no power to imprison him without first rummaging his house to ascertain whether the Crown fine can by any possibility be scraped together. Unlike Shylock, the Justice must make the money penalty his object, and recover it if he can. The pound of flesh, in the shape of a committal to the House of Correction, is only to be cut faut de mieux.

It became palpable, at last, that in the case of comparatively trifling penalties it would be wiser not only to ignore the distress process altogether, but to establish a set system of equivalents, by which a fine of given amount should carry a given term of imprisonment in case of default. It was in this view that the 'Small Penalties Act, 1865,' was passed, providing that every offender adjudged to pay a penalty not exceeding £5 (and not relating to Inland Revenue) might be imprisoned upon non-payment, without distress, for a term calculated according to the amount imposed, and for no longer period, anything in the statute creating or dealing with his offence notwithstanding. This Act continued in force until repealed by the Summary Jurisdiction Act, which provides that

'The period of imprisonment imposed by a court of summary jurisdiction under this Act, or under any other Act, whether past or future, in respect of any sum of money adjudged to be paid by a conviction, or in respect of the default of a sufficient distress to satisfy any such sum, shall, notwithstanding any enactment to the contrary in any past Act, be such period as, in the opinion of the court, will satisfy the justice of the case, but shall not exceed in any case the maximum fixed by the following scale':-

such imprisonment to be without hard labour, except where hard labour is authorised by the Act on which the conviction is founded, in which case the imprisonment may, if the court thinks the justice of the case requires it, be with hard labour.

The reader will at once detect an important difference between the tenor of these two enactments. Under the former, every offender sentenced to a penalty not exceeding £5 might be imprisoned, without distress, for a time proportionate to the amount of his adjudged and unpaid fine. The latter says nothing of the kind. It does not, like the Act which it repeals, confer the power of directing imprisonment in lieu of distress. It merely says that if imprisonment be imposed by statute as the consequence of non-payment, or shall be applicable in default of distress, such imprisonment shall not exceed the maximum fixed by scale.

Consequently, if there be no power, under any given statute, by virtue of which a person may be committed for non-payment in the first instance, there is none under the new enactment; and, the 'Small Penalties Act' being extinct, there is nothing left but the remedy by distress. Take the case, for example, of fines for drunkenness imposed under the 35 & 36 Vict. c. 94, sec. 12. This section does not authorise commitment in default of payment. Drunkards who could not or would not pay went to prison under the 'Small Penalties Act.' The repeal of that enactment renders it necessary to proceed by distress warrant in the first instance. We cannot at all events send them to prison without first pressing the domestic inquiries referred to at page 19.

It is difficult to suppose that so capricious and retrograde a movement was contemplated by the framers of the Act. If they really considered that the 'Small Penalties Act' was a mistake, in cases where a statute makes no provision for imprisonment as the direct consequence of non-payment of a fine, it was pure timidity to stop short of dispensing with such imprisonment altogether. There was no reason for

drawing the line between statutes which authorise, and statutes which do not authorise, this alternative. Such a provision was sometimes omitted through reliance upon the operation of the Small Penalties Act' itself. The result, however, stands as follows:-The salutary power of directing immediate imprisonment in lieu of distress where the amount of fine is less than £5 no longer exists, unless expressly conferred by the statute under which conviction takes place. Secondly, the mitigating machinery of the new scale extends to all cases of conviction, whatever may be the nature of the proceedings or the amount in question.

Costs ordered to be paid by a prosecutor whose information is dismissed are recoverable in the same way as sums ordered to be paid by a defendant.

Our story would still be incomplete if we neglected to mention the ultimate destination of penalties extracted with such relentless ingenuity. It is written accordingly in Jervis' Act that, if the statute, under which they are inflicted and recoverable, contain no special directions upon this head they are to be paid to the treasurer of the county, riding, borough, or place for which the Justices shall have acted; for which such treasurer shall give a receipt without stamp.

CHAPTER IV.

INDICTABLE OFFENCES-COMMITTAL FOR TRIAL.

WE have touched upon so much of the Justice's judicial duty as relates to the trial, conviction, and punishment of non-indictable offences cognisable under his summary jurisdiction. We have now to consider the course of dealing with crimes of a more serious description, in respect of which it may become his duty to send the accused for trial, either at Quarter Sessions or the Assizes as the case may be. One Justice, as already observed, may do all that is necessary in the matter.

In all cases, then, in which a Justice is informed (1) that any person has committed, or is suspected of having committed, any indictable offence within the limits of his jurisdiction; or (2) that any person guilty, or supposed to be guilty, of such an offence (wherever committed) is residing, or suspected to be residing within it, he may cause such person to appear before him to answer the charge.

This 'preliminary examination,' as it is termed, being no branch of the summary jurisdiction, may take place in any room or building within the county or borough of the Justice presiding. Such place is not to be deemed an open court; and the Justice at his discretion may order that no person have access to, or remain in it, without his permission, if it appear to him that the ends of Justice will be best answered by so doing.

The words in clause (1) which we have marked in italics must be understood as including commission either actual or

constructivewithin the jurisdiction of the Justice. Thus, any felony or misdemeanour committed upon the boundary, or within five hundred yards of the boundary, of two counties, or begun in one county and completed in another, may be dealt with, tried, and punished in either. And when any such offence has been committed upon any person or property in or upon any waggon, cart, or other carriage, employed on any journey, whether by road or rail, or on board of any vessel upon inland waters, the offender may be required to answer for his offence in any county through which the carriage or vessel may have passed in the course of that journey or voyage.

As regards (2), the right of a Justice to call before him any person charged with having been guilty of an offence indictable in England or Wales, and being then within his jurisdiction, is absolute. It does not in the least matter where he committed it. He may have been guilty of felony upon the high seas; he may have murdered an Ethiopian in the Mountains of the Moon; or he may merely have had an indictment found against him in another county, and taken refuge in that in which he is discovered.

In all these cases, the Justice is bound to cause the accused or suspected person to appear before him, with a view to his ultimate commitment for trial, should there be sufficient grounds to justify that step. Let us take the simplest case, and suppose that an indictable offence, such as arson or homicide, has been committed within the limits of a division, and that some particular person is suspected, whether rightly or wrongly, as the offender. If the police have been on the alert, perhaps he is already in custody, in which case a good deal of trouble is saved. Otherwise a summons must be issued, in order to enforce his appearance, or a warrant to effect his apprehension. We will not repeat what we have already said in a former chapter, with reference to these missives. The process is substantially the same, whether the offence be of the indictable or non-indict

C