mm 
 
THE LOOM OF THE LAW 
 
/ 
 
The Loom of the Law 
 
 *By J. A. R. Cairns :: The Experiences 
 and Reflections of a Metropolitan Magistrate 
 
 With Photogravure Frontispiece 
 
 FOURTH EDITION 
 
 LONDON: HUTCH INSON & CO 
 PATERNOSTER ROW 
 
The Loom of the Law 
 
 *By J. A. R. Cairns :: The Experiences 
 and Reflections of a Metropolitan Magistrate 
 
 With Photogravure Frontispiece 
 
 FOURTH EDITION 
 
 LONDON: HUTCH 1NSON & CO 
 :: :: PATERNOSTER ROW :: ..< 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. JUSTITIA FIAT . i 
 
 II. THE COURTS OF CRIMINAL JUDICATURE . 16 
 
 III. METROPOLITAN POLICE COURTS ... 31 
 
 IV. ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS ... 44 
 
 V. " DE PROFUNDIS ' 53 
 
 VI. THE LOOM 72 
 
 VII. THE LOOM AND THE CHILD . . .112 
 
 VIII. THE LOOM AND THE LOST .... 135 
 
 IX. THE LOOM AND THE INDISCREET . * 152 
 
 X. THE LOOM AND YOUTH .... 158 
 
 XL THE LOOM AND THE CROSS . . . 175 
 
 XII. THE WEST-END AND THE EAST-END . . 186 
 
 XIIL THE DOCKS 197 
 
 XIV. THE SEED OF ABRAHAM .... 204 
 
 XV. BLACK AND YELLOW AND WHITE . . 214 
 
 XVI. MISCELLANEA 224 
 
 XVII. THE PROBATION OFFICERS .... 242 
 
 XVIIL THE POLICE 259 
 
 XIX. THE LOOM AND THE PRESS . . . 270 
 
 XX. THE END 280 
 
 APPENDIX 283 
 
 574188 
 
X 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 I HAVE never made a book in my life before, either in 
 the literal or popular acceptation of the term, and it 
 may well be that, to use a recent colloquialism of Mr. 
 Justice Darling, " I am done.'* In order, however, to 
 reassure the sympathetic and disarm the critical, I 
 at once confess that I have no literary reputation to 
 lose and I have no ambition to make one. This book 
 makes no pretence to be either literary, artistic or 
 scientific. One of my colleagues, with that engaging 
 candour that we encourage in each other, told me it 
 was " picturesque journalism." In my innocence I 
 took this as complimentary until another colleague 
 told me it was intended to be condemnatory. Then I 
 remembered ^Esop's fable. 
 
 It is a series of sketches drawn in odd moments of 
 a busy life in trains, in 'buses and in bed. It has 
 little coherence, no purpose and no pretence. Perhaps 
 its only flavour is that of tobacco, for with tobacco 
 and these pages I have passed many pleasant hours. 
 I think the contents are not wholly depressing ; on 
 the contrary, they have much of joy and something of 
 laughter, though there are tears sometimes, too. 
 
 I have dwelt in close contact with saints and sinners, 
 and my considered judgment is that I prefer the sinners 
 to the saints, for amongst them I have learnt the art 
 of Optimism. 
 
THE LOOM OF THE LAW 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 JUSTITIA FIAT 
 
 " T ORD, what is man?" I know, of 
 ?* course, the orthodox answer, and the 
 curious may read it in the 8th Psalm, but I am 
 also familiar with his heterodox behaviour. He 
 may have dominion over the works of God's 
 hands, but he has less than dominion over his 
 own. I begin to doubt whether the true answer 
 to the old inquiry can be summed up in an 
 aphorism or woven into a sentence of poetic 
 beauty. I have met man in the Courts of 
 Zion and in the Courts of Criminal Jurisdiction ; 
 I have met him at the sacred places where men 
 assemble together near by God's Altar in adora- 
 tion of the glory of the Cross, and in places of 
 levity where the sacred and the serious are 
 avoided ; I have met him in the shadows of 
 death and in the flare of the footlights. In each 
 
2 : . ... ... .The Loom of the Law 
 
 place man has some pitiful limitations and in 
 each some startling splendours. 
 
 The saint has his days of strange unsaint- 
 liness and the sinner his hours of high resolve. 
 There appears to be no well-defined line of 
 demarcation between saints and sinners, and 
 the division into sheep and goats will be the 
 accomplishment of another day and perhaps of 
 another place. 
 
 In the contemplation of man from the Bench 
 of a Criminal Court we seem to hear the echoes 
 of old debates on Predestination and Free Will, 
 and of old doctrines on the nature of Sin. 
 Out of evil men come glimpses of a beauty 
 that seems to challenge the doctrine of total 
 depravity, and out of the virtuous come revela- 
 tions that seem to show that they have missed 
 the grace that is sufficient for us. The theolo- 
 gies and philosophies of all the ages echo and 
 re-echo in the sombre light. Confucius and 
 Buddha, Moses and Jesus, Mahomed and Paul, 
 have their retinues of the faithful, and in the 
 gathering twilight of a November day there 
 comes stealing from the heart the age-old ques- 
 tion : " Lord, what is man ? " 
 
 Some men have strange angles of vision and 
 strange tests of virtue. This is more charac- 
 teristic, perhaps, of the saint than of the sinner, 
 
Justitia Fiat 3 
 
 for, as a rule, the latter is untutored in the art 
 of Casuistry. Once on the Borders I was talk- 
 ing to an old elder of the Kirk, who was much 
 concerned about the tragedy that had overtaken 
 one of the leaders of his Church. All that he 
 knew was that a prince in Israel had fallen, and 
 he was anxious to learn the particulars. The 
 story was quickly told just a moment's forget- 
 fulness, a moment's frailty and a moral catas- 
 trophe. It was the story of an illicit love. As 
 I told him the story, a cloud seemed to lift 
 from his rugged old countenance, and laying a 
 heavy hand upon my shoulder, he said : " Man I 
 do you know I am terrible glad to hear that, 
 for I thought it might have been the damned 
 drink." 
 
 And I have never been able to classify 
 another experience. I was called upon to take 
 part in the wedding of an elder. He had 
 consulted me some time before on the wisdom 
 of a second adventure in matrimony, and he 
 discussed the matter from the lofty altitude of 
 a spiritual comradeship. There was, however, 
 no mistaking the intensity of his longing for 
 that comradeship, so I shortened the discussion 
 by saying : " Andrew, your mind is made up. 
 Have you fixed the day ? " And he admitted 
 the accuracy of my deductions. 
 
The Loom of the Law 
 
 The nuptial day arrived, the ceremony was 
 performed, and all concerned gathered in the 
 vestry for the signing of the register. The 
 bridegroom somewhat ostentatiously placed two 
 little parcels on the ledge of the vestry window 
 and indicated their purpose by a nod of his head. 
 
 To the initiated the contents were obvious. 
 They were from a jeweller's shop. There were 
 unmistakably jewellers' silk paper and fine 
 twine, and the size and shape of the parcels 
 well, those could only be gold watches. So I 
 thought and so thought the registrar. In sign- 
 ing the register I indicated to the registrar that 
 he need not collect my fee. In sight of the 
 gold watch, to take the guinea would seem 
 indelicate. 
 
 The happy couple departed, and in the quiet- 
 ness of the vestry we opened the jeweller's 
 parcels. Sure enough both parcels contained, 
 as we had expected, identical presents, one 
 for each of us. But instead of the gold levers 
 we were led to expect, we found in the parcels 
 a packet of twenty gold-flake cigarettes. 
 
 I keep thinking that the guinea that I fore- 
 went that day was lost to me by something 
 akin to larceny by a trick. 
 
 The unexpected often happens, too, in the 
 dock, and men will pay a big price to be true 
 
Justitia Fiat 
 
 to their honour or their promise a price out 
 of all proportion to their misdeeds. 
 
 There came before the court at Thames one 
 day a young Irishman on some minor charge, 
 and he was fined five shillings for his indiscretion. 
 He asked permission for a police officer to 
 accompany him, so that he could collect the fine 
 from his friends. His request was refused, but 
 he was asked whether he would pledge his own 
 honour and the honour of his country to return 
 with the fine. He pledged both. He did not 
 return that day, nor the next, nor at all. On 
 the fourth day I received an official communica- 
 tion, " On His Majesty's Service," and it con- 
 tained a cheque for five shillings, together with 
 this letter : 
 
 " R. A. F., 
 
 -, 1921. 
 
 " SIR, No. , A. C. , desires 
 
 that the sum of five shillings be forwarded you 
 by me to redeem the promise he made you to 
 pay his fine. 
 
 " He was without money and surrendered 
 himself to meet his obligation. 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 M 
 
 " O. C." 
 
The Loom of the Law 
 
 To redeem his promise he surrendered as a 
 deserter. He was a Southern Irishman, and 
 in those days there were strained relations 
 between England and Ireland. This is a high 
 standard of honour. 
 
 To the above I replied : 
 
 " DEAR SIR, Please convey to No. 
 A. C. , my grateful thanks for his beha- 
 viour. The payment of the five shillings is a 
 small thing, but his loyalty to his honour was 
 splendid at the price. 
 
 " May I congratulate you on having such a 
 soldier under your command ? I am sure he is 
 worthy of the best traditions of your regiment. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " J. A. R. CAIRNS." 
 
