voyages, the Thames was the busiest police court in London, and it was not uncommon to hear as many as sixty summonses in a single day for wages alone — often for con siderable amounts. Thirty or forty years ago it supported four solicitors, all making good incomes; now it provides a bare living for two gentle men who, with the aid of the police, main tain a close preserve, from which trespassers are jealously excluded. Some years ago a friend of mine, an able man and an excellent lawyer, endeavored to establish himself in Arbour Square, but was boycotted so effec tually (one of the two gentlemen remarking that he would sooner do a case for nothing than let it go to him) that he was obliged to abandon the attempt. Another difficulty to which Colquhoun refers is the absence of any provision for backing warrants, but this was supplied by 2 and 3 Vic. c. 7 1; 11 and 1 2 Vic. c. 42; 11 and 12 Vic. c. 43, and 42 and 43 Vic. c. 49. These statutes, added to 10 Geo. IV. c. 44, placed our police upon its present footing. Part of their effect is to enable the Queen to establish thirteen police courts (in addition to Bow Street), and to appoint any number of magistrates up to twenty-seven; the chief magistrate with a salary of one thousand eight hundred pounds, the others one thou sand five hundred pounds each. There are now fourteen courts, with Bow Street, but only twenty -six magistrates. "Magnum vectigal est parsimonia " is an old liberal doctrine, but when Mr. Asquith,' who is a scholar, recognizes that thrift is not parsi mony, we may hope to see the end of a system which sends magistrates racing across country, from court to court, like the Jew in Beranger's ballad, " qu'un tourbillon toujours emporte," leaving complainants and de fendants to curse the false economy of an undermanned bench. The powers and duties of magistrates are derived in the first instance from the com1 This article was written in 1803
mission of the peace, which directs them to " keep the peace," and " to keep and cause to be kept." all statutes for the main tenance of the same, and to bind over or commit any person guilty of threats of as sault or fire. In addition to this an ever increasing load, " tarn immensus aliarum super alias accrvaturum legum cumulus," both ministerial and judicial, is laid upon them by the babblers at St. Stephen's, upon whom, in a pious moment, the late Thomas Carlyle prayed that our "only general" might " live to turn the key." In indictable cases the magistrate's duty is clear, to commit, if there is a prima facie case, although I have known so experienced a magistrate as Mr. Hannay tell a defendant that he had no doubt his intention was to defraud (which he had no right to say un less he meant to commit), and then dismiss the charge on the ground that no jury would convict. One of the weakest parts of the system is the way in which depositions are taken. Statements are often put on the file which could never become evidence. Of course in indictable cases, such a thing can do little harm beyond burdening the depositions uselessly; but injustice is often caused by the omission of material facts. No means exist of compelling magistrates' clerks, many of whom, as Sir James Hannen said of the present Attorney-General, " sometimes seem to preside over the court," to make a note of anything which they may consider unim portant. The consequence is that any wit ness who may have made an inconvenient admission, and who finds that it is omitted from the depositions, to which he can have access at any time through his solicitor, "plucks up heart of grace " and repudiates it altogether. I have no wish to attack magistrates' clerks. They are an industrious and under paid body. One, Mr. Martin, joint author of " A Magisterial and Police Guide," is an accomplished lawyer. But it must not be
