner lived in King-street; the gown
was seen by a child of the prosecutor in the hand of the
prisoner on the afternoon of the arrival of Mr. Dawson
in the borough, when, as they were aware, the streets of
the town were crowded to a great.extent. She was seen
in King-street, at five o'clock in the afternoon, with that
gown in her hand, or part of it ; the child who was pass-
ing identified the property and went home and told her
•father. Her father obtained a warrant or a SIIIIII/1011s,
and he (Mr. Little) attended for this poor woman, the
defendant, before the bench of Magistrates. It was ra-
ther singular that Mr. Abbott and Mr. Somerville were
the Magistrates on that occasion, and upon the simple
evidence of the two prosecutor's children, one of whom
swore to her own work in the gown, and the other to
her sister's work, this poor woman, although he contended
that there was not a tittle of evidence on which a Jury
would convict the prisoner, and although he was prepared
to account for the possession of the property, was com-
mitted, and sent to take her trial at Exeter.—(A voice
' " Where was Mr. Bone ?") Mr. Bone was not there, but
his clerk, Mr. Gedye was, and was not that another evil
of the existing system?—(Hear.) When he addressed
the Bench, he told them be was prepared to prove by the
evidence of a person who lived in the same house as the
prisoner that the frock had been worn long before the
prosecutor missed it, and he was prepared to prove that
it had been bought two years before the period of the
prosecution, at Plymouth, yet, would they believe it, the
Benth told him that they would not hear any evidence
on that point, and that if such evidence was produced on .
the trial, the Jury would not find the woman guilty ; the
woman was actually sent to take her trial at the County
Sessions. When the Bench themselves allowed that if
such evidence was produced the woman would not be
found guilty, was the county to be saddled with the
expense of prosecuting, and was the poor woman to be
placed in the situation of a trembling prisoner, with her
personal liberty put in jeopardy, because the Bench
would not hear him ?—(Cheers.) He put a case to
them thus :—Supposing a person was charged with
an abominable offence, and he was prepared with
evidence to prove an alibi, were they to tell him
that they would not hear that evidence ?—(Con-
tinned cheers.) He put another case to them :—Sup-
posing a Banking House in the town were robbed, and
the notes were traced to a merchant's establishment,
would they refuse to hear the evidence of the clerks of
that establishment, to prove that they were left there in
a parcel ? Yet Mr. Somerville told him that if such a
case were brought against himself (Mr. Little) he (Mr.
Somerville) would commit him.—(Cheers and laughter.)
But before he turned to another part of the subject, he
should state the poor woman did go to Exeter, a brief
was handed to Counsel, and she underwent her trial, and
the result was that the Jury stopped the Earl of Devon
in his summing up, said they were perfectly satisfied,
and returned a verdict of not guilty.—(Cheers.) Yet by
and bye his friends, perhaps, would tell him that there
were no evils in the present system, and that justice
was better administered by it. than if a Stipendary Ma-
gistrate were placed here. He was sure that there was
not a person then present but must agree that they
were incompetent ; it might be said, perhaps, that
they were ill-advised, but it was the people, the
public, the suitors who often had to appear at this
tribunal, who were the parties that suffered from it.
He felt that the subject was of vast importance ; some of
them were tired of this discussion, and he was sorry that
he had trespassed on their time so long, though from
knowing the formidable opposition he had to encounter,
he had felt it right to enter more into detail than he
otherwise should have done. He only asked them for
their calm reflection, and to give their honest votes on
the subject.
Mr. LITTLE then read the following petition

TO THE HONOURABLE THE COMMONS OF GREAT BRITAIN
AND IRELAND IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED.
The humble Petition of the undersigned Inhabitants of
the Borough of Devonport, in the County of Devon.
Showeth—That your petitioners have witnessed with
feelings of great concern the course that has been pursued
by the late and presept ?oyerninent hi the appointment
of Justices of the'Nace'' ñ various Municipal Towns, and
h
most earnestly but resPectfully*olleit the 'attention of the
Legislature to the propriety of appointing District Sti-
pendiary Magistrates throughout EnglanAf competent
legal knowledge, to be .paid" by the State, as are t
Judges of the superior Courts of Law.
That your petitioners areindnced to direct the serious
attention of both HouseS of Paililinient to this important
question, from the conviction that great andg
ntrnant
rowing
, as in the
evils exist under the present system, in the aPPoi
of Justices of the Peace as well in Counties
municipal Towns of England. That it cannot be denied
that in Counties (the appointment being almost abso-
lutely vested in the Lords Lieutenant), such appoint-
mentspaty with regard only to the
part-,
gentlemenv'hilt iwnevraerious
are made too frequently
political opinions of the
in which so many as ten
have recently been appointed
under the Mamicipal Act, as many more, or nearly so,
appointedtowns
titioners are unable to lea (for what reason your pc-,
who now fills the rn), by the Right Hon. Baronet,
important if
for the Home Department o ice of Secretary of State
That in the short in her Majesty's Government.
cannot enter fully • limits of a petition, your petitioners
might be urged into the various arguments which
which exist against such apointments, or the evils
under the resents ystem, but that your pe
titioners with confidence submit that the Legislature. iin
the solemn discharge hold it to. be
right on theone of its duties, cannot
hand, that the administration of justice
should be entrusted to men who
are not competent by
education to understand the questions of law and juris-
prudence that are frequently discussed at Courts of Quar-
ter and Petty Sessions, nor on the other that the appoint-
ment of Justices of the Peace throughout the kingdom
should be made subservient to political purposes.
Your petitioners, therefore, most respectfully solicit an
inquiry into the subject, and trust that the result will
lead to the appointment throughout England, of gentle-
men of competent or legal knowledge as district Stipei.-
diary Magistrates, to be paid by the State, and appointed
by such ofi the Judges of the Superior Courts as it may
be deemed advisable to invest with so important a power.
Such (continued . • • Air L) is the petition to the Houses of
Parliament that I shall move to you, and it is upon the
whole merits of the -question that I ask you to give your
votes, if votes are to be called for. That evils do exist
is undoubted, and those evils ought to be reformed. But
you may ask me, how are 'they to be reformed ? My
answer to that queition is brief; for I will answer it by
putting another—who is it that suffers by the present
system ? It is yourselves, it is the people who have
cause to complain. The power of King, Lords, and
Commons, says the eloquent Junius, is not an arbitrary