SOCIAL SERVICE

Gisborne Times, Issue 10191, 31 December 1925, Page 3

SOCIAL SERVICE

THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN

A VISIT TO THE QUARTERLYSESSIONS. , •

(Specially written for the Gisborne Times.) (No. I.) (By A. L. Bees, M.A., LL.B.)

Alter eighteen years absence from England, nothing strikes me, a wardering New Zealander, more than the permeating influence of women in ev cry branch of Social Service. Hoaryheaded injustices, which seem impregnable in their ancient strongholds arc being assailed, rot by Amazons, but by. large-hearted capable women of boundless hope and invincible courage.. Their motto, unfonnulated in words but expressed in action, may well be a wider variant of Pitt’s words about Parliament—“ Tell me not that women ‘cannot’. Women are omnipotent to protect.” Through the kindness of English and Scots people some intensely interesting •experiences have fallen my way. No words can be too strong to characterise the wonderful welcome to oversea visitors given by our folk at Home. Wherever in casual conversation 1 have expressed interest in any person, place or institution the chance acquaintance who listened has immediately become a fairy godmother—of either sex— and granted my wish, although perhaps Jess easily than by waving a magic wand. “Would I care to sit on the Bench with the Justices at Quarter Sessions and see the administration of the Law Y”

A date is fixed and an appointment is made with a woman magistrate.

Arriving far too early I pace up and down the square courtyard of the grey stone building. Its air of restraint is emphasised and repeated in the iron-barred gates and even in the grating rounci the trees, apparently keeping the roots in their place while admitting light and air. Small groups of men and women gather, anxiously discussing issues, and forming alternate plans. Witnesses, friends and casual spectators pass through the courtyard and enter the building. A motor sets down a distinguished K.C. at a side door. Jurors, Probation Officers, reporters, mission workers and police—a sprinkling of women in each class—mount the steps. Alone and preoccupied or in parties walking and talking briskly , come more men and women with an air of being thoroughly at home — probably solicitors, barristers or magistrates.

My friend arrives, punctual to the minute, and we go 1 in at the main door, enter the lift and pass along marble paved corridors. A few introductions and I find myself sitting among the Justices of the Peace. The Chairman of the Bench takes his seat. The jury of eleven men and cr.e woman are sworn in unchallenged. limited to lurch at the .Magistrate’s Ohio in the Session house .1 spent both morning and afternoon in watching the procedure of the Court. Hour dominant impressions, (the first an innovation, the second and third venerable in tradition, the fourth a growing tendency) were lclt upon my mind as the little waves of passion and pain from the vast sea of human frailty and ignorance broke into the quiet room and ebbed before the advance of others. WOMEN AS ARBITERS.

My first impression was the presence of women on the Bench and empanelled on the Jury. No one, 1 think, would wish to sec cases tried by women alone. Perhaps the day is not far distant when the idea or them being tried by men alone will seem strange and undesirable. Both sexes break laws, both come into the courts for trial, and both crowd the galleries as eager spectators. But a new note is struck in British courts today when men and women together consider the evidence and discuss its bearing. '1 lie one woman on the jury was unanimously appealed to by her colleagues. The Chairman of the Bench" s sent occasionally for one of the woman magistrates and each of them had the right to go to him at any time to note a point that had struck her. THE LONG ARM OF THE LAM . In the second place I was impressed anew and most forcibly with the majesty of the law and length and strength of its arm. Tangible links of evidence, sometimes almost microscopic, picked from darkest corners, Lorn cellars, gutters, house-tops, rubbish heaps, from orokon glass, from river mud ; the wrong-doer dragged to light from an intricate maze of conceal- } ment; the irresistible and awe-inspir-ing power of the police to safeguard the community:—those things must seem, almost uncanny to offenders and must be a deterrent to dishonesty and violence. DIGNITY and justice. Ln the third place I glowed with pride in the decorum and the high ideal of justice shown in British Police Courts equally' with the High Courts. Each accused person was giv- | on lull opportunity to explain suspic- i ions circumstances, received advico and explanation from the Chairman when puzzled and if unrepresented by Counsel, was invited to chose an Advocate from membe"s of the Bar present. The Chairman in summing up, not’only warned the jurors to remove from their own minds prejudices which might he called natural, out also to take into recount the fact that such prejudices might have played a part in driving the prisoner to break laws. The air of impersonal justice; the gravity 7 and decorum, the timehonoured procedure —even the wigs and gowns reminiscent of byegore centunes with their crag’s claws and their “mourning for Queen Anne are all impressive and reassuring. \Vc Britishers can proudly compare our tribunals with those of any other rave.. If the admisson of women imperilled efficiency, justice or decorum, there would ho an arguable cx-cure for their exclusion. But.the smart pollieewomcn, the robed women barristers, and the presence of smiling and alert women “officials,” (they are no longer termed “wardresses”) m neat uniforms rs attendants to fellow women in the dock, heightened rather than lowered the impressive dignity of the proceedings. SPIRIT OE HUMANITY: The fourth outstanding feature v as the spirit e.f meiev and sympathy. Thi- feeling indeed re m *ed likely to i-torferc with the. administration nf .the law, as the forcin'!) of the Jury was a QiUtkei, most reluctant to Inver in a. verdict of “Guilty” in the rhGeest ease. But from the B-moh it was admirable. The sentences were framed with an idea of reformation rather than of rmni«lnvent. Wherever ymssVjiio, probation was ordered. In trivial cases where isolation from bad associates and time to thirl*, were desirable, prisoners were remanded, and the period of su It detention was ai<- ! judged-...sufficient punishment.; , ;4?'. j - Af'.young"-.-married wefiion who hndr .•'/(it'' ia'"fo . serious* trouble in tvndqe. Nwah'uffbwed to return to Tier. h'emeyJp; 'York"■pii.der Urn git.n-'ntee . kif-w'lk h’F 1 ;liuikl that he wouldf.V)erthsj'jf>i“'Siblo'' reparation and for her future, conduct on the condition that she must not ; come again to London several young . rimr-—not ..even' first offenders— - were. ! I committed to the Borstal Institutes. . where a period of reformative deteni tien would be followed, bv an equally ; important period of license under supervision and guidance. , , . > Patience, sympathy,, and a desire to s befriend even„ the/attractive unis fortunate, and to-Vivo him or her a > i hesh chance nere tho key-note of the i Chairman’s admonitions and of the respoujibib fy undertaken by 7 men and

women, Probation Officers and 3iis-

sion Workers. This spirit of humanity is not of such great ago in our Courts as dignitr and justice. It has undoubtedly come into far greater prominence as a direct result of what is called “feminism.” Which of us, looking back to childish escapades, can forget our relief or seeing mother with father, not father alone, at the bar of Justice To women, the horror of an appearance in the dock must be lightened by the presence of their own sex as custodians, advocates and arbiters at the trial, and as friends and advkers later in cases of probation cr imprisonment. , But I must stay my pen. Hither of those paths would lead us away from the. Session-house into another world of reform, needing an article to itself.