PRISONERS AND SPECTATORS. LORD MACAULAY, in his graphic description of the state of English society in the seventeenth century, illus trates the callousness of the age by stating that " Gentlemen arranged parties of pleas ure to Bridewell on Court days for the pur pose of seeing the wretched women who beat hemp there whipped." In the present day any man of decent habits would be shocked at the imputation of having volun tarily witnessed the corporal punishment of a criminal; and the idea that a delicate woman should do so, is barely conceiv able. The humanity of the age has so pro gressed that the Legislature has put an end to public executions. Heavy fines are in flicted for torturing animals of the brute creation, and optimism consoles itself with the thought that the reign of mercy has been established. Yet every assizes ex hibits a sight which is only not shameful because it is customary. Cruelty, indeed, arises more from thoughtlessness than from temperament; and so it happens that in criminal courts at the assizes throughout England, women educated as ladies are to be seen seated in a line with the judge, and listening intently to the trial of cases. Per haps they would argue, if objection was taken to their conduct, that the administra tion of justice is a thing worthy of obser vation and admiration, that they desire to see the judge, to hear the bar and note the
procedure, and that causes at nisi prius are to them unintelligible. The issue, whether the prisoner is guilty or not, is easily grasped, and the points of the case are as simple as they are attractive. In that view excuse is possible. But then the contest is not for an estate, but for the life or liberty of a human being, and there is something awful in the position of the accused, who is not only hunted down by <the ministers of the law, but whose fall is a subject of morbid excite ment to ranks of mere spectators. "It is a strange duel in which arguments are the swords, and in which one word may be fatal. It is a horrible agony, in which the vague hope of escape is one torment the more." What a prisoner endures while the jury consider their verdict cannot be de scribed, but at least the torture is more intense than any punishment which follows. And yet this spectacle of misery is beheld by men and women who not only shrink not from the sight, but follow the game with the interest of gamblers, and turn from it with the levity of play-goers. They would shudder at the infliction of the judgment, but the process by which that judgment is given is to them a source of strange diver sion. To the criminal the majesty of justice, the anxiety of the hour, the dread of the future, are terrible enough; what need is there to add the contrast between the gaiety of the sightseer and his own despair? — The Law Journal.
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