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JUSTICE IN THE COUNTIES. The " very hard...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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The Napier Disclosures. Would That All O...
turned -upon his . emp loyer , and excused his not making an ^ impression upon Russia by complaining of those very tools ot which he had complained before he went out . Prom the correspondence , too , it is evident thatSir Chaki . es so changed about in his requirements that the Admiralty could not be expected td know exactly what he wanted ; but they did know from the first that he was an unwilling workman . If the public expected that after all his indiscretions he might yet do something great , the expectation had been justified by the allusions which Lord Palmebston made
at the Reform Club dinner to the Admiral a past career ; and it is possible that Lord Palmebstoit himself was misled by the curious understanding even then subsisting between Sir James and Sir Chabi . es . Napieb ' s constant cry was , that he could not be expected to unlock the Russian gates without the regular tools ; yet one of his boasted characteristics was , that he was the very man to do the work without the regular tools . " My gallant friend , " said Lord Palmebston , whatever
" is a match for everything , and " he sets his mind to he generally succeeds in doing . " Having learned to plough the sea , he turns to on his Merchiston estate , and astonishes people by " growth of turnips , wire fences , and the like . " Now , a sailor who is such a sp lendid ploughman on shore as to grow wire fences , might surely be expected to unmake the Russian bricks without straw , or even mortar ; and , in fact , he undertook to do so , when he accepted the fleet as it was . But his Merchiston victories
do not exhaust the list . We all remember his judicious exploits when he thundered a Saracen army into annihilation , heading a line of British mariners in his shirt-sleeves . Previously , in 1833 , he boarded a line-ofbattle ship , and when a Portuguese officer rau at him with a drawn sword , Sir Chables did not write to the Admiralty that he wanted a rapier for the combat , but he resorted to an invention of hi 3 own , and kicked the Portuguese Don down the hatchway . There
is a still more striking example told with the others by Palmerston . At Valenza Sir Charles had to take a Portuguese fortressand here is exactly a case in poiut . " What are you doing ? " said Lord William Russell , who met him on his way to the enterprise . "I am waiting , " said Sir Chaiiles Nabieb , "to take Valenza ; " and he did take it ; but with what force ? He marched up to the fortress , " dressed in a very easy way , followed by a fellow with two muskets on his shoulders . "
" But , " said Lord William , " Valenza is a fortified town , and you must know that we soldiers understand how fortified towns are taken . You must open trenches ; you must make approaches ; you must establish a battery in breach ; and all this takes a good deal of time , and must bo done according to rule . " " Oh 1 " said my gallant friend , " I have no time for all that . I have got some of my
ty lue jackets up here , and a few of my ship a guns , arid I mean to take the town with a letter . " And so heiMttrv He sent the governor a letter to tell him that h & Ahad much better surrender at—discretion . The governor waa a very sensible man , and ho surrender he did . So the trenches , and the approaches , the battery , breach , and all that , wore saved , and the town of Valenza was handed over to the Queen of Portugal .
No correspondence here , no demands tor trenching spades , no complaint that he was unwell , no controversy with French generals , or anybody else , as to the practicability of taking the port ; on the- contrary , when Lord William suggested difficulties , routino , trenches , and ao forth , our gallant friend had " no time for all that . " Give him a plough to plough with , and ho will produce you a crop of iron fences ; a Wellington boot or a high-low , and ho can dispose of a Portuguese Don : a single marine with a couple
home found it necessary to satisfy the public , by calling for something from his admiral , and he began to goad . ; but Sir Chables is not accustomed to the position of a goadee . He did not at all relish the application of the kick a tergo to make him move on , and urged beyond his patience , he retaliates by the most irregular of all his proceedings- —he publishes the private correspondence . The Portuguese Don who was kicked could condole with Sir
of muskets , and he will make a fort surrender at discretion . Really we do riot wonder that Lord PaIiMEBSToit , who had been drugged with these anecdotes , took Sir James ' s friend for a " Veni , vidi , vici" kind of Admiral , and gave his fiat to the appointment of Sir James ' s friend . Sir James ' s friend got the appointment , and was sent out to keep up the humbug of the Baltic campaign . Sir James at
James , whose own kicks were , as it were , thrown in his face . As if to render the practical satire of this published correspondence complete , Sir James Gbaham mounts a little hillock by the first sod of the Silloth Railway , and proclaims to the world that , construing Peel to be " of all things the maintainer of peace , " the remainder of his own public life will be to carry out the principles which he ascribes to Peel . The
man , therefore , "who puts Sir Chables Napieb at the head of the Baltic fleet , knowing him to be a workman that complained of his tools , avows that he has throughout intended to act as the maintainer of peace . He left the present Ministry because it would not give up the war , and it is evident that when he appointed the aged Admiral he did not intend to give him a nower wherewith to ride the whirlwind
and direct the storm , but to use him as a bung for stopping the chinks through which the wind might penetrate .
