But these places are far ahead of the county towns and districts where the squire and parson reign supreme, and the clerk to the justices is their own faithful attorney. I believe thoroughly that these men do their best, but it is quite impossible that they can take a normal view of such horrible crimes as the rape of a pheasant's egg or the snaring of a hare. It is from the beautiful little corners of the lovely English country that the bitter cry of injustice in the police courts makes itself heard from time to time in the public Press. Why should not every hamlet have its Village Plowden to brighten life on the country side? There we see, let us hope, the last of a decaying and rotten system--justice administered by a class unlearned in law, and unlearned in a far more important branch of their business--the knowledge of the works and days and temptations of the fellow sinners whose judges they have elected themselves to be. In the remote country places more than anywhere is the stipendiary a necessity. Meanwhile, why should not direct representatives of the agricultural labourer be placed upon the bench if we are not to abolish Dogberry altogether? While these words are being written, an effort is being made with a Criminal Administration Bill to do away with some of the abuses of the police court. The imprisonment of people for non-payment of fines is really imprisonment for poverty, and the scandal of it is at last officially recognised and the necessity of reform admitted. That, at all events, is to the good, though it is to be hoped that if the Bill at present put forward is to pass it will be widely extended and simplified. It is quite a good thing to enact that it shall be obligatory upon magistrates to grant time for the payment of fines, but seeing that the magistrates have always had this power and never used it to any useful extent it would be well that there should be less discretion about the matter. Law for lay magistrates should be automatic and fool-proof. When you enact that a magistrate is obliged to allow time for payment of fines, "unless the Court for any other special reason expressly directs that no time shall be allowed," you are surely inviting the average justice to supply himself with special reasons why he should not carry out a law which you know by his past history he dislikes. It must not be forgotten that in Manchester, although the fees legally allowed for a summons are twelve shillings, the practice has been for fees not to exceed the fine. Imprisonment for less than five days--which in the future is not to be permitted--has for a long time not been allowed by the practice of the Manchester justices. Where justices desire to be lenient and enforce the law temperately they can do so to-day, and therefore it is clearly no use in a new statute to leave a discretion to those who will certainly abide by old and evil customs unless they are forced to do otherwise.