The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENINIG PAPERS OF THIS 1 DAT.
GLOBE.—The Spectator ventures a kited of semi-
apology for Major Wilde, to whose exft•aordinary
maladministration of the revenue-laws in th Carl-
isle coachman's case, we recently drew at t ention.
Our generally shrewd Contemporary, after giving a
summary of the facts, observes— •
" Bad as this case is, -it seems to be one of pure
bungling ; for there is no trace of malice or wilful op •
pression on the part of the Major—who may yet,. per-
haps, suffer for his jocund rough-and-ready style of
administering law. It is, we say, very easy to ridicule
and condemn these blunders ; but magistrates are
not lawyers, and to err is not ony human but especially
natural in their case ; and prevention would be better
than ridicule. It may be asked, why not abolish the
unpaid magistracy ? It would be difficult, however, to
find in any other class so available a staff of local jus-
tices—a set of men who are upon the whole intelligent,
sensible, independent, humanely disposed because in easy
circumstances, not needing pay, and combining in a porta-
ble shape a kind of judge and jury fur preliminary, sum-
mary, and trifling proceedings. Much may to said
against such a magistracy, but much more also for it than
people always choose to remember. Moreover, it exists,
and is likely to exist."
Small comfort this to the sufferers from the " pure
bungling" of those Magistrates who " are not lawyers."
To the poor man who is subjected to ignominy, and
the numerous personal and relative injuries involved
in an illegal and unjust commitment to a felon's gaol,
it is of little moment that the Magistrate, by whose
warrant he is sent thither, had the best possible
intentions; " no trace of malice or wilful oppression"
being manifest in his acts. The laws them-
selves lose that respect and veneration which
constitutes their best security for being obeyed.
When it is seen that, instead of being the pro-
tector of the subject, they are rendered the in-
struments of wrong-doing by the ignorance, if not by
the direct intention, of the Magistrate to whom the
Government entrusts their administration, the majesty
of justice is degraded in her own Courts. The
people, divested of confidence in the law, feel that its
restraints upon their conduct are loosened, and its
requirements are deprived of their sanctions.
" Judges and Home Secretaries" do unfortunately
" treat the errors of the Great Unpaid with a leniency
that probably tends to remove same degree of check
upon error." Instead of looking at the act—(and as
the law does in most cases of personal injury) holding
that ignorance of what a Magistrate is bound to know
is no valid defence, much less a justification—the
Judges surround the Magistrate with protection so
ample and complete, that redress for injuries
committed by a justice of the peace in the
performance of his office, except direct malice
and wilful oppression can be proved, is of all
things the most difficult to obtain by application
to the Courts. As to a Home Secretary or Lord
Chancellor troubling himself with the doings of a
justice of the peace, in any matter in which a private
person complains of injury from his negligence or ig-
norance, the idea is too ridiculous to be mentioned or
heard with gravity. The notorious Alexander
O'Driscoll, Esq., of the Macroom Bench—whose
freaks have caused his name to be familiar with the
people of both England and Ireland, and whose re-
moval froin the Bench he has disgraced was regarded
as an act which the Government no less owed to them-
selves than to the country—this gentleman finds a
protector in the Lord Chancellor of Ireland ! After
all his violations of decorum, his outrages of the laws,
his manifest partiality, and other proofs of his unfit-
ness for the functions of a Magistrate, Sir Edward
Sugden—when memorialised by one of the many
sufferers from Mr. O'Driscoll's conduct on the bench
—sees nothing to call for his special interference;
and directs his secretary to transmit the following
answer to the memorial :
" Sir—l am directed to inform you that the Lord
Chancellor has made an inquiry, and has had transmitted
to him copies of the information before Messrs. Fleming
and Somerville, and their warrant of committal. He
does not think that Mr. O'Driscoll should have acted as a
magistrate at all in his own case; but under all the cir-
cumstances, he thinks it is not a case in which he is called
upon to act. Mr: O'Driscoll is, of course liable to an
action, if he acted illegally towards you.
