The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-21 00:00:00

Muni% 4ATIL

LONDON, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1844.

We have more than once had occasion to remark on
the harsh—and we might add, unjust—spirit in which
the Law, as administered by many of our Magistrates,
presses upon the poor and the helpless. Instead of
being their sworn friend and guardian, as by a
pleasant fiction of the Constitution it is presumed to
be, on whose humane and considerate interposition
in their behalf they may confidently calculate, when
assailed by the strong arm of petty local authority, it
is often so strained and interpreted—according to the
letter rather than to the spirit—as to be their
oppressor—their bug-bear, whom they shrink from
with as much instinctive apprehension as the lower
orders in the East shrink from him who is supposed
to be possessed of the Evil Eye. Frequently in this
enlightened country has accommodating Justice been
known to smile on the delinquencies of the rich
and the influential, but seldom, if ever, has it
had other than a frown for the poor and the de-
fenceless. " That in the captain's but a choleric
word, which in the soldier is flat blasphemy," says
SIIALSPEARE, who knew the workings of the busy,
-practical world about him, if ever man did. Respect-
ability may do many things with comparative impu-
nity, which if non-respectability—that is to say, rank,
unadulterated poverty—were to attempt, it would
Fe forthwith subjected to the severest pains and penal-
ties. The " choleric word" of the rich deepens into
" flat blasphemy" when uttered by the poor ; as was
proved the other day, in a case where a passionate
gentleman, who had held abusive language towards a
poor man, was let off with a bland remonstrance,
while a cabman, who had abused a gentleman in terms
little, if at all, worse, was visited with r. fine, accom-
panied—if we remember rightly—by a significant
reference to the tread-mill ! Another, and still more
striking instance of this peculiar working of the Law,
occurred on Monday last at one of the Police-courts.
Several poor women were brought before the sitting
Ma7istrate, -charged with the flagrant enormity of
selling fruit in the streets. In justification of this
heinous offence, one of the defendants urged that she
had no other means of support, ard that " it was to
keep out of the workhouse that she endeavoured to
sell fruit in the Walworth-road." Another pleaded
that "she had five children dependent on her for
support," and asked " what she was to do, if pre-
vented from selling a little fruit by the road-side ?"
third said that " she had a sick husband, and that
she tried to keep him and herself out of the work-
house by selling fruit, but that, if she was deprived of
the means of doing so, that must be their fate." And
a fourth observed, " I have no other means of gaining
a subsistence ; it is a very cold and harassing way of
getting-a living for those poor people who, like
are compelled to follow it ; but what are
we to my,
are
To these unanswerable pleas the Magistralte'
coolly
repliek that " he was of opinion it would be akind-
ness to :many of those persons who obstruct the
thoroughfares by selling fruit, to commit them to the
House of Correction; that it was an idle, lazy way of
living, and that those who pursued it ought to be made