THE LAW AND ITS ADMINISTRATION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3692, 15 May 1883, Page 4

THE LAW AND ITS ADMINISTRATION.

The following from "London Town Talk "in the Argus will meet with very general approval: — " There are some books pretty sure not to be read, which one is tempted to wish that the community should bo compelled to read, whether they like them or not. This is always tho case ol' course with one's own books, but, there :ivc sometimes books written by other people teaching excellent lessons, and including the most wholesome principles. Sir Fitzjamc.s Steven's ' History of the Criminal Law of England' is ono of these. He is one of the few Judges on the Bench who seems to give himself (ho trouble to go into the motive of crime, or to estimate its general effect. He has a soft place in his heart for poverty and .stress of circumstances, and lie sets his face against tho brutal and the cruel. The latter attribute has become most rare upon the Bench. A rough was brought up last week for kicking iv the face a man who had refused to supply him with drink without payment. Lockjaw set in, and the man died. Tlic jury found the prisoner guilty, ' and,' says the report, ' as it appeared that ho had been several times convicted of violent assaults, the Judge sentenced him to throe months' hard labor ! ' If the man hacl stolen os to koer himself from starving, tho Judge would, without doubt, have given him a severer sentence. Sir Fitzjamcs Stephen, moreover, has a brain which is not composed of poached He docs not deny that there arc cases of murder which do not call for capital punishment; there are circumstances, indued, when murder may bo justifiable. Suppose, for example, that unhappy cabin-boy who was done to death by a series of prolonged and unimaginable cruelties by his .skipper tho other day, bad had enough vigor left in his tortured body and broken heart to kill the beast as he slept, what human being could have blamed him. The contention of our author is that we have gone too far iv laying capital punishment aside for crimes short of murder, but wliich may testify to a more incorrigible hostility to society. These persons—savages, and worse than savages—like the aforesaid skipper, ' are as much misplaced in civilised society as wolves or tigers -would be in a civilised country.' This is a lesson which otir Legislature, and especially those Avho administer the law, have yet to learn. At present, while property is protected by the severest enactments, the fate of children and women is left at the disposal of the cruel, and human life is made miserable to thousands from the brutality of a few. What good is to bo hoped from the professional wife-kicker and rough, as husband or father ? What benefit can he possibly be to the State > The idea of citizenship— though wo hear so much talk about a 'stake in the country'—-never seems to enter into the heads of our law-givers. Yet surely it ought to be fostered ; while those avlio dwell amongst us only for the purpose, as it would seem, of increasing the sum of human misery ought to bo cast out. A wretch who wilfully pollutes a public fountain, devastates a garden intended for the public, or robs a box the contents of which are dedicated to the poor, ought to be more severely punished than a petty thief who steals from individuals. To injure the ' common interest ' should be made a petty treason, instead of, as now, being considered less criminal than if the offence were of a private nature."