The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-02-27 00:00:00

THE NEW ASSIZE COUIITS

We lately furnished an account of the architecture, &C.
of the New Assize Courts, in this town ; and have now to
express our apprehensions, that the two new court-rooms
—whatever be their interior design respectively—will be
quite inadequate in size to the accommodation of the
auditory who may wish to be present during important
trials. Looking, indeed, at the solemnity and decorum
that characterize our higher courts of justice ; at the
chances and protection given to a prisoner or a defendant,
through the strict laws of evidence, and the glorious pri-
vilege of trial by jury ; looking, moreover, at the learn-
ing, the condescension, and the almost parental considera-
tion of every circumstance that can make in behalf of the
accused, that distinguish the conduct of our judges, and
the impressive manner in which (when it becomes their
painful duty) they pronounce sentence on a convict ; we
feel assured, that, in place of restricting the size of our
court-rooms, so that they afford seats, but principally
standing room only, for a comparatively few, they should
be of such enlarged dimensions as to admit, under proper
restrictions, of thousands, who would seldom leave them
without carrying home with them enlarged and respectful
views of constitutional justice as there dispensed, and
such a lesson of morality, and, we may add, of christianity,
from the judicial bench, as would " confirm the good,
and stay the wicked will."
Entertaining these opinions, and having had our expec-
tations raised to perhaps too sanguine a pitch by viewing
the ground-work of the immense pile now in course of
erection, " the New Assize Courts," it will readily be
believed that we were not a little chagrined, on reviewing
our notes and making further inquiries for the sake of
accuracy, to find that the court-rooms will be very little
larger than those in Chapel•street, now appropriated tem-
porarily as assize courts; which courts (by the way) were
intended merely for the local purposes of the borough—
the Sessions, the Court of Passage, &c. ; and the most
capacious of which is not deemed too large by our
Stipendiary Magistrate (and, we think, properly too) for
the daily police business l It has for years been a theme
of complaint, that these were quite inadequate, in every
point, for assize courts, for the larger portion of a county
greater in population than Middlesex itself, and comprising
not only Manchester and Liverpool, with each upwards of
250,000 inhabitants, but many other minor, but large
towns, and, moreover, thickly populated districts. The
fact of their utter inadequacy, on all occasions, is univer-
sally acknowledged; and only last year (on occasion of a
special commission) two additional courts—the magistrates'
room and the grand jury room—had to be opened in the
same building, four judges presiding simultaneously ; and
even then the crushing and crowding were most annoying,
and even painful, to all concerned. The dimensions of
the two courts in Chapel-street are, respectively, as nearly
as we could measure, as follows
Length. Breadth. Area, in
Nisi Prius Court, now square ft.
Police Court 6l feet 8 in. 38 feet 8 in. 2923
Crown Court.. 53 feet 7 in. 28 feet 6 in. 1487/

What will our readers think when we inform them the
" New Assize Courts," both of the same dimensions, are
each, (interiorly,) exclusive of a deduction for probable
internal pilasters or decorations :
Length. Breadth. Area of each.

65 feet.

55 feet.

3375

Or little more than one-third larger than our present
Nisi Prins, or rather Police-court ! In the latter there is
also a gallery, which will accommodate some four or five
dozen of ladies or others, who may choose to betake them-
selves to the " cock-loft," and, by stretching neck and
ears, endeavour to catch a straggling sentence well-
mouthed by a vociferous barrister. We have not heard
whether any galleries are prospectively " projected" in the
new court-rooms, but this we know, that as the light will
be derived chiefly from above, or rather (with the excep-
tion of a few windows on one side) from " borrowed
lights," galleries to which we have no objection if they
can be lightly and pleasingly disposed—would probably
darken the body of a court of an oblong square form, and,
to a certain extent, so deaden the voice of the " gentlemen
of the long robe" that they would be with difficulty
heard by those most deeply interested.
We have hitherto alluded to the smallness of these in-
tended court-rooms, with a reference to those incommo-
dious places which are now in necessary requisition to
serve us as such. It is notorious, however, that neither
the passages nor approaches to these can be called ample
or sufficient; or that when one gets in, of whatever class
he may be—barrister, attorney, reporter for the press,
expectant witness or juryman in abeyance—he can find a
comfortable seat even for an hour, much less for a whole
day of (it may be in some cases) the entire sitting of the
court, from nine to .perhaps twelve or fifteen hours. The
internal passages, in particular, in most of our English
court-houses, and in those of our own present courts, are
miserably defective. Even the barristers are sometimes
in danger of disrobement in getting through the throngs
of respectable persons who almost necessarily crowd them.
The reporters too, who have an onerous and responsible
duty to perform, are, considering the nature of their vo-
cation, little cared for in the mass of these general ar-
rangements, though we 'Should be glad to learn what a
court of justice would be without their services in giving
publicity to the proceedings ! If to them we add attor-
neys and their clerks, armed with the ammunition of the
law, the suitors, the respectable witnesses, and the public
at large, who, we repeat, have a rigid to be present in
convenient numbers, we think few will dispute, in policy
or in justice, the propriety of enlarged courts of justice.
Well; to accomplish this desideratum, a large amount
of the difference in epace between the new and the pre-
sent courts must be taken off i❑ the former for the con-
veniences required—in passages, outlets, and convenient
seat-room. The barristers should be well accommodated,
but not the barristers only. The attorneys should be well
provided for—the reporters—the parties connected with
the proceedings—and even the public at large. Each
distinctive appellation should, so far as possible, have a
distinctive entrance to their places, and suitable accom-
modation when there. The present arrangement of most
of our courts is lamentably defective. The attorneys or
clients can with difficulty have access to their counsel ; the
reporters have often to write on their knees by way of desk.
The whole arrangement (in the horse-shoe fashion) is bad
for all, yet might be easily remedied, provided there be
space, as we shall shew hereafter. Meantime we can but
repeat our apprehensions that " the new court-houses"
will, unless great care be taken with the interior arrange-
ments. and even perhaps with all appliances, be a failure
in practice and in the estimation of the public, when they
are completed, cramped in space as they now are. The
defect is not attributable to the talented architect of the
immense outward building, which will be beautiful in it-
self, nor to any of the contractors for the work, who have
so far exhibited great talent ; but to the parties with whom
it rested to prescribe the dimensions of the rooms alluded
to. Between the two courts is what is called St. George's
Hall, a most spacious, and destined to be a truly elegant
apartment, capable of receiving perhaps 4,000 guests.
The court-rooms will not accommodate as many hun-
dreds, when the barristers are seated ! There was ample
space within the walls to make each of them twice or
three times the size ; but this, we are told, would not be
secundum legem,—that is, not to the liking of certain of
the lawyers, who conceive that a small court is preferable
for order and for hearing--having no idea of travelling
out of the plan of the present miserable courts that pre-
vail even in the metropolis. We differ from our "learned
iriends" on this point. The larger and more commodious
a court is (within reasonable bounds), the better for hear-
ing and effect. We trust it is not too late to remedy the
mischief.