 What is the happy or unhappy Fate which 
 fixes the line that divides success from failure 
 and glory from disgrace ? Company promotion 
 and high finance have woven many fortunes 
 and many misfortunes, and some inscrutable 
 thing, or at least some unexpected thing, has 
 on one day made a career and on another day 
 a criminal. Prospectuses are interesting studies 
 in great expectations and the flexibility of 
 figures. An ardent hope plus a table-book, if 
 
Justitia Fiat 
 
 rightly balanced, can get a company going, or 
 at least subscribed. Fastidiousness is not the 
 quality of financial operations, nor is restraint 
 the characteristic of promotions. The un- 
 initiated do not distinguish facts from fancies, 
 nor promises from prophecies, and the Law of 
 False Pretences takes no cognizance of the 
 future. It literally takes no thought for to- 
 morrow. A false pretence must be the mis- 
 representation of an existing fact. Merely to 
 promise or to represent that a certain state of 
 things shall exist in the future is no false pre- 
 tence. The Law's definition of a false pretence 
 has kept many a prosperous gentleman from 
 becoming a jail-bird. 
 
 There is little to exercise either philosophy or 
 pity in the contemplation of prisoners, who in 
 a bold bid for the House of Lords have found 
 the House of Tragedy. Men have bartered 
 affection, friendship, domestic felicity, the joys 
 of childhood in such a quest, and the loss of 
 freedom or public esteem is by no means the 
 biggest price that they pay in such a gamble. 
 Before the dock is reached a man has jettisoned 
 most of the human virtues, however spotless 
 be his reputation. To hold out high hopes of 
 an easy way for the faltering steps of the aged, 
 to promise surcease from care to the widowed. 
 
8 The Loom of the Law 
 
 to tempt those innocent of finance on the way 
 to misfortune, involve a quality of honour that 
 may be lawful, but is lacking in both morality 
 and chivalry. 
 
 Princes of finance in penal servitude or 
 as fugitives upon the face of the earth present 
 no problems and stir no emotions of pity. 
 
 The problems of crime and the emotions 
 of pity gather about the lesser folk, and in 
 response to other passions than those of vanity 
 and greed. A man may fight for years against 
 some impulse that is in the corpuscles of his 
 blood, and fight successfully, gloriously ; then 
 one day his volitions fail him. . . . There 
 stood in the dock a man holding a high 
 civic position. He had sat more than once 
 on the Bench that faced him as he was 
 standing in the dock. He was there on a 
 charge of " drunk and disorderly," and assault 
 on the police a spectacle of sorrow, remorse, 
 shame, despair. The ghost of his life was 
 on parade in a public place. It was stalking 
 over the debris of years of effort and honour 
 and success. It was leering at his wife, 
 who was literally steeped in an unutterable 
 anguish. . . . That is the vision of a new 
 Gethsemane. 
 
Justitia Fiat 
 
 A haggard, worn man went into the dock 
 as his name was called, and the charge was one 
 of wounding his wife. There were five children 
 at home, all of them under seven, and his wife 
 was in the hospital. He had been a soldier and 
 had suffered from shell-shock, and a year before 
 he had tried to cut his throat. 
 
 Here was a man battered by life, battered in 
 body, in mind, in soul, a human derelict in 
 despair. 
 
 What a problem for a human judge to solve ! 
 
 Who shall utter the judgment and mete out 
 the punishment and what shall they be ? 
 
 And what can be said to the youth of twenty- 
 four ? He had been employed at one of the 
 great London emporia, and had stolen forty 
 pounds. He had risen in the firm by his ability 
 to an administrative position, and because of his 
 services he was dismissed, but not prosecuted. 
 He could not get another position of trust, and 
 Nature had crippled him for the work of a day- 
 labourer. 
 
 With lost character, physical disability, re- 
 pentant, keen, able his door of life was shut. 
 As he talked to me, his mind turned back to his 
 chances, to his achievements, to his ambitions, 
 and he merely said, " And all is lost at twenty- 
 
10 The Loom of the Law 
 
 four." Those words are words of fire, for they 
 had burnt despair into the heart of a man. 
 
 One who is prominent in the Courts of Criminal 
 Jurisdiction once said : " Sometimes I grow 
 afraid of life. Its possibilities are terrible; ' 
 and the unending litany that falls from the lips 
 of prisoners is only this : "I am sorry." 
 
 The Law recognizes all this conflicting and 
 confused mass of motives and impulses and 
 blind desires that operates in or surges over the 
 human will. It leaves to judges and magis- 
 trates the means and the measure of the punish- 
 ment. What can exceed in munificence and 
 generosity this statute : " Where any person 
 is charged before a Court of Summary Juris- 
 diction with an offence punishable by such 
 Court, and the Court thinks that the charge is 
 proved, but is of opinion that, having regard to 
 the character, antecedents, age, health or mental 
 condition of the person charged, or to the trivial 
 nature of the offence, or to the extenuating 
 circumstances under which the offence was com- 
 mitted, it is inexpedient to inflict any punish- 
 ment or any other than a nominal punishment, 
 or that it is expedient to release the offender 
 on probation, the Court may without proceeding 
 to conviction make an order either : 
 
Justitia Fiat 11 
 
 " (i.) dismissing the information or charge ; 
 
 or 
 
 (ii.) discharging the offender conditionally on 
 his entering into a recognizance with or 
 without sureties to be of good behaviour 
 and to appear for conviction and sen- 
 tence when called upon at any time 
 during such period, not exceeding three 
 years, as may be specified in the order." 
 The same Act makes similar provisions for 
 prisoners who have been convicted on indict- 
 ment (that is, tried and convicted before a 
 jury), " The Probation of Offenders Act, 1907." 
 This is the Magna Charta of the unfortunate. 
 Not merely can an offender escape imprisonment, 
 he can escape the stigma of a conviction, and 
 the chance is given him of wiping out what may 
 have been a lapse or the madness of a moment. 
 
 The Criminal Law takes account of all the 
 circumstances surrounding an offence, and a 
 prisoner may find instead of punishment an 
 understanding friendship. 
 
 " London, N. 
 " YOUR WORSHIP, 
 
 " SIR, I write to thank you for the good 
 chance which you gave me on the of April 
 
12 The Loom of the Law 
 
 this year to redeem my character. I cannot 
 thank you enough, for it has been the chance 
 of my life. 
 
 " Sister , in charge of this home, has 
 
 been most kind to me in every way possible, 
 and as I am about to be placed in service, I 
 think it is only right to thank those who have 
 shown such kindness to me under the circum- 
 stances, for I should never have been as I am 
 now if you had not given me this chance, and 
 
 had Sister not taken me to her home. 
 
 I feel a different woman, and hope to show 
 my gratitude by doing my best in my new 
 situation. 
 
 " Believe me to be, 
 
 " Yours most gratefully, 
 
 " FLORENCE ." 
 
 Mistakes and misunderstandings can lead men 
 to the dock, and the circumstances are not devoid 
 of humour. Even a topical allusion can be 
 construed into an offence against a statute. 
 
 A youth came before the court the other day 
 on that most comprehensive of all charges, 
 " Insulting words and behaviour whereby a 
 breach of the peace may be occasioned." 
 A woman had asked a constable the nearest 
 way to Poplar, and contemporaneously with 
 
Justitia Fiat 13 
 
 her inquiry, a passer-by said, " You're in 
 for a rough time in that place." The words 
 were spoken by a youth to some others 
 with whom he was walking, and they had 
 no relation either to the lady or to her 
 inquiry. The lady believed she had been ad- 
 dressed by a passer-by, and that an insult 
 had been offered to Poplar. She complained 
 to the police officer and the officer reprimanded 
 the youth. The youth, with all the indignation 
 of injured innocence, resented the constable's 
 reproof, and told him he needed a nurse 
 to take care of him. Everybody's dignity 
 appears to have been hurt by the innocent 
 inquiry of the lady and the innocent irrelevancy 
 of the lad, but the lad was charged and dis- 
 charged. 
 
 I understood because I have been misunder- 
 stood. 
 
 In 1910 I took some part in the January 
 General Election. The dominant issue was 
 popularly known as " ninepence for fourpence." 
 I was speaking to a crowded meeting in one of 
 the Tyneside towns, and I dealt with Insurance 
 against Unemployment. The subject-matter 
 lent itself to an appeal, for no one can view 
 the tragic happenings that ensue without 
 emotion. 
 
14 The Loom of the Law 
 
 I described the breaking-up of the home that 
 had been built up out of dreams and sacrifices, 
 and how, through unemployment, it went 
 " stick by stick to our friend the pawnbroker." 
 To my astonishment the meeting hailed my 
 words with yells of delighted laughter. 
 
 A distinguished spiritualist the other day 
 alluded to " the Belfast mind." I don't know 
 what " the Belfast mind " is, but I do know 
 what the Belfast accent is, so I concluded that 
 some word had been misplaced, or mispro- 
 nounced, or misunderstood, and I determined to 
 right the wrong. I gently led back my audience 
 to the vision of the new day, and I put again 
 the tragedy of the shattered home and the visits 
 to " our friend the pawnbroker." My second 
 effort set the meeting rocking with renewed 
 delight. Whatever constituted the joke it had 
 lost none of its savor in a second telling, so I 
 passed on to Irish affairs. 
 
 On the way to the station my escort sud- 
 denly doubled up with laughter, and between his 
 gasps I caught this question and answer : 
 " Don't you see the joke ? The chairman of 
 the meeting is our leading pawnbroker." 
 
 Out of all the elements that make up our 
 human experience joy and laughter, sorrow 
 and regrets, tears and repentance, love and 
 
Justitia Fiat 15 
 
 hate and remorse, ambition and lust and fear 
 those who sit on the Bench endeavour to find 
 some clue to the judgments that will safeguard 
 the commonweal, punish the wrong- doer, ad- 
 monish the foolish and help the needy. And, 
 in going to the place where men judge their 
 fellows, one might well breathe to Him or to 
 That which perchance influences the minds of 
 men, this invocation Justitia fiat ! 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE COURTS OF CRIMINAL JUDICATURE 
 
 r I A HOSE who judge are as varied in tempera- 
 ment and texture as are those whom they 
 judge. Crimson and ermine are the insignia of 
 a great office. They impel to a reverence and 
 respect for the majesty of the law, but they do 
 not produce uniformity in emotions, deductions 
 or achievements. 
 
