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MAGISTERIAL MUMMERIES. Amongst the many minor subjects f 



reform, which must shortly extend to the law, as well as to the chu 

 and state, none would more beneficially i'eel its influence, than the pre- 

 sent magistracy of the police. The unhappy effects of Tory rule is no 

 where more glaringly apparent, than in the appointment of superior 

 officers in this important department. Competition amongst men quali- 

 fied by nature and education for this department of our social system, 

 there is none. Borough patronage has extended itself through the 

 court, camp, and church, down to the very tread-mill. The protege of 

 a borough lord must be appointed to every vacancy in every department. 

 The very sweeper of the House of Correction is recommended by the 

 Duke of Newcastle. 



Qualification in a police magistrate, there is none. We beg pardon -r- 

 we believe it is limited in one sense- The candidate must have dined 

 so many times, during so many terms, in one of the halls of one of the 

 courts of law. The very atmosphere of such a place, it is said, bears so 

 miraculous a quality, to say nothing of the exciting steam of its quali- 

 fying legs of mutton and baked potatoes, that men have been known to 

 enter the wondrous portals fools, and exeunt Solons ! 



This may account for the astounding oracles uttered daily by the 

 high-priests or law-givers of this temple of thieves, or court of police ; 

 for mind, they give no laws but their own : a shrewd device, by 

 which the busy Harmers, Edmundses, Woollers, and Humphries', 

 who are so continually meddling with these sages, are sometimes utterly 

 confounded. But the chief evil consists in the complete discretionary 

 power possessed by this worshipful bench, over the liberties of their 

 fellow men, by the various amendments of the Vagrant Laws. This has 

 been a fruitful source of misery to the unfortunate. 



A scene occurred at Bow-Street, a short time since, which brought 

 tears into the eyes of many of the spectators. A wretched man, his wife, 

 and three children, were brought to the office, charged with the crime 

 of having no bread to eat, and no home to shelter them ! The case was 

 quickly dispatched j but a short shrift remains for the miserable : the 

 parents were consigned, for one month, to the tender mercies of the 

 tread-mill, and the children were to be otherwise disposed of. The 

 separation of the children from their parents was appalling ; the poor 

 innocents clung around their natural protectors , and the heart-broken 

 mother, by screams and tears, by turns beseeching and threatening, 

 vainly endeavoured to excite the compassion of their merciless superiors! 

 Thief-takers and gaolers were indeed moved ; but the heart of a magi- 

 strate is made of sterner stuff. The chief magistrate remarked, that 

 prison-keepers had found the presence of children with their parents in- 

 convenient. Again, a poor mechanic from Manchester, wandered, with 

 his daughter, a girl about 16 years of age, to London, in search of em- 

 ployment. He had heard of adventurers, equally friendless as himself, 

 having been thrice lord mayor, and visions of the gilded coach might 

 have flitted before his eyes. A short sojourn in our hospitable metro- 

 polis, convinced' him of the futility of his hopes, whatever they might 

 have been ; and being detected in the glaring criminality of begging a 



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