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Justice In The Counties. The " Very Hard...
JUSTICE IN THE COUNTIES . The " very hard case" of the two poor Essex labourers , sentenced to a fortnight ' s imprisonment in a county gaol for the felonious Offence of taking a peep at a review of yeomanry , is only one among a thousand unreported instances of the burlesque of justice habitually perpetrated by county magistrates . It is not too much to say that these unremunerated authorities contrive to render the law , so far as it is affected by their jurisdiction , alternately odious and contemptible in
three cases out of every four " brought before the bench . " The truth is , the very existence of our County Justices of the Peace in the latter half of the nineteenth century is an anomaly it will puzzle future historians of this epoch to explain . Efforts are being made every session to reduce our overgrown and shapeless mass of legislation to something liko reason and consistency , and to consolidate into an intelligible code that confusion of acts which only serves to prove the corruption of a State . The administration of our laws is , in its highest branches at least , an honour to the country : our superior tribunals are presided over
by men of unsullied integrity , of profound learning , of dignity and virtue in all the relations of life . Still , in the midst of so many tardy but effectual reforms , the majestic figure of Justice is represented in the counties by personages whose least defect is that they " know absolutely nothing of tho law . Justices of tho Peace havo survived Reform Bills and the Corn Jjnwa , and they seom likely to survive other and more swooping changes ; thanks to tho inattention of the public mind to their proceedings . Now , what arc these Justices of the Peace , for whoso wisdom there ia a special prayer in the Litany of the
Established Church ? What are their qualifications ? There was a good old ; time when feudal notions obtained , and when those who held the soil were deemed the rightful lords of the liberties , if not of the lives , of their dependents . More recently , a not unreasonable theory has prevailed that the hereditary possessors of the soil were the true representatives of the supreme authority in matters of justice , and that
to entrust them with the most solemn and responsible of functions was to teach them that property had its duties as well as its rights . No doubt it was for the public good that game-preserving should not be the sole occupation , and famine prices the sole right of Squires . When labourers were treated as serfs , it was quite enough , of justice if the nearest magistrate could sign a warrant in a case in which he was as much
a prosecutor as a judge . But since that good old time the beginning of the deluge has arrived ; new doctrines of equal justice prevail , and landlords , in a feudal sense , are a disappearing race . The actual owners of a large portion of the land are men who have no hereditary nexus to the soil : men for the most part enriched by trade , or who by successful speculation have started up into sudden milliomiaires . Many of these
newmen are highly respectable and sometimes valuable persons , and we cannot blame them for aspiring to become " country gentlemen . ' It is a praiseworthy and wholesome impulse that provokes them to invest their savings in the soil , and we cannot forget that it is to the increasing class of landowners who have sprung from trade that we owe many of the most energetic of our agricultural reformers . But it is one thing for a
successful tradesman to occupy and improve the land , and another to exercise obsolete feudal privileges , without even those quasi hereditary qualifications which have been supposed to render ignorance respectable . When an individual who has made all his money , say by adulteration of the necessaries of life , buys up an ancient family , and reigns in ita stead , we can see no reason on earth why he should be selected by a Lord-Lieutenant to adulterate the sacred springs of justice . By all means let him enjoy any number of honorary titles , dresses , and distinctions . Let
him be called a J . P ., let him wear a deputylieutenant ' s utiiform , that singular costume so-puzzling to foreigners , let him be a grandjuryman , and in due course , high sheriff ; but in the name of common sense do not let him amuse his laborious leisure Avith aping tho functions of a judge . There can be nothing more fatal to public order and to the national morality than an arbitrary and ignorant administration of the law ; and let us remember that to the understanding of a very large portion of the community the law comes home in the awful form of a county magistrate .
We cannot honestly accuse ourselves of any levelling or anarchical design when we suggest the propriety of the law being administered by men not absolutely unacquainted with its rudiments . At present the law appears to our rural populations almost as uncertain as tho doctrine of the Establishment . On one bench
poachers arc severely handled by a aportmg " Justice , " on another they arc almost patted on tho back by some retired greengrocer ot reformatory principles . In ono part ar t ' < - ' county voii line ! a parson of «» " *« £ "" £ and pedagogical turn who ^ XlJlTcel y starving pauper liko a heretic , and «*»^ J stops short of -entencuur « g » J «*«< « ££ crow to an ^ -f ' , ^; IUO sort of ^ 'XS t " ^ U with intent " as a practical joke , and di » mu » os the prisoner
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 8, 1855, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08091855/page/13/
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