LIFE'S SEAMY SIDE.

Thames Star, Volume LXII, Issue 17449, 11 October 1928, Page 7

LIFE'S SEAMY SIDE.

A DAY THE MAGISTRATE’S COURT. PLACE OF REVELATION. (Ry R.GAV. in, the “Dominion.'’) “Silence! ” As the loud, dispassionate voice of the orderly brings the Court to its feet, the Magistrate, soberly garbed in accord with his position as arbiter in the human drama—now and then comedy—about to be staged, takes his seat at the bench. The name of the first offender is called, the charge read and the day’s session is in progress. Case follows case in long succes-sion—-witnesses for the prosecution, witnesses for the defence, with endless examination and cross-examina-tion. Hour in, hour out, the patient figure on the bench sits weighing and i sifting that which passes before him, endeavouring to iind the reality which lies beneath the frightened or blustering plea of a defendant, and the skilful camouflage of an able counsel. It is a place of revelation, this Magistrate’s Court. Here come weeping girig and middle-aged women who

have grown old in vice, shame-faced boys and haggard-faced men who have only to “come up’’ once or twice more to qualify for the dreaded indeterminate sentence. Sordid domestic troubles, pitiful stories from the highways and byways, all the tragic undercurrents which go to make up the daily life of the 'city, rise to the surface here, p are glimpsed and

analysed. Justice as far as lies within the limithed reach of man is done,

and the stream flows on to be sub-

merged once more in the stormy ocean of life. /

Pathos worthy of a master novelist’s pen passes unnoticed.. Long usage has hardened the legal fraternity, who form the greater portion of the audience, to listen with equanimity to the vain appeals of some weak swimmer, struggling beyond his depth in the troublous water of finance; has taught the men at the Press table to

pass a jest while, perhaps, a wife no longer young, is fighting a losing battle with the' forces of the law for her home or for her man. Yet humour,

too, is not lacking. The barbed shafts of counsel not infrequently recoil upon the head of the “learned friend” who launched them; replies of naive witnesses are often charged with the innocent wherewith for mirth; and even the Magistrate himself has been known not infrequently to unbend and bring a i’ay of joy into the room.

Outside the drab courtroom with its tawdry hangings of dark, dusty, red material, and the squalid atmosphere which somehow associates itself with those unfortunates who take their places, one by one, in the dock, lie the ante-rooms where witnesses and offenders waif to make their appearance. Prom the rear, in the public gallery, the idle and the curious stand, watching the passing show until proceedings become w r earisome and they forsake these gloomy precincts for the bright sunshine of Lambton Quay. And of those who have been drawn into the net some also slip through the mesh and gain their freedom; others escape after they have added their tithe to the, country’s coffers, some are detained for short or long periods at His Majesty’s pleasure as befits their offence, and others again pass on to the higher tribunal of the the Supreme Court to stand trial on more serious charges before a jury of their peers.