 A prisoner is as often fortunate in his judge 
 as a judge is unfortunate in his prisoner. It was 
 a wily old rascal who, on circuit once, inquired 
 whether he would be committed for trial and 
 who would be the Judge of Assize. When told 
 the name of a distinguished Judge who has 
 passed to his rest, he replied : " Oh, for God's 
 sake, hould me back till the Sessions. You 
 
 would have to commit murdher before would 
 
 give ye six months, but ould would give 
 
 ye six years for winking at a girl." I was unable 
 to " hould him back," and he went to penal 
 
 16 
 
The Courts of Criminal Judicature 17 
 
 servitude for six years, for an offence more serious 
 than winking at a girl. 
 
 Judgments are given within a compass that 
 gathers up the dignity, experience and learning 
 of the Lord Chancellor, the varied learning, 
 experience and wisdom of Judges of the High 
 Court, Recorders, Metropolitan Police Magis- 
 trates, Stipendiaries, County Justices, and the 
 homely wisdom and mother wit of the ex-ojficio 
 Justice of the Peace who administers the Criminal 
 Law because he is Chairman of the Rural or 
 Urban District Council. To each is given in 
 his degree the preservation of the King's peace 
 and the destiny of His Majesty's lieges. 
 
 The welding together of the Anglo-Saxon and 
 Norman institutions has produced a system of 
 Criminal Jurisprudence that has sufficed for all 
 the claims that time and circumstances have 
 made upon it, and the Courts of Law have been 
 the sure shield of our corporate and individual 
 liberty. 
 
 "In the old English institutions the local 
 courts were strong, while the central adminis- 
 tration was weak, while under the Normans 
 the case was reversed. Henry III.'s great aim 
 was to unite the two systems. The first step 
 in this direction had been made in 1131 by 
 
 2 
 
18 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Henry I. who had sent a commission of judges 
 from the King's Court to sit in the shire moots. 
 This plan Henry determined to revive and make 
 permanent, so at a great meeting at Clarendon 
 in 1166 he brought forward his new scheme, 
 embodied in what was called an assize. In 
 1168 four justices were sent and England was 
 divided into six regular circuits, which existed 
 unchanged till recent times. 
 
 66 At the same time the method of administering 
 justice was improved. In former times criminals 
 had been brought before the Court by men who 
 represented the authority of the shire ; but 
 Henry's assize arranged that four Knights repre- 
 senting the shire, with twelve men representing 
 each hundred, and four representing each town- 
 ship should act as a jury who should bring before 
 the justices the notorious malefactors from each 
 township of each hundred in turn. This was the 
 origin of the Grand Jury who present criminals 
 to the Judge as likely to be guilty, and the 
 actual guilt was determined by the ordeal or 
 Judgment of God from which there was no 
 appeal. Out of this rose a new Institution. 
 
 " In 1215 the Lateran Council did away with 
 the ordeal and a substitute had to be found. 
 This was the petty jury, which was originally 
 composed of twelve witnesses who knew the 
 
The Courts of Criminal Judicature 19 
 
 facts ; but by degrees, as it was found impossible 
 always to get the first twelve to agree, others 
 were added till twelve were agreed one way 
 or the other and, in time, a distinction was made 
 between those who gave the verdict and those 
 who gave evidence, and the jury and the wit- 
 nesses for the prosecution took their present 
 form. It was only at a later date that the 
 Accused was allowed to call witnesses for the 
 defence. 
 
 " When Henry had carried out his reforms 
 he had practically put the administration of 
 justice into the form from which the present 
 system has developed, and he firmly united 
 the central with the local courts." " Rise of 
 Constitutional Government in England." (Ran- 
 some.) 
 
 The first Courts of Criminal Judicature are the 
 Courts of Petty Sessions, called in the large cities 
 and in the metropolis, Police Courts. London 
 Police Courts have some special powers in virtue 
 of the Police Acts which only apply to the 
 metropolis. Every offence of whatever nature 
 is inquired into by these Courts from treason 
 and murder to the minor indiscretions of an 
 undergraduate in town and the megrims of 
 ladies of fashion shopping at Selfridges. Lay 
 
 2* 
 
20 The Loom of the Law 
 
 magistrates sit in pairs, Metropolitan police 
 magistrates and stipendiaries sit alone. The 
 Jurisdiction conferred by the Summary Juris- 
 diction Acts is very extensive, and other statutes 
 give power to inflict punishment up to two years 
 hard labour. In Indictable offences (those tried 
 before a jury), the first duty of Courts of Summary 
 Jurisdiction is to inquire whether the prisoner 
 should be put upon his trial at all. All the 
 witnesses for the prosecution are heard and 
 the prisoner may, with or without Counsel, 
 cross-examine those witnesses and call witnesses 
 on his own behalf. It is for the Bench to say 
 whether there is a case that merits the con- 
 sideration of a Jury. If the evidence is not 
 sufficient or if the character and demeanour of 
 the witnesses against the prisoner are such as to 
 discredit their testimony, the prisoner is entitled 
 to be discharged. 
 
 There is perhaps no more important duty 
 attaching to the office of a magistrate than this. 
 No accused person should be put to the anxiety 
 and expense of committal for trial unless there 
 is sufficient evidence on which a jury might 
 convict. Not infrequently it happens that the 
 accused person is detained in custody during the 
 period intervening between his commitment 
 and his trial. Without a careful analysis of 
 
The Courts of Criminal Judicature 21 
 
 the evidence and an exact appreciation of the 
 nature of the offence charged the most cruel 
 wrong can be done to an innocent man. A 
 discharge at this juncture does not mean an 
 acquittal. The prisoner can again be charged 
 and, in the event of the evidence being sufficient, 
 committed for trial before a jury. 
 
 The second function of Courts of Summary 
 Jurisdiction is to record the evidence of the 
 witnesses against the accused together with the 
 cross-examination of such witnesses. At the 
 close of the case against him the prisoner is 
 cautioned in these terms : " Having heard the 
 evidence, do you wish to say anything in answer 
 to the charge ? You are not obliged to say 
 anything, but whatever you do say will be taken 
 down in writing and may be given in evidence 
 at your trial." 
 
 He is also asked if he wishes to call any wit- 
 nesses. 
 
 The reply to the caution and the evidence of 
 the witnesses are recorded. 
 
 All the evidence is recorded and forms the 
 depositions which constitute the case submitted 
 to the jury. 
 
 If further evidence is to be called before the 
 jury other than that contained in the depositions, 
 notice and copies thereof must be given to the 
 
22 The Loom of the Law 
 
 accused so that he may be ready to meet it at 
 the trial. 
 
 Prisoners in many cases elect to have their 
 cases disposed of summarily, that is, by the 
 Bench at Petty Sessions or Police Courts. 
 Magistrates have a wide discretion to hear and 
 dispose of such cases and, if prisoners are con- 
 victed, to punish them. The frequency with 
 which prisoners elect to be tried summarily is 
 surprising and is a tribute to the fairness and 
 care with which they are tried. Indeed, it is 
 not the rule for prisoners to elect to be tried 
 before a jury. Yet there are odd chances of 
 escape with a jury that hardly exist with a 
 magistrate who is familiar with the defences 
 that are usually put up. They occur and recur 
 with extraordinary frequency. Sometimes a 
 prisoner will put up a defence that he has 
 elaborately evolved out of his imagination, and 
 he thinks it is as fresh as the morning, but it 
 usually recalls to the Bench old memories of days 
 on Circuit when the same tales were told from 
 town to town. There is the diagnosis of a defence 
 as there is the diagnosis of a disease, and there 
 are specifics for both. 
 
 There are obvious advantages in the years of 
 training and experience at the Bar that are 
 beneficial alike to the community and the accused. 
 
The Courts of Criminal Judicature 23 
 
 Not the least of these is familiarity with the 
 whole radius of law-breaking and acquaintance 
 with the relativity of crimes. There is something 
 in the detached view of the professional lawyer. 
 His judgments will be freer from the personal 
 elements and his views broader than the par- 
 ticular case. Standardization of sentences is 
 impossible, but an appreciation of all the qualify- 
 ing facts that react on an offence must be kept 
 in mind. 
 
 No more important or responsible work attaches 
 to any Court of Judicature than attaches to 
 Police Courts, and the work deserves the best 
 abilities, the most arduous effort, and the finest 
 qualities that can be given. It is social medicine 
 and surgery applied to the disorders of the body 
 politic, and no man can fulfil the duties without 
 care and concern. 
 
 I have reason to believe that the lay justices 
 usually fulfil their duties with care and distinction. 
 Discreet and earnest men strive to learn the 
 essentials of offences, the nature and quality 
 of the evidence required and the vast scope of 
 their discretion in the matter of punishment. 
 These are matters that every wise Bench keeps 
 ever before it. 
 
 Every accused person is innocent until he is 
 proved guilty. There is a definite presumption 
 
24 The Loom of the Law 
 
 of innocence. And a prisoner must be proved 
 guilty by sworn evidence. Neither bad repu- 
 tation, previous convictions, popular repute, nor 
 hearsay evidence is enough. 
 
 Mr. Justice Darling in a recent murder trial 
 laid stress on this : R. v. Armstrong, 1922. 
 
 " My duty is to see that nothing is given in 
 evidence which is not fair and legal and that 
 no unfair questions are put. . . . You know it 
 is not for any person accused in the English 
 Courts to prove that he is not guilty. He pleads 
 not guilty, which means that he calls upon the 
 Crown to prove him guilty." This is the cardinal 
 principle of our Criminal Judicature, and it should 
 operate in Courts of Summary Jurisdiction with 
 no less insistence than in Courts of Assize or 
 the Court of Criminal Appeal. 
 
