The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-26 00:00:00

'Ott ..5,31:a,

LONDON. :
SATURDAY hIORNING, NOVEMBER 26, 1342.

We see with pleasure that the summary punish-
ments inflicted by the Magistrates are attracting
more and more the attention of the Press.
Among the cases of " Justice law," (said the Times
yesterday) which have lately come under our obs3r-
votion, two are so particularly scandalous, so revolting
to every feeling of political expediency, morality, and
reason, that a free Press would be useless if they were
not exposed. One of them belongs to the province
of 'our old acquaintances the Gloucestershire incor-
rigibles. We have lately seen how these gentlemen
treat the unhappy poor whom they have once got
within the walls of their prison at Northleach; and
now we see for what sort of offences the same func-
tionaries send their fellow-citizens to that gaol,
Our Contemporary then quoted a remarkable
case, which has already appeared in The Sun,
and added--

A gentleman (an educated man, it is to be presumed,
probably himself the owner of farmhouses in which
it has been forgotten to make provision for the decent
and modest separation of the sleeping apartments of
• male and female servants).—an - English gentleman—
in the name of the law of England, has consigned a
virtuous young English woman for a fortnight to the
contamination and severities of a gaol—of No rthleach
gaol—for declining to remain in a situation where the
preservation of her chastity would have been morally
impossible ! If, indeed, it is an offence against the law
of England for a poor servant girl to be scrupulously
careful of her honour, this Magistrate must be admit-
ted to have sent her to a place where she will be likely
to unlearn that weakness for the future. But if such
an allegation be a foul libel on our law, it would be
no more than justice to make this Magistrate take the
servant maid's place in prison.

Our Contemporary does not fall into the very
common inconsistency of praising the system of
which such acts are the necessary results, fur he
blames the system itself:—
Having (he says) long observed the incompetent,
inconsiderate, and too often oppressive manner in
which many of these functionaries (the county
Magistracy) administer the law, we are continually
urging that, far from-giving them (as some propose)
new and more extensive powers, they should be re-
lieved from part of the duties and responsibilities at
present cast upon them. Good laws ill-administered
are useless; bad laws harshly administered are worse
than no laws at all. We do not blame the, Magis-
trates, because, when ignorant of law, they" misin-
terpret the laws; or because, when occupied with
their own private business, they dispatch cases in-
volving the good fame and liberty of their fellow-
' subjects with reckless precipitancy; or because,
under circumstances which nQcessarily give them
the bias of interested -persons,
.they act under that
bias. What we do complain of is, that men whom so
many causes combine to disqualo for the exercise of'
judicial pOwer, should be burdened with it at

That they are disqualified by education, by
habits, by self-interest, for administering laws
which are notoriously bad, was shown with great
power and great perseverance by Mr. BLAcK in
the Chron;de several years ago, who deserves to
be held in lasting honour fora masterly expo-
sure of the vices of our irresponsible Magistracy,
when no other writer thought on the subject at
all or dared to speak against that powerful body.
Far frohl having learned any diffidence in their
own virtues from that exposure, they have gone