by Sir James Paget, to try and speak, the first words he said were, "Gentlemen of the jury." After a long rest he subsequently became a metropolitan magistrate. It was on his experience as such that we talked for a long time.
"The position of a magistrate is agreeable enough," he said, "but it is very monotonous, and has its drawbacks. If you happen to be in the East End of London, your day is generally very depressing. Let me give you a day in the life of a magistrate. You arrive at the court at about ten or half-past, and the first thing you have to do is to see lunatics—not a very inspiriting beginning to the labours of the day.
"And then commences the ordinary business of the day. The first thing you do is to hear applications, and they are certain to be upon every possible complaint under which the poor suffer. They are of a very miscellaneous character. All the home troubles and wants are poured into the magisterial ear. I conceived the notion shortly after I became a magistrate that it was very unfair that these poor people's troubles should become public property, so I arranged that they should be heard before the ordinary visitors were admitted; and instead of sitting on the seat of Justice, as my colleagues do, I have an armchair brought out into the body of the court, where I give to all the use of my attention in private.
"Some of these applications are very trivial. It was only the other morning I was addressed by an angry mother, accompanied by her little girl, who complained that a boy had assaulted her child. Whilst listening to her, a man stepped up with a boy about the same age as the girl. 'My boy has a complaint, sir. She struck him first. I want a summons.' I asked the boy who struck the first blow. He said, 'She hit me first, sir,' and on questioning the girl she admitted this. I then interrogated her as to what was the cause. She replied, 'He called me names.' 'Well, what did he call you?' I asked. 'He cried out, sir, as loud as he could, "There goes Danger on the Line."' Now I was perfectly stumped as to what was the meaning of 'Danger on the Line,' so asked the mother if she could interpret these mysterious words to me. 'Oh,' she said, 'yes, sir, all the boys say that to my little girl; she suffers very much from cold, and has a very red nose from always rubbing it.'
"I think it was very hard on the poor little girl's highly-coloured nasal organ, but I told the mother it was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. They left the Court in a more Christian-like spirit, and I have no doubt that in five minutes the father of the boy and the mother of the girl were having a friendly glass in the nearest public-house. I might mention that there is always a public-house next door or near to a police-court.
"With regard to the East End of London, the people there have great respect for a magistrate, and, as a rule, go away perfectly satisfied with the way in which their case has been dealt with, knowing that though they may often have to suffer, justice has been done.
"Then, after the hearing of these varied applications, and their name is legion, the charges are heard; and at the East End on a Monday and Tuesday, at the Thames and Worship-street police-courts, they are very heavy. You seldom get fewer than thirty or forty cases of drunkenness and disorderlies, and, perhaps, a score more cases of offences arising therefrom. These statistics principally apply to Monday and Tuesday, for as the wages are spent the cases perceptibly diminish. There is no mistake about what is the cause of nearly all the crime of the East End of London. The curse of all is drink, and I must say that the wives are often worse than the husbands. The woman often makes the first start towards breaking up the home whilst the husband is away at work. She forsakes her children and domestic cares for the bar of a ginshop, to drink with a friend, generally another female. There she passes most of the day, and when the greater portion of the husband's earnings, which in most cases is given bountifully, are spent, she goes and goes again to the pawnshop, until at last, in a state of despair, the husband, at the sacrifice of all he has in the world, thinks the publichouse not such a bad place after all, and nine men out of ten go after the wife.
"The next step in this fatal downfall is the East End lodging-house, and when once an honest working-man gets there, then comes the beginning of the end.
"At the conclusion of the charges the remands are taken, and then after a brief interval for luncheon the magistrate hears the summonses for the day. These are very varied. School-board, Excise, Revenue, removals of nuisances, sanitary, assaults, threats, wages, in fact almost every subject