" I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
" HENRY SUGDEN, Secretary.

" Mr. Daniel Dinien."
An action ! " Mr. O'Driscoll is liable to an action,
if he has acted illegally" in the case alluded to !
What cruel mockery is this ! A poor peasant, who
can scarcely obtain sufficient potatoes for daily food;
an English labourer, whose utmost earnings are,
perhaps, not above a shilling a-day ; a mechanic
or operative- who finds it difficult to obtain em-
ployment, and when in work finds the day's wages
barely enough for the day's necessities—for a
Lord Chancellor or a Home Secretary to inform
such a man that he may bring an action at law
against a magistrate, a country squire of ample
estate, who has perverted the laws to his injury, is a
heartless mockery of his complaint, and does but add
insult to injury. Well might the poor memorialist of
the Irish Lord Chancellor against the wrong-doing of
Mr. Alexander O'Driscoll say, in reply to the infor-
mation given him by the Chancellor's Secretary—
"lt is of little or no advantage to me to be told by
your Lordship that if Mr. O'Driscoll has acted illegally
towards me I can obtain redress by an action at law.
The redress to be obtained by such expensive means is
beyond my reach, or the reach of any poor man like
me.
"Redress by an action at law" is a luxury in which
the poor man must not indulge. The Courts of Jus-
tice are, it is true, open to all ; but, as Horne Tooke
remarked, on hearing the aphorism, " So is the Lon-
don Tavern !" The Courts of ustice are open ;
hut woe to the wretch who enters, unless with a
well-lined purse ! We have no desire to see the
unpaid magistracy abolished ; but we do desire to
see the administration of the laws, by their instru-
mentality, preserved from the egregious blunders and
consequent wrongs which they often perpetrate.
Either let the Legislature empower the Government
to provide a competent clerk to every Bench, whose
legal education and experience shall be us such as to
ensure a practical knowledge of the law, and without
whose presence no petty sessions shall be held, or any
final conviction or commitment be pronounced ; or
let one or more stipendiary magistrates be appointed
by the Crown to every county, whose duty it shall
be to preside at the petty and quarter sessions held
within the district to which he was appointed. If the
Legislature would seriously apply itself to an investi-
gation of the evils involved in the existing system,
there would be no difficulty in devising, if not an ab-
solute cure, at least an extensive amelioration and im-
provement.
STANDARD.—A case has lately occurred in Ire-
land, and has been allowed to snake some noise in this
country, which illustrates in a remarkable manner
the danger of judging upon imperfect information.
Two persons were prosecuted at a county sessions
for the violent rescue of some property distrained for
rent—the defence set up was, that they had paid
the rent by bills or promissory-notes still outstand-
ing, and that having so paid, they considered that
they had satisfied the landlord's claim. This was a
plausible enough defence, and the changes were very
I berally rung,upon the rapacity and cruelty of a land-
lord who could thus insist upon being twice paid for
his land. An explanation has, however, appeared,
which sets the affair in rather a different light. It now
turns out that the tenants, poor innocents, had indeed
given their bills or notes for the rent, but that they were,
as the day of payment approached, furtively removing
all their property from the farms they occupied —in
short, preparing to run away, and, of course, to leave
the landlord to take up the bills at his convenience,
and look for his rent where it might please him. The
bills were, in fact, demanded because the tenants
were from the first doubtful subjects, and
because a recovery upon a bill is more easily had
than by an ejectment process, while generally it
spares the landlord the necessity of watching the
crops, though in the case of these sharp fellows
it did not. The system may seem strange in
England, but we are Informed that it is common in
Ireland, and that the tenantry generally like it, as
giving them a little more time and more freedom in
the disposal of their produce, when the tenant's
personal security is worth anything. We advert to
' the subject, not only as a warning against drawing
, hasty conclusions upon Irish affairs, but also in jus-
tice to the accused landlord, to whom we do not find
that any atonement has been made by the London
journals that have treated him so roughly.