Hire of conveyance, coach, and other fares 1 1 2 ------- Total £4 16 7 but because the offender, a boy, was convicted under the Juvenile Offenders Act, which only authorized an allowance of forty shillings for expenses, there was a deficit of £2, 16s. 7d. to be made good by the man who had lost his boots. The reluctance of the public to prosecute, which, as we have seen, was one of the many avenues of escape open to the criminal, was only to be expected, and was due rather to a defective system than to any lack of what is called public spirit. At a time when punishments were vindictive, men sympathized with the prisoner, and could with difficulty be induced to appear against him; this was especially the case when the community at large, and not any particular individual, had suffered injury. When the severity of the penal code was mitigated, it still remained unfashionable to prosecute, partly from force of habit, partly because the public which had no confidence in the police, would not willingly incur the trouble and danger of taking an active part in the administration of justice, but chiefly because the expense of putting the law in motion was prohibitive for all but the comparatively wealthy. Well aware of their impunity, tramps would enter cottages at an hour when the owners were at work in the fields, steal the supper from the cupboard, and perhaps take a coat from behind the door, confident that poor people could do nothing to further the ends of justice as long as the first question asked by the parish constable was sure to be "Who is going to pay me?" Even when thieves were caught red-handed, and delivered over to the constable, the informant was frequently tempted to think better of it, and either let the matter go by default or compound with the prisoner. In 1837, within a space of seven months, 201 persons, taken into custody for felony, were discharged without trial, simply because the parties concerned refused to prosecute, and out of this total as many as 53 were well-known thieves. Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at that from all parts of England suggestions poured in, urging the necessity of provision being made for the appointment of a public prosecutor, suggestions which were emphatically echoed in the report of the 1839 Commission. In Scotland, it may be mentioned, such an official, called the Procurator Fiscal, had existed for some time, with the most beneficial results, whilst in London, the Metropolitan police undertook similar work in the public interest.