Two young and innocent-looking boys were charged by a one-legged baker with stealing a loaf, value one penny. The baker was evidently a man of parts, one of which was religion. He kissed the book with a vivacious reverence and commenced, “Your Honour and gentlemen:—Them two boys Simon Fogarty and Thomas Smiff was in my bakery on the pretence of executing a purchase. I ask them to lift a board in order that I may take up bread enough to supply them. They become impertinent. I rebuke them. They only laugh and say I too much fool. I again rebuke them, and then I get over the counter in order to chastise them. They fly; but I seize one, Simon
Fogarty, and he struggle so hard that I oblige to call in the aid of Constable Perkin, who shall come before your Honour and say I speak the truth only. When I go back to my shop I find that one loaf had gone. I run into the street and see Thomas Smiff with my loaf to his lips. I call witness to see him also, and they tell you how the wicked boy, who is the pest of the street, eat my loaf for which I receive no payment.” The police constable confirmed the baker’s statement, and the magistrate looked bored to extinction. It is just the police court in which that ancient suburban drama “Black justice” might be performed with propriety.
In spite of the eloquence of the baker and the accurate testimony of the police constable, those boys might have been let off with a caution; but, just as justice was looking its weakest, the police inspector rose, and, placing one hand gracefully upon the summit of his helmet, addressed the court.
“May I venture to say that those boys are the most incorrigible rascals in the district. They do no work; they are dirty, lazy, and a terror to the neighbourhood. They give more trouble to the police than any other man or woman on the island.” The quality of mercy is immediately strained, and although the pardon flows out (mainly because the baker requests it) the dregs remain in a sentence to come up for judgment when called upon to do so.
The boys jointly attempt to hide a wide and intelligent grin behind the battered remains of what must once have been a felt hat.
And so the court goes on.
The merry hum of the day insects mingles with the shrill tones of singing birds, and the chatter of anxious litigants in the yard below. The magistrate continues his anxious calculations, and the clerk is assiduous in his endeavours to balance a pair of rusty pince-nez on a nose obviously too slippery with sweat. The police inspector frowns round the room from behind the majestic screen of his helmet, and the black usher shouts silence, or swears a witness after the usual caution of “Take se bible in you righ’ ’and"....