1826.] Publication of Police Reports. 471 



his carelessness of costs will fling in your way; and that you have liim at 

 last in the hands of a jury — what can you get for the most irremediable 

 injury, but such a sum taken in damages, or such a fine levied for the 

 king, as will scarcely be missed in the account of the ))ayer'8 yearly 

 income ? It is seldom, unless in cases of most extraordinary aggrava- 

 tion, that a man of fortune, upon criminal indictment, is sentenced 

 to any penalty beyond a fine, if he be imprisoned for a limited period, 

 he enjoys all convenience in that confinement, excepting the possession 

 of his liberty; there is no ruin of his affairs or starvation of his family (as 

 would be the case during the imprisonment of his footman), going on 

 around him. Men of large wealth, in fact, as far as the mere law is 

 concerned, can always make their crimes a good deal ad placitum. 

 The same misdemeanor (civil)— assault— seduction — or adultery, for 

 which a jury would give £500 damages against a man with an 

 income of £300 a-year, will be charged to a man who has a properly of 

 £20,000 a-year, say at five thousand. This sounds like a reasonable 

 consideration of what a Judge calls the "circumstances of the parties," 

 in the verdict ; but, in effect, it amounts to a very little consideration 

 indeed. The verdict for £500, against the man who earns £300 a-year 

 by his exertions, costs him two years' income, if he can pay it. But, 

 five to one he cannot pay it ; it locks him up in a gaol, and so, probably, 

 fixes him for life, b}' destroying the source from which he draws his 

 means of payment and of existence. But the gentleman who forfeits 

 the £5,000, how does he stand? He ia mulcted in just one-fourth of his 

 yearly receipt (which no verdict can affect or take from him) ; he pays 

 the damage before the court rises ; buys a race horse the less (it is only 

 a different way of getting rid of so much money) ; and the matter, as 

 regards his feeling of it, is at an end altogether. 



Now the most glorious attribute of our freedom of the press is, that it 

 has a tendency to correct this particular evil ; that it does that which 

 the law cannot do — furnishes a counterpoise to that weight of wealth in 

 the country, which would otherwise be almost overpowering — and, if 

 there be one situation in which, more than in another, its assistance 

 becomes desirable, that place is the very place where it is now objected 

 to, at the bar of a police office. At these tribunals it is that all criminal 

 proceedings have their inception. Here it is that an offender comes 

 before he has time to invent, and well digest a lie ; and, in spite of all 

 the advantage which we are assured would arise if we could suspend our 

 consideration until the proceeding is over, it is astonishing how apt, 

 especially where what is called a "person of respectability" is concerned, 

 the truth is to come out at tlie very first investigation. The necessitous 

 are, of necessity, easily tampered with. Cases of the most infamous 

 character, in spite even of all the existing checks, are frequently " made 

 up." The most careless reader must have observed in how extraordinary 

 a manner witnesses fail sometimes at a second hearing, and even deny their 

 former statements, when a prisoner (of money) has been remanded, or libe- 

 rated upon bail. If it be beneficial sometimes to the poor to compound 

 with the rich for their injuries, 'it is an insult to the law (in cases of 

 importance) thej' should be permitted to do so. It is an insult to justice 

 that a miscreant, because he happens to be wealthy, after committing, say 

 some villanoiis attack upon an unfoii'tunate female, should escape by the 

 payment of forty or fifty pounds to herself, or to her distressed relations 

 — that very pa3^ment too, perhaps (to aid the cause of morality) given 

 upon coadition that the accusing party shall declare the charge to 