 It is guilt according to the evidence that is 
 of account. Moral certainty is not enough and 
 there is no room for compromise. 
 
 It is written that a Justice of the Peace whose 
 knowledge of the law was gained neither from 
 books nor from practice at the bar was hearing 
 an assault case. Defending Counsel was ad- 
 dressing the Bench when the Justice of the 
 Peace said : " Prisoner, stand up ! According 
 to the law and the evidence and there's no 
 evidence I find you Guilty and I fine you 
 
The Courts of Criminal Judicature 25 
 
 forty shillings. If you're guilty it is a very light 
 sentence ; and if you're not guilty it will be a 
 mighty good lesson for you and cheap at the 
 money." 
 
 It is true that guilty men often plead Not 
 Guilty ; it is also true that innocent men some- 
 times plead guilty and some who have been 
 guilty of an indiscretion plead guilty to the 
 commission of a crime. 
 
 There is no special virtue in recording a con- 
 viction. A prisoner often pleads guilty to an 
 assault whereas in fact he is not guilty because 
 he struck back in self-defence and hit the lucky 
 blow. Self-defence is a legal defence. An un- 
 defended prisoner should have the assistance of 
 the Bench in the presentation of his case. The 
 experience of the Bench is helpful in getting 
 all the facts and the qualifications of the facts. 
 Besides, it saves time. More than unfortunate 
 defendants have a difficulty in appreciating what 
 facts are relevant and what are of no account. 
 Professed lawyers, too, sometimes suffer from 
 this incapacity. 
 
 The accused is entitled to a patient hearing. 
 If time is precious there can always be 
 a remand. No prisoner should be convicted 
 without giving him the fullest opportunity of 
 
26 The Loom of the Law 
 
 putting his case and all the circumstances sur- 
 rounding it. 
 
 Occasionally a certain type of offender mistakes 
 the dock for a soap-box at the street corner and 
 endeavours to take advantage of his elevated 
 position by making demagogic speeches nomin- 
 ally to the Bench, really to the followers at the 
 back of the Court. Some men like to assume 
 the crown of martyrdom and a charge of " in- 
 sulting behaviour " is the cheapest way that I 
 know to win it. A little patience, a little courtesy 
 and a little wise cynicism gives a tawdry look to 
 the crown that promised to be so resplendent. 
 The dock has, like most other places where 
 men do foregather, its obvious humbugs, and 
 they want a state trial for a paltry misdemeanour 
 that can be atoned for with forty pieces of silver. 
 An intimate acquaintanceship with the area of 
 one's jurisdiction is important and gives the clue 
 to the solution of many of the problems that 
 present themselves in Court. Knowledge of the 
 Statutes and the rules of evidence is desirable, 
 but knowledge of the people, their callings, their 
 modes of thought and expression, their idea of 
 family life and relationships, and of civic re- 
 sponsibilities is indispensable. It is well, perhaps, 
 for magistrates to remember that their office 
 was historic long before judicial duties attached 
 
The Courts of Criminal Judicature 27 
 
 to it and that the less they affect the " High 
 Court manner," the better the ministry they 
 will bring to their area and the greater the utility 
 they will render to the State. There are hidden 
 wells of goodness in the rankers of life. They 
 do not merely respond to the rhetoric of a 
 better ordered world, they are prepared to pay 
 for it. I have heard less complaint about the 
 burden of Income-tax from the artisans of East 
 London than from the financially fortunate. 
 And it is a surprise to many to learn that the 
 artisan has less chance of escape from its full 
 claim than have some of the professional and 
 commercial classes. The major part of the 
 workers' wages goes in materials that are subject 
 to indirect taxation and it could, I think, be 
 demonstrated that he pays more than those 
 who make more clamour. 
 
 In close contact with the multitudes that 
 make up the great metropolitan community with 
 their longings, their expectations, their illusions 
 and disillusions, reaching out to this or that in 
 quest of satisfaction and fulfilment, one finds 
 his memory recalling an incident of long ago : 
 
 ' And seeing the multitude as sheep having 
 no shepherd he was moved with compassion." 
 
 It is those qualities of goodness, and the quick 
 responses to sacrifice that impel to something less 
 
28 The Loom of the Law 
 
 than respect for those who exploit the ideals and 
 explode the mines of passion that exist within 
 the heart of the multitude, and who in the day 
 of their trial argue not infrequently that the 
 principles that they set forth so blatantly are 
 only an embellished rhetoric. Of old it was 
 written " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of 
 the Church." 
 
 The administration of the Criminal Law can 
 only become mechanical for blind men. The 
 machinery of the Law can be exact, its principles 
 can be according to precedent, the nature of 
 evidence and the measure of punishment can 
 be defined with exactitude, but these things act 
 and react upon some human soul. Behind the 
 scientific law there is the man, the woman and 
 the child. 
 
 The whole trend of modern Criminal Adminis- 
 tration is to do no violence to those innate 
 principles of Justice that break the bonds of 
 Logic when it is cruel and of the Law when it is 
 unjust. 
 
 The other Courts of Criminal Jurisdiction are 
 Quarter Sessions and Courts of Assize which try 
 indictable offences, that is, those triable by 
 Judge and Jury, the Court of Criminal Appeal, 
 which hears appeals from Quarter Sessions and 
 
The Courts of Criminal Judicature 29 
 
 Assizes, and the House of Lords which hears 
 appeals on points of law, from the Court of 
 Criminal Appeal. With the details of these 
 Courts there is no need that I should write. In 
 the more majestic as in the humbler Courts of 
 Criminal Judicature the same principles of Law 
 are applied, the same problems are presented, the 
 same anxiety and remorse haunt the hearts of 
 men. 
 
 The Law is in the last analysis the expression 
 of the views of the people. All Laws are the 
 handiwork of Parliament, and Parliament speaks 
 what the people say. And just as the loftier 
 principles of Justice govern the lives of the 
 people so shall our laws become loftier and lose 
 all stigma of a social revenge. 
 
 Society must safeguard itself against the 
 lawless and the lazy. The virtues that make a 
 modern State not merely stable but possible are 
 the result of self-denial, self-reliance, steady 
 effort and resistance to temptation. The punish- 
 ment of offenders is Society's means for self- 
 preservation and for the maintaining of the 
 commonweal. 
 
 In the older days the emphasis was laid on the 
 conservation of the Commonwealth, but more 
 
30 The Loom of the Law 
 
 and more the Law has become generous to the 
 prisoner. Statute after statute expresses that 
 generosity and the Law now recognizes that frail 
 men and women may unaccountably err and that 
 the setting up of such again in the way of honesty 
 and industry is, both for the individual and the 
 State, the more excellent way. 
 
 ' 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 METROPOLITAN POLICE COURTS 
 
 HT^HERE appears to be a strange lack of 
 uniformity in the opinions of the public 
 on our institutions. Those opinions are usually 
 vague, intangible and impossible to reduce to 
 terms. They are opinions, nevertheless, and on 
 occasions they become momentarily definite and 
 dogmatic. It depends on the surrounding cir- 
 cumstances and on the newspaper that one reads. 
 
 To the student of Constitutional Law, Parlia- 
 ment represents an institution working according 
 to clearly defined laws and Conventions. 
 
 fcc Parliament means, in the mouth of a lawyer 
 (though the word has often a different sense in 
 ordinary conversation), the King, the House of 
 Lords and the House of Commons : these three 
 bodies acting together may be aptly described 
 as the ' King in Parliament,' and constitute 
 Parliament. 
 
 31 
 
32 The Loom of the Law 
 
 " The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty 
 means neither more nor less than this : that 
 Parliament, thus defined, has, under the English 
 constitution, the right to make or unmake any 
 law whatever : and, further, that no person or 
 body is recognized by the law of England as 
 having a right to override or set aside the legis- 
 lation of Parliament " (" Dicey 's Constitutional 
 Law"). 
 
 To the public, Parliament is a vague concep- 
 tion of a stately and historic pile of buildings 
 on the banks of the Thames, close by West- 
 minster Abbey, where a large number of men 
 and a small number of women receive 400 per 
 annum, and . . . 
 
 What exactly are their functions depends on 
 varying circumstances and the newspapers. To 
 some the primary function of a member of 
 Parliament is to provide funds for flower shows 
 and football clubs ; to others the member 
 exists to entertain them on the occasions of their 
 visits to town. 
 
 The sacred offices of Bishops and Presbyters 
 are even less tangible and more indefinite. 
 They have something to do with the Church, 
 and one or other wears a silk apron and a shovel 
 
Metropolitan Police Courts 83 
 
 hat. They are opposed to cheap beer and a 
 brighter London, and are associated with gloomy 
 deans. The man in the street is never quite sure 
 whether " Dean " is a surname or a sacrament. 
 
 We approach unanimity, however, in the 
 contemplation of the Metropolitan Police Courts. 
 These are the sluices through which there passes 
 the moral sewage of a modern Babylon the 
 wanton and the wastrel, the drunken and the 
 debauched, the dishonest and the dishonoured 
 ... a putrid river of shame and disgrace. 
 
 And the virtuous often say, " You must see 
 dreadful things day after day. I wonder you 
 can retain any faith in humanity or God." The 
 fact is that there is less deliberate conscious 
 wickedness in the world than the virtuous 
 suppose, and many reputed virtuous have been 
 extraordinarily lucky. 
 
 Our clientele is gathered out of London's 
 seven millions, together with the influx from 
 every capital and country in the world. No 
 creed and no colour, no morals and no manners 
 are strangers to us. At Thames we get the 
 wash of the Seven Seas, and every language 
 begotten at Babel is spoken there Chinese 
 and Japanese, Arabic and Hindustani, all the 
 tongues of Northern Europe, and Spanish and 
 
 3 
 
34 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Portuguese, Italian and Greek. Yiddish is al- 
 most our vernacular, and even " American " is 
 not always unintelligible. 
 
