upon his folly, and learn some discretion in his future conduct. The instance of a young man named ‘—James,' that came under our immediate notice in Philadelphia, will explain the practice, and severe operation of the law in this respect. His James was of sober, quiet, and industrious habits, and supported an aged mother, who resided at Lebanon in the state of Pennsylvania, distant about eighty miles from Philadelphia, by towing boats on the Schuylkill canal. On one occasion, when nearing Philadelphia, he was waylaid, assaulted, and robbed of all the money on his person, amounting to some two or three dollars. first care on reaching this city, was to apply to a magistrate, when a warrant was issued for the apprehension of the delinquent, who was soon after taken; and who admitted on his examination, the charge made against him, but made no effort to excuse or extenuate his crime: yet was he set at large, on procuring the required bail to appear at the next criminal court to be held in said district. James, on the other hand, was a stranger in the city of "brotherly love," as Philadelphia is sometimes quaintly called, and had no friend to join with him in the required recognizance to ensure his prosecuting. He tendered his own bail in any required amount; but the law exacted more than this, and much more than poor James could satisfy. It was to no purpose that he appealed to the sympathies and benevolent feelings of the magistrate, and urged the helplessness of his widowed mother in his prayer for mercy. The majesty of American law, that allows every partisan, and wholesale scoundrel, to go "unwhipt of justice," was in the instance of this unoffending and innocent young man to be vindicated; and without any other crime, or the semblance of a charge made against him, was unfortunate James hurried off to prison, where he was confined for between two and three months in a miserable cell, compelled to associate with many of the most abandoned and reckless of American society. He appeared and prosecuted in due season to conviction, the party who had so assaulted and robbed him, who underwent some trifling punishment for the offence; butJames lost his money, and what was of far more value, his time, and his situation-his widowed mother, her sole support; for which the state, in its liberality, made him compensation about two dollars, or eight shillings and fourpence, sterling. He was then turned adrift, with his mind and habits somewhat altered, to wend his way, in the best manner he could, towards his desolate home; with ample time to ruminate as he went along, on the many and perplexing difficulties of his situation in this world, notwithstanding the blessings he was always taught to anticipate from the happy form of government under which it was his fortune to live, and the equitable and conscientious distribution of justice, which it shared amongst his fellow citizens; dealing the same mea JUSTICES OF THE PEACE. 163 sure to all, the accusing with the accused-the guilty and the criminal, with the innocent peaceable and well conducted. Sworn informations, in criminal cases, are by no means a necessary preliminary to a Justice of Peace issuing a warrant for the apprehension of a suspected or accused party; which places the liberty, and personal freedom of every citizen at the mercy of a generally corrupt, illiterate, and partisan magistracy. But such a restraint upon the authoritative violence of a body of men, whose recorded delinquencies outnumber every reasonable calculation, and who have scarcely aught to control them in the most despotic exercise of their authority, beyond the scanty measure of discretion for which they are at any time remarkable, is seldom thought of. Chosen by the people, and from the people, they are the mere creatures, as well for evil, as for any substantive good, of the declared will of any assembled number of their fellow citizens; and at all times the pliant and ready instruments of every influential political leader of the dominant party, whom they are bound to please, at the expense of every other and proper consideration. Whenever their services can really be made useful, they are generally found wanting, in the exertion, firmness, and efficiency, that should begird their appointment. In the riotsthe shameful excesses that of late years have marked the character of the republican citizens of these states, they have been found deficient in every essential of faithful public servants; and in some instances have given an implied sanction, if not a more direct and positive encouragement to the open infraction of the laws-the wholesale plunder and destruction of private property that has taken place, frequently, within their immediate observation. A friend of ours asked one of these worthies at a late incendiary fire in Philadelphia, which menaced destruction to a large portion of the city, why he did not interfere, to stay the frightful excesses passing within his view? When he calmly replied, giving at the same time a significant shrug to his shoulders--that "indeed he should long before have done so, but that he did not think the people," (alias, the congregated assembly of licensed burglars, and other lawless incendiaries, then sporting their tricks before him) "would be pleased, or satisfied at his interference.' The thing went on; disorder, anarchy, and crime ruled the ascendant; several houses were burnt to the ground, after the most approved republican fashion, and as many families thrown destitute on the world's waste; for the justice and liberality of American law, makes no provision — provides no atonement for these, or similar excesses of the "sovereign people," but leaves the victim of mob violence and vengeance, to whatever remedy, if any, he may possess. *This, until very lately, has been the universal practice throughout the United States. A modification of the principle has however been recently admitted, in some few instances, in Baltimore, and Philadelphia, where some trifling or inadequate compensation has been recovered against the public authorities, especially of this latter city, for loss and injury done by mob JUSTICES OF THE PEACE. 165 In New York, a more fearful latitude is given to the magistracy, altogether inconsistent with the spirit and character of free institutions:-a stranger in this city can scarcely consider that he is at large, except by the permission, or sufferance of Justice A—, B—, or C—, who, under its municipal laws, may issue his mandate, upon any, or no pretext, for the summary appearance before him of any individual, resident, or stranger, within the limit of his jurisdiction, and call upon him to account, to the "satisfaction of the said Justice," in what manner he supports himself, or procures a livelihood and in default of the summoned party yielding such satisfactory information, as the magistrate in his capricious will may choose to exact, to commit him, or her, to prison, for any period not exceeding six months. It is by no means necessary, that evidence of the least impropriety in the conduct of such individual should be adduced, or even a charge of the indirect infraction of any state, municipal, or city ordinance brought against him, to legally warrant the magistrate in his committal :-the mere isolated circumstance of the magistrate conceiving him, and from what this functionary will allege, "his own showing on his examination when brought before him"-and though he may not have replied to a single interrogatory addressed to him, to be an improper person to go at large; or his having failed violence; though not until the injured parties had been forced to the necessity of expensive legal proceedings, to assert their individual and respective claims. |