322 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



There can be no sort of doubt that if a magis- 

 trate was not deemed, by the Legiskitnre, judge 

 enough to act in petty cases in his own house, 

 Avhere, if they applied for it, any portion of the 

 public might have been admitted, the same class 

 of judicial functionaries had better not be called 

 on to legislate in a conclave held in open court. 

 Lord xilbemarle attempted a most excellent remedy 

 when he moved this consideration in the Peers ; 

 but he was in error in urging as one of the 

 reasons that it was wrong to entrust the decision 

 of cases to gentlemen who often owned the 

 property against which the crime had been com- 

 mitted, because they, the magistrates, on account 

 of their position, would have a strong bias against 

 the accused. 



This is not so ; it is precisely the other wa^^ 

 Benches of magistrates are so nervously afraid 

 of being charged with a partiality for conviction 

 in poaching cases and other rural thefts and mis- 

 demeanors, and they are, so to S2)eak, such very 

 impartial judges, that they commit themselves 

 much more frequently than those who are brought 

 before them. 



The Bench, as at present constituted, puts clergy- 