 Not seldom the Metropolitan Police Court is 
 the end of a perfect day. It has been known 
 to be the fructification of the fourth degree of 
 Masonry, and men have told me that they 
 were brought there straight from a prayer- 
 meeting. 
 
 A young coloured man stood in the dock on 
 a charge of insulting behaviour. He was a 
 study in black and white. His frock-coat was 
 cut long and full, and his habiliment suggested 
 the " compleat deacon." His defence was that 
 he had just left a prayer-meeting, at which he 
 had taken some part of the service, and was 
 talking to some of his countrymen in Cable 
 Street about the beautiful service. The police 
 evidence was emphatic that the discussion had 
 no relation whatever to religion, nor had he 
 exhibited any symptoms of piety. The prisoner 
 was offered a remand to call witnesses. He 
 demurred to this, and preferred to have it 
 settled at once. He had been twice before 
 convicted for keeping disorderly houses. 
 
 The real wealth of imagination and imagery 
 does not find its expression in our poetry and 
 
Metropolitan Police Courts 35 
 
 drama, but in defences in the dock of Metro- 
 politan police courts. 
 
 Fantastical, whimsical, impossible, absurd, 
 and at times a phrase, a turn of a sentence, a 
 touch of poetry is given, and one wonders if 
 hidden somewhere in that common clay there 
 are not nuggets of pure gold. 
 
 We get the wayward and the foolish, the 
 thoughtless and the inexperienced, the simple 
 and the uninitiated. And the tears of a belated 
 wisdom are often shed, and men and women 
 wonder at the extent of their frailty and 
 folly. 
 
 Prohibitionists would find an unexpected 
 unanimity on the folly of drink and moralists 
 an unchallenged assent to the virtue of honesty. 
 
 So far from the Metropolitan Police Courts 
 being sordid and unholy, they are the most 
 eminently virtuous of all our English institu- 
 tions. Nowhere else offers so complete a con- 
 sensus of opinion that wisdom is better than 
 folly, and honesty better than dishonesty. The 
 dock of the police courts is a modern edition of 
 the Proverbs of Solomon and the Ecclesiastes 
 of the Preacher. 
 
 Some offences are the crude expression of a 
 difference of opinion, a personal dislike or a 
 verbal misunderstanding. 
 
 3* 
 
36 The Loom of the Law 
 
 A wealthy Irishman, who had become accli- 
 matized in America, was glad of the opportunity 
 to do honour to the new arrival from Ireland. 
 He invited him to dine with him at one of New 
 York's exclusive restaurants. " Now, me bhoy," 
 said he, " just you follow my lead and I'll treat 
 you to the best." The host led off with an order 
 for a couple of cocktails. As the waiter was 
 departing with the order, the new arrival nodded 
 him back and said : " Waiter, if it will cause 
 you no real inconvenience, I would sooner have 
 a wing of the burrd ! ' : 
 
 Verbal misunderstandings no less substantial 
 lead men at times into the dock. We hesitate 
 to emphasize with scarlet adjectives our opinions 
 of our Member of Parliament or our County 
 Councillor. We have our own methods of ex- 
 pressing disapproval and dislike. Embellished 
 rhetoric and Shavian adjectives are called " in- 
 sulting words, and behaviour whereby a breach 
 of the peace may be occasioned," and the 
 penalty is forty shillings or a month. 
 
 In suburban areas we do not hurt each other 
 with our fists. It can be done more effectively 
 and in better form with a look or a gesture. 
 There are other cuts than the " upper-cut," 
 and they cut as cruelly. How little a violent 
 blow may mean receives frequent illustration. 
 
Metropolitan Police Courts 37 
 
 Two neighbours appeared at the court one 
 was in the witness-box and the other was in the 
 dock. The man in the witness-box was badly 
 disfigured and had been subjected to rough 
 treatment. Their respective wives had quar- 
 relled during the day, and in the evening each 
 wife told her husband her side of the story, and 
 each husband sought an interview with the 
 other. The police-court was the sequel. 
 
 The man in the witness-box was asked if he 
 wanted the man in the dock sent to prison ? 
 His reply was spontaneous and emphatic : " Oh, 
 no! no!" 
 
 The man in the dock was asked what he 
 thought of the situation. " There is your neigh- 
 bour who has been seriously knocked about by 
 you, and he does not want you sent to prison. 
 What have you to say ? " The two neighbours 
 looked at each other in silence across the court, 
 each man full of sympathy for the other, each 
 man anxious to put an end to the other's 
 suspense and anxiety. The man in the dock 
 broke the silence by a bitter expression of 
 regret at his own cowardice, the man in the 
 witness-box strove to minimize the occurrence. 
 Neighbourliness had won. The case was not 
 heard. It was adjourned sine die. The pro- 
 secutor waited for the prisoner, and the two 
 
38 The Loom of the Law 
 
 neighbours left the court arm in arm. They were 
 the greater friends because of the unexpected 
 generosity and magnanimity that had come to 
 life. 
 
 The words of St. Paul appear at times to be 
 grounded on experience : "If thine enemy 
 hunger feed him, if he thirst give him drink, 
 for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on 
 his head. Be not overcome of evil, but over 
 come evil with good." 
 
 There are strange glimpses into the heroisms 
 and chivalry of humanity. 
 
 " A very gallant gentleman " is a phrase that 
 gathers about it a story of sacrifice that is an 
 English epic. Here is one of the same texture, 
 though it is gathered out of the dock of a London 
 police court. 
 
 He, too, was a soldier, an ex-Guardsman, who 
 went through the Great War from 1914 till 
 1918. He was caught in the tide of unemploy- 
 ment and found little consolation in the dole. 
 The men for whom financial assistance was 
 designed found about it a rabble of " won't- 
 works," who reduced the payment to a scandal. 
 
 Ex-Service men felt more than a touch of 
 degradation in standing in long queues with 
 the loafer, the unwashed, the nondescript. The 
 whole setting was a strange environment for 
 
Metropolitan Police Courts 39 
 
 the men who won freedom for the world, and 
 men of spirit and self-respect refused to take 
 the dole with such disgrace. 
 
 The Guardsman was not without friends, 
 and consideration and affection were shown 
 to him by the relatives with whom he lived. 
 But the weekly income of the united household 
 was small and there were children to be fed. 
 He fought hard against a growing despondency, 
 but he took the view that his necessities de- 
 manded the sacrifices of others, and he decided 
 to cut short his days. He left letters of warm 
 affection disposing of the souvenirs of his military 
 service. The letters contained, too, scathing 
 comments on the pledges and promises that 
 were given to the men of the New Armies, and 
 a bitter indictment of the social order : "It 
 is Kismet." One sacrifice more or less would 
 matter little, and for the sake of the children 
 he would make one less to be fed. Throughout 
 the letters he came back to this again and again, 
 like a Greek chorus, and in the twilight he set 
 out in search of Death. They found him on 
 the road to death, and they snatched him back 
 to life. This was no poseur. This was no 
 coward. He had endured hardships, and he 
 had faced the Unknown before. The letters 
 written in the face of death disclosed the inner 
 
40 The Loom of the Law 
 
 hopes and longings of his life. They were a 
 flashlight on the expectations of the men who 
 survived the war. Till the end the ideals that 
 lured them to the front endured. But peace 
 brought disillusionment and demobilization 
 brought despair. 
 
 A series of remands, an atmosphere of friend- 
 liness, an attitude of sympathetic understanding, 
 gave to life a new outlook, and threw a beam of 
 sunshine across the shadows. Much of this 
 was due to the doctor of the prison where the 
 Guardsman was on remand. The men and 
 women on the highway have little chance to 
 learn of the kindly work that is done in the 
 sombre dullness of the prison. Not seldom it 
 is a medicine unknown to the Pharmacopoeia 
 that is needed, for the sickness is a malady of 
 the soul. London may be happy in its prison 
 doctors, for I have heard many tributes to 
 them spoken from the dock. The Guardsman, 
 too, found a friend in the probation officer, 
 and within a week of his discharge he went to 
 work at his old calling. 
 
 Perhaps there was a departure from the strict 
 logic of the law, perhaps the terms of a statute 
 and a principle of the Common Law were con- 
 sciously or unconsciously overlooked ; but a 
 brave man who had set out on the road to 
 
Metropolitan Police Courts 41 
 
 death found on that road the way to life. The 
 larger law has done no violence to scientific law, 
 and the State is enriched by the labour of a 
 contented citizen, who in a passion of self- 
 abnegation had almost branded his memory 
 with the stigma of a crime. 
 
 In Criminal Courts tragedy walks hand in 
 hand with comedy and burlesque, and tears 
 blend with laughter. 
 
 A case arising out of a neighbours' quarrel 
 was heard in a police-court. The prosecutrix 
 had a nasty wound in her head caused by a 
 bucket that was thrown by the defendant. 
 
 " What have you to say ? " asked the magis- 
 trate of the defendant. " It was an accident," 
 said the defendant. " How did it happen ? ?: 
 " Well, sir, I was called out of my name, and I 
 had a bucket of water ready for her. I intended 
 her to have the water, but not the bucket. It 
 dipped." 
 
 And there was something to be said for the 
 defendant who was charged with assault on an 
 old gentleman. The prosecutor was extremely 
 stout and remarkably short. On being asked 
 what he had to say, the prisoner replied : "I 
 came up against him in the street by accident, 
 
42 The Loom of the Law 
 
 and he said to me, ' Why don't you walk over 
 me.' ' And,' said I, c it would be easier to 
 walk over you than around you,', and I started 
 on the journey ! >: 
 
 In this case there was what the law calls 
 " invitation," and the prisoner was rightly 
 discharged. 
 
