LEGAL TRAPS

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3195, 25 June 1932, Page 4 (Supplement)

LEGAL TRAPS

STATUTES THAT WE FORGET.

MAY WORKERS PLAY FOOT-

BALL?

In introducing the Sunday Cinemas Bill in England the Under Secretary to the Home Office observed that it was -when Lord North Sat on the Treasury Bench* and the windows of London were still unmended after the Gordon riots, that the Act was passed which still governs entertainments on Sunday. Yet this Act is by far the most up-to-date of the statutes that purport to regulate our Sabbath, iter it was in the first year of Charles I's reign that the Act was passed which forbids Sunday games, and that on the illegality of labour on the Sabbath dates from 1677.

"The courts are a machine to declare the law and to compel its observance," said a famous Victorian judge, Mr Justice Maule. "It is much more important that a statue should receive its proper consideration than that justice should be doled out to suit the circumstances of each particular case." But, if every Sunday statute were to receive its "proper consideration" (as has been demanded in certain quarters for the Act of 178±) few of us would be safe. Any house, (room or other place where debates or amusement are carried on, or for which there is an entrance fee. on Sundays, and any place where refreshments are charged for at a higher rate than on week days, is a " disorderly place"—there must be thousands of law breakers under this head every week—and anybody who attends a sports meeting outside his own parish on Sunday is liable to be put in the stocks."

I CONVICTED FOR PLAYING BOWLS.

In 1899 a Mr Snow, a barber, was fined because being "a tradesman or workman," he "did execute the worldly labour, business or work of his ordinary calling," contrary to the Act of 1677; and had not Mr Snow obligingly paid the fine a pretty situation would have arisen, since the alternative penalty was two hours in the stocks. The enforcement of the Act of 1677 woulcL of course, close every shop on Sunday, stop every train and motor coach, and deprive us of our Monday morning papers. As for games on Sunday, the conviction of a Manchester man a couple of years ago for playing bowls was sufficient proof of the 1 validity of the old law. ,

Even on week days many of us are law-breakers. By a- decision of the Court of Appeal, not ten years' old, a place where a whist drive is held is a common gaming house or gambling den, and to what small extent card playing for money may be legal one trembles to think. Manual workers ought to know that they are never allowed to play tennis or footBall. These are barred (also dice and ninepins) to all artificers and husbandmen, and to their apprentices, journeymen and servants, by an Act of Henry VIII. Fortunately, this bit of ( class bias is redressed by another Act, which forbids anybody to have a dinner of more than five courses.

Every pugilist fights on sufferance. When he makes his way to the ring

(with the aid of the police) with the intention of "subduing his opponent with violent blows," he is offending against the judgment of Lord Brampton, that even the wearing of gloves does not validate a prize fight. Promoters, referee, seconds • and everybody who pays for a seat are alike liable to punishment. Nor is the land yet safe for witches. Only a few years ago a man at Tipton (Staffordshire) was able to lay a charge ot witchcraft against a woman.

It is interesting to trace the history of laws like these. It was enacted in 1381 that anybody entering his own house by force, even though he is being kept out of it by a trespasser, is guilty of an offence. The Act was passed, as Mr Justice Wright has explained, to help to curb the turbulence of the barons, but it is still the law, and was invoked as recently as 1919 If you cannot enter your own house peacefully you must bring an action and get the judgment of the court in your favour, and not turn the trespasser out. But there is generally some surviving sense in these old statutes, and this one is, at any rate, calculated to prevent breaches of the peace.

ORDEAL ANDJDEODAND. Hitherto out-of-date laws have been dealt with in two ways. Sometimes they have been circumvented, but m general it has been the practice to remove anomalies as attention was drawn to them. A hundred years ago the brother of a murdered girl challenged the alleged murderer, who had been acquitted, to " ordeal by battle, whereupon a short Act removed this feudal fragment from the Statute Book. Deodand.. by which a horse or an inanimate chattel which kills a person becomes forfeit to the Crown, survived until the 'forties, when it was discovered that it could be applied to a railway train, and Lord Brougham ended it as " unreasonable and inconvenient." Similarly, Scottish people awoke to the fact in 1887 that a person was still liable to the death penalty for sheep-stealing, adultery, fire-raising,' and "beating o>r curs-* ing" his parents, and the law was brought into accordance with current practice.

Now feeling seems to be hardening in favour of sweeping away all out-of-date laws in one grand reform. Presumably a comjmittee of judges would be appointed to make recommendations. But their task would not be as easy as some might think. There is more in some of these old laws than meets the eye. Moreover, one never knows when they may come m useful. An Act of 1381 was invoked to convict Casement. Some time ago the Epsom guardians found it convenient and just to make use of an Act of 1601 which, compels a grandfather to support his grandchildren. It was the only means they had of " getting at" a man who would not meet his moral obligations. A classic case occurred a hundred years ago. A man who was acquitted of a brutal murder at Islington went away and boasted of his guilt, and was indiscreet enough to say where he had thrown the weapon, and, though he could not be retried for the murder, he was proceeded against under some old statute against which he had technically offended, and under which it was possible to transport him for life.