Various other considerations also operate in strengthening the hopes of acquittal; partly arising from the vast numbers who are discharged or acquitted at every Session of gaol-delivery; and partly from the carelessness and inattention of Prosecutors, who are either unable or unwilling to sustain the expence of Counsel to oppose the arguments and objections which will be offered in behalf of the prisoner: or are soured by loss of valuable time, experienced, perhaps in former prosecutions;[122]—or ultimately from a dread entertained by timid persons, who foolishly and weakly consider themselves as taking away the life of a fellow-creature, merely because they prosecute or give evidence; not reflecting that it is the Law only that can punish offenders, and not the individual prosecutor or witnesses.
False Humanity, exercised in this manner, is always cruelty to the public, and not seldom to the prisoners themselves.—All depredations upon property are public wrongs, in the suppression and punishment of which it is the duty of every good man to lend his assistance; a duty more particularly incumbent upon those who are the immediate sufferers: through their means only can Public Justice operate in punishing those miscreants, by whom the innocent are put in fear, alarmed and threatened with horrid imprecations—with loss of life by means of loaded pistols; or bodily injury, from being hacked with cutlasses, or beaten with bludgeons—under circumstances where neither age nor sex is spared.—
Yet experience has shewn that these arguments, powerful as they are, are insufficient to awaken in the mind of men that species of Public spirit which shall induce sufferers in general, by robberies of different kinds, to become willing prosecutors, under the various trying delays of Courts of Justice; and frequently with the trouble of bringing a number of witnesses from the country, who are kept in attendance on the court perhaps several days together, at a very considerable expence.
Such a burden imposed upon the subject, in addition to the losses already sustained, in a case too where the offence is of a public nature, is certainly not easily reconcileable with that spirit of justice, and attention to the rights of individuals, which forms so strong a general feature in the Jurisprudence of the Country.
From all these circumstances it happens that innumerable felonies are concealed, and the loss is suffered in silence as the least of two evils; by which means thieves are allowed to reign with impunity, undisturbed, and encouraged to persevere in their evil practices.
Nothing, it is to be feared, can cure this evil, and establish a general system of protection, but a vigorous Police; strengthened and improved by the appointment of Deputy-Prosecutors for the Crown, acting under the Attorney-General for the time being. An establishment of this sort, even at a very small salary, would be considered as an honourable entré to many young Counsel; who, in protecting the Public against the frauds, tricks, and devices of old and professed thieves, by which at present they escape punishment, might keep the stream of justice pure, and yet allow no advantage to be taken of the prisoner.[123]
As it must be admitted on all hands, that it is the interest of the Public that no guilty offender should escape punishment;—it seems to be a position equally clear and incontrovertible, that wherever, from a defect in the system of prosecutions, or any other cause, a prisoner escapes the punishment due to his crimes, substantial justice is wounded, and public wrongs are increased.
It has been already stated in the [preceding Chapter], that there are five separate Jurisdictions in the Metropolis, where Magistrates exercise limited authority.—Of course, there are five inferior Courts of Justice, where lesser offences, committed in London and its vicinity, are tried by Justices of the Peace.
1. The general and Quarter Sessions of the Peace; held eight times a year, by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, at Guildhall—for the trial of small Offences committed in London.
2. The Quarter Sessions of the Peace; held four times a year at Guildhall, Westminster, by the Justices acting for that City and Liberty—for the trial of small Offences committed in Westminster only.