 All our associates do not stand in the dock. 
 There are those who linger as near the side of 
 it as the jailer will permit, and they watch with 
 a strange anxiety all that happens. On these 
 happenings great things depend. There is 
 always more or less of shame. But there may 
 also be issues of love, daily bread, the breaking- 
 up of home. Human love has little of the 
 judicial in it. Good women love bad men at 
 times, and bad men have often great depths of 
 affection. 
 
 Metropolitan Police Courts are the true home 
 of the drama. There is tragedy and comedy, 
 revue and burlesque And the actors are all 
 great artistes, because they are true to nature- 
 look, gesture, intonation, silence and outburst 
 of passion, head bowed with shame and repent- 
 ance, or lifted with some new expectancy. 
 The play and the actors change day by day and 
 hour by hour, but it is always humanity on the 
 stage within sight or compass of the dock. And 
 
Metropolitan Police Courts 43 
 
 we see what others saw, but have forgotten 
 since the war that in the ordinary common 
 fellow, thriftless, godless, passionate, there are 
 streaks of whiteness and generosity that make 
 him a hero in adversity. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS 
 
 T T is extraordinary how little there is to dis- 
 tinguish the people that you meet in the 
 dock from the people that you meet at a lecture, 
 or in the 'bus, or in Parliament. Theories of 
 criminal types are pseudo-scientific, and doc- 
 trines of criminal tendencies are, like Mark 
 Twain's death, greatly exaggerated. 
 
 Nor is it wise to base judgments on bona-fide 
 suspicions. I remember once, in the days when 
 I went down East in quest of colour and adven- 
 ture, meeting a well-known politician east of 
 Aldgate. I met him so frequently that I won- 
 dered. Drink? Dope? ? ? Study- 
 ing social problems ? Saving sinners ? One 
 does wonder at such occurrences. 
 
 I blundered into him one night to our mutual 
 embarrassment. I explained my presence in 
 that romantic area. Mine, of course, was easily 
 explained, but his confusion was apparent, and 
 
 44 
 
All Sorts and Conditions 45 
 
 in confusion he made his confession. " At 
 times," he said, " I have an insatiable craving 
 that I dare not satisfy in the West End. It 
 is a relic of the days when my tastes were less 
 restrained and less cultivated ; but at times the 
 old longing becomes uncontrollable, and I come 
 down East to satisfy my craving for sausages 
 and onions." 
 
 To know all is to forgive ! 
 
 So-called criminals are like ourselves very 
 human. They usually like the things that we 
 like, and sometimes we do the things that they 
 do, but some fish get through the net. They 
 generally do a natural thing in the wrong way 
 or at the wrong time or place, or with the wrong 
 people, and there they are. It is a strange 
 parade that passes through the dock or stands 
 in front of it girl-clerks who once too often 
 try to save a penny on the Tube, milk-vendors 
 who sell water at the prohibitive price of new 
 milk, publicans who are of opinion that water 
 slightly diluted with whisky at one shilling and 
 eightpence per double is, if not good for morals, 
 at least not bad for the pocket ; amateur 
 motorists who mistake the accelerator for the 
 foot-brake and drive into the back of policemen 
 on point duty ; and so from offences that one 
 
46 The Loom of the Law 
 
 can commit and still go to church, up the 
 ladder of tragedy and sorrow to the calendar 
 of crimes that lead to penal servitude and the 
 scaffold. 
 
 But what are the people like who commit 
 crimes ? I often wonder. They seem to be 
 just ordinary folk just like you and me. Every 
 class and order, every trade and profession, 
 every age and temperament, make their con- 
 tribution to the Children of Sorrow. Saints 
 and sinners, preachers and pawnbrokers, trades- 
 men and bookies, ladies of much leisure and 
 ladies of little virtue . . . and little children. 
 Prosperity and poverty, culture and coarseness, 
 Literature and Art and Science, Army and 
 Navy and Law, Church and State all have a 
 place in the dock. It is the most democratic 
 institution in the world. The vista of the dock 
 is the final vision of our common frailty. On 
 the same iron rail there rests the hands of our 
 complex and bewildered humanity, some gloved 
 in kid and some in grime and blood. 
 
 There are some prisoners of superlative 
 delight the aftermath of inter- Varsity Rugby 
 or Boat Race day. The dock is filled with a 
 crowd of glorious, irrepressible, irresponsible 
 
All Sorts and Conditions 47 
 
 youth, and the gleam of it breaks across the 
 grey sordidness of the court. 
 
 The rivals of the day before are comrades 
 the morning after in a common repentance or a 
 common delight. These experiences are trea- 
 sured in after years, and many a man who has 
 won fame and fortune goes back with glee to 
 the night at Vine Street and the morning at 
 Marlborough Street before the beak. 
 
 Occasionally the behaviour of the night before 
 does not bear the calm reflection of the cold grey 
 dawn. In hot blood or in wine young gentle- 
 men have gone beyond the bounds of the 
 legitimate rag. The transition from a rag to 
 an assault on the police may not be easy to 
 determine, but it makes all the difference in the 
 morning. In the morning blood and " beaks " 
 are cold. 
 
 I sat at Marlborough Street after an Inter- 
 Varsity Rugby match. It had been celebrated 
 in the time-honoured way in the West End, in 
 the way that weaves memories that are treasured 
 beyond the Seven Seas to the outposts of the 
 Empire. 
 
 I had two dock loads of youth before me, 
 most of it battered and tattered. Some had 
 spent the night in the cells. It was all in the 
 game, and added piquancy to the adventure. All 
 
48 The Loom of the Law 
 
 were fined save one. I had not the heart to 
 refuse them their heart's desire the record of a 
 conviction 
 
 One youth, however, had exceeded the bounds, 
 and was charged with assaulting the police. 
 The officer told his story without bias and with- 
 out exaggeration, and the prisoner admitted 
 the offence. 
 
 There is something splendid in the traditions of 
 an English public- school man that punishment is 
 less to be avoided than the white-feather or a lie. 
 
 It is impossible to treat assaults on the police 
 as a venial offence, but it was equally impossible 
 to impose imprisonment in such a case as this. 
 I said to the youth : " There is a custom amongst 
 gentlemen that if one does something that he 
 regrets he makes amends." He straightened 
 himself, and said : "I know, sir," and looking 
 across from the dock to the policeman in the 
 witness-box, he added : "I owe the officer an 
 apology, and I offer it irrespective of any other 
 penalty. I regret exceedingly if I struck him. 
 Nothing was further from my intention." 
 
 It was an Englishman's apology full, frank, 
 spontaneous, but without servility. 
 
 I then asked the constable : " Do you think 
 the assault was deliberate, or do you accept the 
 prisoner's explanation ? ' 
 
All Sorts and Conditions 49 
 
 The officer behaved as one expected an officer 
 of the Metropolitan police would behave. He 
 accepted the explanation without demur the 
 blow was accidental. 
 
 And so the undergraduates of Oxford and 
 Cambridge left the precincts of the Criminal 
 Court with their names enrolled on its annals, 
 but with unsullied honour and with characters 
 unstained. These, too, in their generation had 
 woven memories over which they would chuckle 
 later on towards life's twilight. And perhaps 
 he was less than a cynic who once said : " The 
 things that I regret most in looking backwards 
 are my virtues." 
 
 It is a far cry from All Souls' to Aldgate, and 
 from Pembroke to Poplar, and the distance is 
 measured by more than miles. Perhaps the only 
 thing they have in common is their wealth of 
 youth. 
 
 Aldgate East Station is as popular a rendez- 
 vous as is the Common Room, and it is gayer 
 by reason of its girls. In life's spring-time, 
 when the air is magical with desire, and the 
 skies take on shades and colours that shimmer 
 in the haze of glorious promise, the under- 
 graduate and the van boy are the heirs of a 
 common inheritance. The Kingdom of Youth 
 
 4 
 
50 The Loom of the Law 
 
 has little relation to the classics or modern 
 history, to geography or environment, for its 
 kingdom is within. 
 
 And the lads of East London, too, have their 
 hectic hours of delirious delight when Youth 
 takes toll of the more serious and sedate of its 
 citizens, and the nights are disturbed by catches 
 from the latest popular melody. They long to 
 be in " Dixie " or some other place " that never 
 was on land or sea." 
 
 Coffee-stalls do duty for the " Carlton " and 
 the " Trocadero," and towards the morning 
 lads and girls parade arm-in-arm in a glorious 
 gaiety. The sight of a constable in the offing 
 inspires to the musical inquiry : " Where do 
 the coppers go in winter time ? " And they 
 learn where the coppers go in the morning. 
 
 Undergraduates at Marlborough Street, W., 
 van-boys at Arbour Square, E., joint heirs of 
 a priceless inheritance. 
 
 " O glorious youth that once was mine. " 
 
 Youth has a shorter spring time in East 
 London than at Oxford or Cambridge. The 
 radius of its desire is more circumscribed, and 
 the limit of achievement is more easily attained. 
 Youth's day is very brief down East, and towards 
 life's twilight there is little left to chuckle over. 
 
 The lads and girls accept readily the challenges 
 
All Sorts and Conditions 51 
 
 of Nature, and set out hand in hand in quest of 
 the fulfilment of her promises. 
 
 Nature is only superlatively poetic in the 
 springtime, but there are autumn and winter 
 days as well. There is an end to the thrills and 
 the songs in the night. Overcrowding, sickness, 
 unemployment, frequent child-bearing and ailing 
 children, anxiety for food, and raiment and rent, 
 test romance on a rough touchstone. 
 
 Poverty like wealth appears not to offer the 
 ideal conditions for marital happiness, and 
 perhaps with more reason. 
 
