Reviews of Books MR. GALSWORTHY'S PLAY “JUSTICE," AND ITS CRITICISM OF CRIMINAL ADMINISTRATION Justice: A Tragedy in Four Acts. By John Galsworthy. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. pp. 109. (60 cts. mt.)
E have awaited with great interest the complete text of Mr. John Galsworthy's play called "justice," which was first pro duced at Mr. Frohman's Repertory Theatre in London last winter and is credited with hav ing made so deep an impression on the mind of Mr. Winston Churchill as to have led that cabinet minister to turn his attention to needed reforms in the English penal system. The play has now appeared in two installments in the American Magazine, and has also been issued in book form by a leading New York publishing firm. It is a literary masterpiece of great power and beauty, but in this particular place we are less concerned with its literary merits than with its bearing on legal problems of the day.
Stripped of sentiment and stated briefly in the baldest matter-of-fact language, the story is that of a young man of twenty-three who becomes attached to a wife and mother several years his senior, who is maltreated by a brutal husband and finds herself forced to leave him. The young man, Falder, plans to aid her to efiect an escape from London. The date is set and there are no funds for the journey, so Falder out of infatuation and pity succumbs to temptation, and raises a cheque belonging to the solicitors by whom he is employed from nine to ninety pounds. The defalcation is discovered, pleas for leniency on his behalf count for nothing with the head of the firm, and he is prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. He emerges from prison broken in spirit, and distrusting society, and, discouraged in finding work, applies to his old employers for a posi tion. He seems on the point of getting a fresh start, when the police come to claim him for forging a reference and for failure to report himself on his ticket-of-leave, when he hurls himself from a. window and dies before the
eyes of the woman to whom he has been faithful to the end. It is possible to conceive of this play only as written with one purpose, that of arraign ing the system_ of__criminal justice as admin
istered in England. And the question that instantly arises is whether this arraignment is fair-whether the writer has been actuated by inordinate sentimentalism, in singling out for exposure conditions wholly exceptional and not characteristic of the twentieth cen tury, or he has simply sought to portray truth fully, with unprejudiced fidelity to facts, glaring defects in the present system of admin istering justice. We confess that we took up this play with suspicion, fearing that it exag gerated evils of the day and embodied little criticism of real value. But on reading it we were forced to give Mr. Galsworthy, despite the radicalism associated with some of his previous work, credit for having endeavored to be wholly truthful and sensible in the treatment of his subject. In naming this “a story of guiltless crime," Mr. Galsworthy may be ill-advised. The altering of a cheque is a serious matter under any circumstances, and it cannot be justified even by the feeling, on the part of the culprit, that such an act is necessary for the relief of human suflering. There is nothing morally wrong in the relations of Falder and Mrs. Honeywill. That woman, if not legally divorced, has been naturally divorced by her husband's repudiation of most sacred obliga tions, and Falder's infatuation is not to be
treated with abhorrence. But his breach of his employers’ confidence is not on that account to be excused, and there is no injus tice or inhumanity in their allowing the law to take its course. When all the circumstances are taken into consideration, however, Falder's offense is one calling only for a mild punish ment. It was committed under the influence of a delusion which prevented him from clearly distinguishing between right and wrong, and he should not so much be punished
for his wrongdoing as made to feel the arm of the law so that he will be deterred from a repetition of the offense. It is an instance not of "guiltless crime," but of petty crime, and a nominal penalty would afford all the protection that society requires. Falder, then, should have had not three years in prison, but thirty days. But Falder is at least relatively innocent, and Mr. Galsworthy cannot be charged with sentimentality in finding some thing of the heroic in his very frailty. There is nothing improbable or untrue to
