The juror in waiting, as he sees a pregnant woman swooning in the dock
or a man with a high, pumpkin-shaped back to his head led off down the
dark stairs to five years' penal servitude, becomes a keen critic of
the British justice that may have been to him until then merely a
phrase. How does British justice emerge from the test? Well, it may be
that this judge was a particularly kind judge and that the policemen
of this county are particularly kindly policemen, but I confess that,
much as I detest other people's boasting, I came away with the
impression that the boast about British justice is justified. I do not
believe that it is by any means always justified in the mouths of
statesmen who use it as an excuse for their own injustice, and I would
not trust every judge or every jury to give a verdict free from
political bias in a case that involved political issues. But in the
ordinary case--"as between," in the words of the oath, "our sovereign
lord the King and the prisoner at the bar"--it seems to me, if my two
days' experience can be taken as typical, that British justice is not
only just but merciful.
The evidence is, perhaps, insufficient, as, in most cases, the
sentences were deferred. But what pleased one was the general lack of
vindictiveness in the prosecution or in the police evidence. Hardly a
bigamist climbed into the dock--and there was an apparently endless
stream of them--to whom the local police did not give a glowing
certificate of character.
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