Not that there was any avoidable brutality, or even indecorum, in
the conduct of the trials that I saw. A spade was necessarily called
a spade; but it seemed to me that with all the lapse of time and
foreign alloy the old Puritan seriousness was making itself felt
even here, and subduing the tone of the procedure to a grave decency
consonant with the inquiries of justice. For it was really justice
that was administered, so far as I could see; and justice that was by
no means blind, but very open-eyed and keen-sighted. The causes were
decided by one man, from evidence usually extracted out of writhing
reluctance or abysmal stupidity, and the judgment must be formed and
the sentence given where the magistrate sat, amid the confusion of the
crowded room. Yet, except in the case of my poor thief, I did not see
him hesitate; and I did not doubt his wisdom even in that case. His
decisions seemed to me the result of most patient and wonderfully rapid
cogitation, and in dealing with the witnesses he never lost his temper
amid densities of dullness which it is quite impossible to do more than
indicate. If it were necessary, for example, to establish the fact
that a handkerchief was white, it was not to be done without some such
colloquy as this:--
“Was it a white handkerchief?”
“Sor?”
“Was the handkerchief white?”
“Was it white, sor?”
“Yes, was it white?”
“Was what white, sor?”
“The handkerchief,--was the handkerchief white?”
“What handkerchief, sor?”
“The handkerchief you just mentioned,--the handkerchief that the
defendant dropped.”
“I didn’t see it, sor.”
“Didn’t see the handkerchief?”
“Didn’t see him drop it, sor.”
“Well, did you see the handkerchief?”
“The handkerchief, sor? Oh, yes, sor! _I_ saw it,--I saw the
_handkerchief_.”
“Well, was it _white_?”
“It was, sor.”
A boy who complained of another for assaulting him said that he knocked
him down.
“How did he knock you down?” asked the judge. “Did he knock you down
with his fist or his open hand?”
“Yes, sor.”
“Which did he do it with?”
“Put his arms round me and knocked me down.”
“Then he didn’t _knock_ you down. He _threw_ you down.”
“Yes, sor. He didn’t t’row me down. Put his arms round me and knocked
me down.”
It would be impossible to caricature these things, or to exaggerate the
charitable long-suffering that dealt with such cases. Sometimes, as if
in mere despair, the judge called the parties to him, and questioned
them privately; after which the case seemed to be settled, without
further trial.