 There is a touch of pathos about a lad carrying 
 a man's load on his back, and about a girl with 
 experiences that kill youth and beauty. I have 
 never been able to make out whether the man or 
 the woman has the best of it, which is only 
 another way of saying I have never been able 
 to find out whether the man or the woman has 
 the worst of it. 
 
 At all events, feminism is unknown east of 
 the Bank, and there are none of the illusions of 
 an atrophied virginity. That God made man 
 in His own image, male and female created He 
 them, is still an accredited doctrine, and Lady 
 Astor would find dissent to her doctrine that 
 man is the weaker sex. The affectations of 
 publicity, and the novelties of new tentative 
 
 4* 
 
52 The Loom of the Law 
 
 doctrines, never penetrate into the area where 
 a strenuous warfare is waged for daily bread. 
 Life is hard, realistic, full of anxieties and 
 sometimes of haunting dreads. But East 
 London knows, too, its joyous days, and out of 
 the medley of life perhaps even there the sum 
 of joy is greater than the sum of sorrow. 
 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 " DE PROFUNDIS " 
 
 A LL prisoners do not leave the dock with 
 unsullied honour or with memories that 
 delight. Much depends on the nature of the 
 offence, and on the temperament and texture 
 of the soul. I have watched men grow visibly 
 older between their first arrival and the day of 
 their commitment or discharge. Nothing eats 
 the heart like fear and remorse. They eat men's 
 flesh like a fever. Life, somehow, during those 
 days in the dock and nights in the cell, parades 
 the glories that might have been, and men learn 
 to measure the worth of the simpler things that 
 they had held as common or of no account. 
 The longing for wife, or child or friend becomes a 
 frantic desire. What joy the brief interview in 
 the cells behind brings to people who had lived 
 through years of unappreciated association ! 
 
 Most of us only learn the worth of things 
 when we have lost them, and in the dock one 
 
 53 
 
54 The Loom of the Law 
 
 sees the strange, mystic beauty of unexpected 
 human affection. 
 
 In serious offences the dock of a police court 
 is an inferno of suspense. Is there a chance 
 that the evidence may be so incomplete as to 
 warrant a discharge, or is this the first stage on 
 the journey to the Central Criminal Court and 
 penal servitude ? 
 
 Counsel argue and submit this proposition 
 and that, but the prisoner plumbs the depths of 
 unexplored and unanalysed emotions. Some 
 take it with a fatalistic philosophy. Something 
 in their soul is frozen. Perhaps that is the only 
 compensation of a lost character. It brings a 
 philosophy of pure Nihilism. Nothing matters. 
 Life has no terrors that count and no rewards 
 that are worth while. I had a youngish man 
 before me. He was one of a gang of daring 
 criminals who had been committed for trial, 
 where all save this man, were sent to penal 
 servitude. Within a few weeks of his acquittal 
 he was before me again, and I expressed surprise 
 and regret. His only comment was : " Well, 
 sir, I can't have it lucky all the time. I have 
 had my share. This time my luck is out ; I 
 shall have better luck next time." He pleaded 
 guilty, and his attitude was one of gay unconcern 
 though a convict's cell was awaiting him, and 
 
De Profundis " 55 
 
 he knew the wet mists that blow up the Channel 
 and across the Devon moors at Portland and at 
 Princetown. 
 
 Two prisoners little more than lads were 
 charged with stealing a horse and van. They 
 had gone to the stable, harnessed the horse, and 
 driven away early in the morning. The theft 
 was more impudent than skilful. Towards 
 daybreak they were stopped by a police constable 
 in a town some considerable distance from 
 London and detained. During the trial nobody 
 enjoyed the evidence with more relish than the 
 prisoners. As the police detailed the questions 
 and answers of the preliminary inquiries, the 
 prisoners looked at each other, and strove hard 
 to quell the laughter that expressed their enjoy- 
 ment. The fact that impressed them most was 
 that one prisoner wanted to turn to the left 
 as they approached the town ; the other wanted 
 to keep to the right. By keeping to the right 
 they found the police officer. The only 
 recrimination that passed was this : "I had a 
 feeling we would be caught by keeping to the 
 right, and here we are ! " They had a strange 
 gaiety, they were unafraid, they were imper- 
 turbable. One thing was sure, that prison had 
 no dread for them, and the stigma of crime had 
 
56 The Loom of the Law 
 
 no significance. They had won in their own 
 way some mastery over Fate. 
 
 In their distorted mentality criminals will 
 sometimes pursue beautiful ideals and desires 
 through strange avenues of shame, and with 
 weapons of disgrace. The soul can become as 
 disfigured as the body, and it may be that it 
 registers all the stains of our experiences. There 
 came before the Court a woman for an offence 
 little short of murder, which on conviction, 
 involved a long term of penal servitude. She 
 was a woman of education and some position, 
 and had been of good family. In listening to 
 the story one felt that the woman's soul was 
 scarred. It was a moral cicatrice. Yet, amidst 
 all the sordidness and shamelessness, one thing 
 of unexpected beauty shone out of that murky 
 character. It was a passionate love and anxiety 
 for her little illegitimate child. At the mention 
 of the child's name her countenance took 
 on a new expression, such as only mother- 
 hood at its tenderest can show. The money 
 that she made by sin and shame was sacred 
 because it would ease the way for her 
 little child. To guard her child's feet from 
 the whinstones of life was her one obsession, 
 and in response to a glorious impulse she 
 
De Profundis " 57 
 
 steeped her soul in crime and went to penal 
 servitude. 
 
 Where is the clue to the understanding of such 
 complexity ? The men who can reduce life to 
 a logical process find in Criminal Courts experi- 
 ences that baffle every syllogism. Even nature 
 refuses to operate normally and conform to 
 their expectations, and out of the ugliness of 
 the abnormal there is sometimes a revelation 
 of the beautiful. 
 
 There came before the court a brother, a 
 sister and a baby. The story of the crime was 
 soon told and the living proof of it was with 
 them in the dock. He had been a long service 
 soldier and had returned after a long absence 
 to find his sister a woman. 
 
 The hearing moved quickly and it was at the 
 end of it that one was touched with the per- 
 plexing tragedy of life. 
 
 lc On the way to the station," said the ser- 
 geant, " he told me he was the father and that 
 his heart was breaking because it meant suffering 
 for her." 
 
 As the police officer related the conversation, 
 the prisoner showed the first sign of emotion 
 and he bit his lip till it bled to keep back 
 the tears. 
 
58 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Perhaps the woman was the strangest revela- 
 tion of all. She sat in the dock seat with quiet 
 composure crooning her little child and en- 
 deavouring to still its restlessness because it 
 was fascinated with the long iron bars of the 
 dock and wanted to play with them. Baby- 
 hood had found in the dock a new plaything, 
 The woman was oblivious to all the tragedy, 
 oblivious to the shame, to the gathering shadows 
 of the cell, to the unescapable doom. All that 
 had been faced and fought, and her face bore 
 the lines of her suffering. She gathered close 
 to her heart her baby and in the glory of her 
 motherhood she had lost response to every 
 other fact of life. 
 
 Outraged nature seemed to give her some 
 healing balm to ease the hurt of her shame. 
 Unutterable shame, unutterable glory. The 
 paradoxes met and blended in one living 
 soul. Peace and contentment endured the purg- 
 ing fires of atonement. 
 
 The prisoner stood in the dock on a charge 
 of having feloniously sent letters threatening to 
 kill and murder. He was a professional man 
 who had once held a prominent position in the 
 city, and had been a man of considerable fortune. 
 Something happened. It may have been a 
 
De Profundis " 59 
 
 moral lesion or it may have been disease, but it 
 ended in catastrophe. 
 
 Health went and fortune and moral resist- 
 ance, and the man decame a derelict. 
 
 It was a pathetic spectacle to see this remnant 
 of manhood in the dock. He was blind with 
 recklessness, and maddened by the treatment 
 of Fate. His memory was a treasure-house 
 of old achievements and old opportunities, and 
 what had been became a daily torture. But so 
 it was. And Fate decreed that the lengthen- 
 ing shadows should gather about his fading 
 life within the precincts of the prison. And the 
 judge sent him there because the night was at 
 hand and because even there he would find some 
 surcease from care. 
 
 Life finds strange resting places for her weary 
 children. 
 
 Solomon has written, " Set me as a seal upon 
 thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm ; for love 
 is strong as death ; jealousy is cruel as the 
 grave ; the coals thereof are coals of fire which 
 hath a most vehement flame. Many waters 
 cannot quench love, neither can the floods 
 drown it," and the Criminal Courts have seen 
 the debris of great passions. Neither the waters 
 of wisdom nor the floods of sorrow have taught 
 
60 The Loom of the Law 
 
 men to avoid the whirlpools of passion and 
 desire. Love and cruelty are kinsmen just as 
 laughter and tears are brothers. Out of the 
 abandonment of a great love there often comes 
 the blind recklessness of grim tragedy. 
 
 In London's Ghetto, and no place is richer 
 in colour and romance than are those grey sordid 
 streets of Stepney, there lived an ancient Jew. 
 Under sunnier skies he had won the love of a 
 Hebrew woman and it endured with idyllic 
 beauty the ravages of time and the wanderings 
 in many places. One child, a girl, was born to 
 them and she grew to womanhood carrying in 
 form and feature the impression of the body 
 that bore her. The idyllic life had snapped 
 and the Hebrew woman was buried amidst the 
 countless millions of London's sleeping dead. 
 The love of the old man passed to his daughter, 
 that living expression of his dead love and it 
 was an all-consuming fire of pure passion. 
 
 But youth is destined to share its life with 
 youth and the altruistic love of an old man 
 cannot feed the fires of its passion. New homes 
 grow up and each generation weaves its idylls 
 afresh. And so, instead of sharing in the joys 
 of life's recurring romance the old man saw 
 life as a drab and cruel and colourless thing. 
 He failed to learn that the dreams of youth 
 
De Profundis " 61 
 
 are woven into the memories of age and in their 
 subdued light abides the glory of the evening 
 tide. 
 
