The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-16 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, MAY 16, 1845.

The House of Commons met at Four o'clock.
Mr. SPOONER moved the second reading of the
Birmingham, Gloucester, and Wolverhampton Rail-
way Bill.
Mr. PAKINGTON opposed the motion, which, how-
ever, was carried by a majority of 19—the numbers
being, for the motion, 41; against it, 22.

Mr. WAKLEY then moved that a Select Committee
be appointed to inquire into the management of the
Royal College of Surgeons in England. The Hon.
Member, at great length, detailed the grievances of
which the members of the College had to complain—
grievances which were entirely owing to the mis-
conduct of the Council, the self-elected governing
body of the College.

On the Speaker being about to put the question,
the House was counted out, there not being forty
Members present.

In a case which came before the sitting Magis-
trate at the Thames Police-office, a day or two ago,
some observations fell from that functionary, which
were distinguished by so much right feeling and good
sense, that we conceive them entitled to special at-
tention. A woman had been compelled to bring a
charge of a most brutal assault against her husband—
an engineer, in full employment with highly respect-
able employers—and, so far as the character or capa-
city of an individual can be judged of, when at-
tempting, under vehement excitement, to defend
himself before a Magistrate, a man not wanting in
intelligence. With the points of the case, as deposed
to in the evidence adduced in support of the charge,
we are not called upon at present to deal, except to
observe that they went to establish the commission, by
the husband, of,a most aggravated and unmanly outrage
against his wife. After the hearing, Mr. BRODERIP
proceeded to state the reasons which induced him not
to dispose, summarily, of the case, by imposing, as
the Act of Parliament authorised him to do, a pecu-
niary fine on the accused—but to send the case for
trial before another tribunal—the Criminal Court. Of
these two alternatives, which the Act of Parliament
left in matters of the present nature, when proved to
the satisfaction of the magistrate, he, for one, greatly
lamented the alternative of imposing a pecuniary fine had
been given to them at all The obvious evil attaching
to the exercise of this summary jurisdiction was, that
the discretion it left to the delinquent of paying a
pecuniary fine, or submitting to an equivalent term
of imprisonment, dismissed the wealthy offender with-
out any particle of punishment, which for the same
offence it visited on the poorer culprit. In the case be-
fore him, any fine which he would be empowered to lay
upon the prisoner would be little felt by a man in his
condition, earning competent wages, and would, there-
fore, be very little proportioned to the extremely seri-
ous character of the offence which had, in Mr. BRO-
DERIP'S opinion, been proved against him. So the
worthy magistrate bound the witnesses over in the
usual manner to appear against the prisoner at the
Central Criminal Court ; at the same time accepting
reasonable bail for the man's appearance to take his
trial on the indictment which would be prepared from
their depositions.
Now, if there be one feature in the proceedings of
our police judicature more offensive than another, it
certainly is that vicious inequality between the penal-
ties inflicted for offences of the same class and degree
on the offender with money in his pocket and the
offender without it. It has been often boasted
that England is that country in which
the rights of property are always best respect-
ed. In God's name, where they exist, let them be
religiously respected ; but, there are ways of exer-
cising them, which so completely remove them out of
the pale of all " respect," that in the eye of munici-
pal as well as moral law, when dealing with that
exercise, they ought not to have any existence what-
ever. Yet the Act of Parliament to which Mr.
BRODERIP referred, indnces, if it do not compel, the
magistrate to be constantly screening the possessor of
property from these penal liabilities on account of
offences against the law, while they are constantly
enforced to their utmost extent, and in their severest
stress, against the destitute of property. The late
Mr. Under-Secretary DRUMMOND is immortalised by
his apothegm that " Property has its duties as well
as its rights." But our stipendiary magistrates have
been in the habit, too long, of improving upon that
apothegm, by illustrating another—namely, " that
property has its wrongs as well as its rights."
That is to say, the privilege of committing wrongs,—
a luxury which your moneyless man is no more to be
permitted, in their opinion, than a pauper husband,
whose wife has eloped from him, and deserted her
family, should be entitled to a sentence of divorce by
the House of Lords, " a vinculo matrimonii." Obse-
quious magistrates have established a regular tariff of
rebukes and animadversions in disposing of cases of
assault and battery, as the Act of Parliament has
prescribed a regular tariff of money fines and their
" Exchange rates" of equivalent terms of imprison-
ment. To a roystering Marquis, or a pugnacious
Viscount, or a silly spendthrift Lord, they have
graduated admonitions to be addressed to the noble
offender,—as " a nobleman of such distinguished
rank and station," a " person whose high rank
should have preserved him from so committing him-
self;" a "young nobleman so highly connected." A
run-over policeman, a capsized gate-keeper, a knocked-
up paterfamilias tradesman, or a knocked-down shop
man, are apprised that they had better retire, and see
whether they cannot settle matters with the noble
accused; or, the Marquis is ordered to pay 101.; the
Earl, 71.; the young Viscount, 51. ; which in each
of their cases is readily produccd. The complainant
steps down and disappears; the young aristocrat
bows with mock humility to the bench, the Magis-
trate smiles benevolently, and the Court is cleared—
the police " officer" showing out their recent pri-
soners with a degree of deference proportioned to the
expectat'ons they indulge of the acknowledgment
they may receive or return. But, lo ! some ambi-
tious medical student—full of everything but medical
science and money—or a lawyer's clerk, with purse
as empty as his head ; or an emulous shopman
who has parted with his discretion and his
money together overnight—is brought up for
some high deeds of street-daring, accurately
modelled on the practice of the lordly " disorderlies,"
but pushed by no means to the same scandalous
extent to which the latter would have carried thin.
The same magistrate, perhaps, sect quantum mutatus
ab illo, hears the charge, examines the witnesses, and
passes sentence on the prisoner. From habit he
detects, in a moment, all the iniquitous destitution
of the proud culprit's pockets. Indignation gives
eloquence to his law—emphasis to his admonitions.
He paints, with graphic force, and vivid earnestness,
all the terrors of bell-pulling, knocker-wrenching,
police flooring, waiter " bonneting," cabmen defraud-
ing, turnpike bolting, and other such enormities.
" Extenuating circumstances" he will no more listen
to than RHADAMANTIIUS himself would attend (on
the passing of his irrevocable sentence) to a private
note on gold-edged ivory paper from PROSERPINE,
praying for a mitigated judgment. No. In
.
matters where the wrong doer is " bad paY "
as it is phrased, the magistrate become'n'es
like the Cumean Sybil, full of a holy inspi-
ration. He must vindicate the majesty of justice,
and the pennyless rascals fined 51. each, must, in de:
fault of payment, be imprisoned for the regular tariff
equivalent term of so many weeks or months. Thus,
as Mr. BRODERIP intimated, a pecuniary fine is the
lightest possible tax on a moneyed offender for the in-
dulgence of his passion or caprice, his brutality or his
folly. But if you put him on the same footing with
the moneyless, and hand him over to be dealt with by

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