At Petty Sessions.
475
these laws, and the magistrates seldom meet commode him when he is driving or riding, in petty sessions without having to impose and they create a stir on Sundays in the small fines on men who have been drunk country villages, with which he has no sym while in charge of teams, who have been pathy. When there is a choice between the found by the police asleep in their wagons word of a policeman and of a bicyclist, the on the highway, or who have been driving case usually ends with a fine and costs for furiously. These fines are small in amount; the bicyclist. they range from one shilling to two shillings Rural policemen are not supposed to and sixpence. With these fines, and the costs constitute themselves assistant gamekeepers. and fees, however, usually goes the loss of They are not supposed to go off their beats a day's work and a day's pay, for the delin to help in the preservation of game; butthey quent teamsters; so that the known alert have powers to search people suspected of ness of the rural police has a good effect, being illegally in possession of game; and and accounts in a large degree for the ease many a poacher who has eluded the game and safety which usually characterizes vehic keepers, finds himself at petty sessions on a ular traffic on English highways. charge under the game laws, through the The bicyclist has of recent years become alertness of rural policemen who have had reason to suspect his mission abroad after a new factor in the activities of English coun ty policemen and a new personage at petty nightfall. No case gives a rural policeman sessions. The rural policemen is as alert for better satisfaction than one in which he is the delinquent bicyclist as he has been for able to bring home a charge of poaching, years for the drunken or careless teamster; and to prove his case is able to load down the and in a petty sessional division, intersected magistrates' desk-table with nets and snares by main highways connecting large cities, the and other impedimenta needed in hunting, as magistrates have always before them, when the poacher understands that art. When a they meet in petty sessions, bicyclists who poacher is convicted, all these impedimenta have been riding without lamps, who have are forfeited and are regarded by the rural trespassed on the footpaths, or have been policemen much as a man-of-war's crew caught scorching. From the time the bicy looks upon a prize ship. When it is known cle came largely into use, there has been that an old poacher is to be charged at petty more or less antagonism between bicyclists session, there is always a full attendance and county police. Every rural policeman of county magistrates; and a policeman who likes to have a case at petty sessions. It is has furnished many of the cases is invaria a proof of his alertness, and adds to his local bly sure of a good word from the magis importance. By preference he likes to be trates when his promotion is in question. there with a poacher; for county magis The poor law cases which come before trates are often game preservers, and are tra the magistrates in petty sessions, chiefly ditionally down on poachers, and approving concern affiliation orders, and cases of wife towards county policemen who bring poach desertion or failure to contribute to the sup ers to justice. The county policeman's port of parents or children who have be great standby, however, is the highway code, come chargeable to the local poor-law fund. and it is a slow-going policeman who can When these offenders are runaways, they not between one petty session and the next, are arrested by the police; but the prose manage to pounce on either an offending cution of these cases is in the hands of the teamster or a delinquent bicyclist. Next to poor-law guardians, whose clerks conduct poachers, the county magistrates' strongest the cases in the courts. dislike is for bicyclists. They are apt to in Most of the cases which come before