MELANCHOLY STATEMENT.

(From our own Correspondent.

On Monday week, the 19th instant, an inquest was
held before Mr. Heyes, at the King's Arms, in Lowton
near Prescot, on the body of a child, named Jabez Bent
the son of a poor weaver, who appears to have been in
very pitiable circumstances.
Frances Bent, the mother of the deceased, was called,
and gave the following evidence:—On Friday, the 15th
instant, between the hours of nine and eleven o'clock in
the forenoon, I was busy weaving up stairs, and my hus-
band was gone to attend the Board of Guardians, at Leigh,
to ask for relief; my three children, and three children of
a neighbour, named George Battersby, were playing be-
low in my house. About half-past ten my eldest child,
who is seven years of age, took the deceased out to play.
About eleven o'clock, I went down stairs, and they shortly
came in ; the eldest child said she had been vomiting,
and that her belly ached ; I took the deceased from her,
and be began to vomit immediately, both the others then
began to vomit. I asked what they had been eating, as I
knew they had not had anything to eat since breaVast
time the morning before; she said they had eaten nothing
but a little cake which she had made out of some flour
she had found in the pantry. I went to look, and missed
some flour my husband had placed in a saucer on the top
shelf of the pantry, and had mixed with it some arsenic to
poison the mice with, as we were very much plagued with
them ' • she had also used about a table spoonful of flour
which she had scraped out of a mug on the pantry floor.
My little girl says, she made a cake of the flour, which
she used to bake in the oven, but it was too cold, and
that she baked it on the fire ; she divided it into six por-
tions and gave one to each, which they eat ; this was be-
tween nine and eleven o'clock on Friday. As soon as I
discovered what the children bad done, and on hearing
that Battersby's children were as bad, we sent for six
emetics, and also for Mr. Brideoake, the surgeon ; he
came, but I had administered the emetics before lie ar-
rived. The deceased died the same afternoon, about one
o'clock, the others are getting better. The little girl was
also examined, but not on oath, and she gave precisely
the same account of the matter. Mr. Brideoake, the
surgeon, was called, who proved that the deceased died
from the effects of poison. The verdict was—" Acci-
dentally poisoned with arsenic."
From a statement in the evidence of the mother of de-
ceased, that her children had not had anything to eat since
the morning before ; it appeared that the family must
have been in great distress, and the children, prompted
by the gnawings of hunger, had searched the house, and
finding the small quantity of flour with the arsenic mixed
in it, as well as the scrapings of the mug, they had made a
cake of it, as described in the evidence. She was asked
what means of support she and her family bad, when she
said, that in sixteen weeks they bad received 19s. from the
Board of Guardians, and she and her husband had to-
gether earned £1 18s. 6d. by weaving, and that this was
every farthing they had to live upon for sixteen weeks,
and as they were six of a family—viz., the husband and
wife and four children, it would be about 7d. per head per
week to provide everything with.
The appearance of the family denoted want, and the
coroner and jury immediately entered into a subscription
for the relief of their immediate necessities.

MR. WHITEMAN'S SWEEPS.—By an advertisement
in our columns, it will be observed that mine host of the
Brunswick, whose successful management of these affairs
is well known, draws another of his sweeps this evening.