 Lonely, forsaken, hungry for the joy and love 
 that had nourished his days through the long 
 pilgrimage, on the eve of the Black Fast when 
 the faithful build up the breaches of lost friend- 
 ship and long separations, he killed that which 
 gathered up all the glory and irony of his life. 
 In the morning they found her dead, soaking 
 in her blood, with her bridal garments hacked 
 to shreds. Beside the dead girl they found the 
 old man alive and unconscious with a gaping 
 wound upon his throat. 
 
 They nursed him back to health and recollec- 
 tion; for no story could be told by the cold lips 
 of the dead girl and the Law did not know the 
 hand that had shed the blood. Every man is 
 innocent until his guilt is proven. 
 
 I saw him that first day when he came from 
 hospital to the dock, a man whose eyes seemed 
 only to see backwards into the days and months 
 and years behind him. To the present and the 
 future he gave no concern. The realities were 
 back, back in the memories of love and life 
 and murder. And I watched him step by step 
 as he left the court on the first stage of his 
 journey towards the scaffold. . . . And they 
 
62 The Loom of the Law 
 
 hanged him by the neck till he was dead one 
 New Year's eve, and it was a misty morning. 
 
 At the clang of eight that New Year's eve 
 this strange stanza went hurrying through my 
 brain : 
 
 Some love too little, some too long, 
 
 Some sell and others buy. 
 
 Some do the deed with many a tear 
 
 And some without a sigh : 
 
 For each man kills the thing he loves, 
 
 Yet each man does not die. 
 
 We learn to pity men and women in their 
 futile fight with Fate. In their desire to escape 
 from some bondage they devise plans that 
 promise joy. Somehow the schemes fail and 
 they find themselves bewildered and branded 
 with crime. 
 
 I had a bigamist once. It was a story not, 
 alas, uncommon. He had married with high 
 hopes of happiness, but incompatibility of tem- 
 perament wrought the usual havoc. No happi- 
 ness at home, no consideraton, no comrade- 
 ship, no common interests in life One day he 
 met the woman who could make him happy 
 so he believed. It was wrong. He knew it to 
 be wrong. He argued and made the worse 
 appear the better part. Nature forgets statutes 
 at times and men at times think they can evade 
 them and escape. It is the old gospel of the 
 
" De Profundis ' 63 
 
 Odd Chance. They discover new justifications 
 and new ways, but they are old justifications 
 and very old ways on which thousands have 
 gone before. And so the bigamist and his 
 fiancee resolve to bury the past. They will go 
 to a new, far-off land, to forgetfulness, to new 
 opportunity, to new life, to the happiness that 
 both have missed. They wed and all is ready. 
 The tickets are bought and the day dawns for 
 their departure. The plans have ripened and 
 the scheme has fructified . . . just one hour 
 more till train time. But the detectives came, 
 How ? Was it nemesis ? Was it a woman's 
 hate ? It was never told. Anyhow, the detec- 
 tives came and the awakening. The lover 
 became a convict and the romance was torn and 
 called by a shameful name. 
 
 I had met the bigamist before. When I saw 
 him in the dock I recalled him. Some thirty 
 years or more ago we were in the same class at 
 the same school and the last time I saw him 
 was in our last term on the eve of the summer 
 vacation and the class was singing : 
 
 Childhood's years are passing o'er us, 
 
 Soon our schooldays will be done, 
 Cares and sorrows lie before us, 
 
 Hidden dangers, snares unknown. 
 
 And thus the prophecy had come to pass. 
 
64 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Those are five studies De Profundis. In them 
 we see splendid desire and noble longings and 
 emotions linked with blind tragedy. Elements 
 of glory are wedded to things of shame. It is all 
 complexity and bewilderment. Something within 
 us protests against these souls' sufferings. 
 Anguish moves to pity and in pity we long to 
 forgive and forget. 
 
 But would there have been anguish apart 
 from the wages of sin ? Would there have been 
 those dramatic elements that make appeal and 
 move to pity apart from shame finding them out ? 
 
 Does a romantic and dramatic fact minimize 
 murder and justify bigamy ? And is an illicit lust 
 less illicit because a holy natural instinct is as- 
 sociated with its fruition and because the offenders 
 behave with composure and dignity ? 
 
 This is one of the dangers of trial by journals 
 as against trial by judges and juries. News- 
 paper reports make deliberate appeal to the 
 sentiments and passions of the people, and 
 nothing is more appealing than reports of some 
 heroic and noble thing associated with a crime or 
 a criminal. And the great heart of the multitude 
 is anxious to respond with a great forgiveness. 
 The artistry of sorrow pays no regard to the 
 commonplaces of our common life and the 
 clamant needs of ordered justice. It ignores 
 
De Profundis " 65 
 
 the subtle emotions and secret purposes that lie 
 hidden in humanity. It forgets the dangers that 
 attach to the lessening of those restraints and 
 responsibilities that operate in a modern state. 
 Emotionalism is not of the same texture as mercy 
 and the dramatic is not a substitute for the 
 judicial. 
 
 The worth of emotionalism and popular 
 psychology in judging crime has received a tragic 
 exemplification in a recent Welsh murder trial 
 where a lad killed two girl children. 
 
 At the trial for the first murder public opinion 
 was bitterly opposed to the prosecution and it is 
 said that it was difficult to restrain the pas- 
 sionate outbursts against the police. 
 
 The lad's acquittal was followed by a frenzy of 
 popular appreciation and approval ; and this was 
 followed by another murder. At the second 
 trial confessions were made of both murders. 
 
 The discovery of facts, the analysis of motives, 
 the weighing of each detail in a long series of 
 events, the judging of the demeanour and manner 
 and method of witnesses demand at least as much 
 care and skill as the diagnosis of disease. Yet 
 because no sentiment and no romance gather 
 about a sick man's bed the public abstain from 
 judgments on baccilli and fevers. Popular 
 clamour on the nature and habits of pneumococci 
 
 5 
 
66 The Loom of the Law 
 
 would appear ridiculous and it is doubtful if 
 popular clamour in judicial affairs does not 
 possess an equivalent utility. 
 
 It will be an evil day for justice when the direct 
 or indirect intervention of public passion is 
 allowed to shape or control or affect the ad- 
 ministration of the Law. There are not wanting 
 signs and symptoms from time to time of such 
 intervention, but decent citizens who are con- 
 cerned about a sane and stable judicature must 
 discountenance the outbursts of the idle and the 
 curious who create demonstrations inside or out- 
 side our courts of justice. 
 
 The alternative is mob law, the judgments of 
 those to whom attach no responsibilities, the 
 judgments of those who have no acquaintance 
 with jurisprudence or those principles of evidence 
 which have been built up through laborious years 
 and which are the safeguard and guerdon of the 
 innocent. Justice will become a thing to be 
 bought and sold and exploited, and Liberty will 
 be determined by the throw of the dice of chance. 
 
 The judicial bench stands between the citizen 
 and oppression. Our ordered security and well- 
 being are the benefits of the reign of Law. 
 
 The motive does not cleanse the crime, but it 
 may minimize it ; and the circumstances of its 
 
" De Profundis ' 67 
 
 commission may justify mercy. The dominant 
 characteristic of our criminal administration is 
 humaneness. The era of revenge is long gone. 
 Ours is a time of tempered judgments. But 
 pity for a prisoner does not justify release. 
 The interests of the community must be con- 
 served and almost every prisoner is a man of 
 sorrows and acquainted with grief. The pur- 
 pose of the Law is to prevent no less than to 
 punish and it prevents by example. A general 
 and widespread belief that each man is entitled 
 to his first adventure in crime would lead to social 
 demoralization. Virtue may deter many, but it 
 takes fear to restrain the rest. Not every citizen 
 pays large tribute to the heavenly citizenship of 
 which St. Paul writes and saints have been known 
 to slip in the miry places. 
 
 Not seldom offenders who were taken unawares 
 have been surprised to learn that they were not 
 entitled to a first " nibble " in crime. Again 
 and again when asked to plead, prisoners have 
 replied " Guilty by the First Offenders Act ! " 
 They appeared to believe that this was some 
 magic Act that " opened prison doors and let 
 the prisoners free." 
 
 Indiscriminate social forgiveness would lead 
 to social chaos and moral disaster. But judges 
 discriminate. They are anxious to help those 
 
 5* 
 
68 The Loom of the Law 
 
 who have been overtaken by temptation, or who 
 yielding to some overmastering impulse have 
 fallen. Much depends on the nature of the 
 offence and the circumstances that surround its 
 commission. There are some offences that merit 
 no mercy and can have no mitigating circum- 
 stances. Some men choose crime deliberately as 
 a career, and others drift into it because of the 
 brutality and cruelty of their natures. By such 
 mercy is misunderstood and on such pity is wasted. 
 
 Once I was briefed to defend a prisoner in a 
 northern city. There were a series of charges 
 of forgery and embezzlement, and the evidence 
 was such that the only possible plea was one of 
 Guilty. The learned counsel for the prosecution 
 in outlining the facts rightly laid stress on the 
 importance of honesty on the part of servants in 
 great industrial centres. There were six 
 charges and the offences had been committed 
 with great deliberation. But there were sur- 
 rounding circumstances that whilst they did not 
 justify, minimized the offence, and these miti- 
 gating circumstances were laid before the judge. 
 
 There was at home a little deformed child 
 who needed medical and surgical treatment ; 
 there was, besides, a number of young children 
 and a wife on the eve of that experience where 
 souls are born. Altogether it was a pitiful story 
 
De Profundis " 69 
 
 and I was daring enough to tell the judge, Lord 
 Coleridge, that it might happen sometimes that 
 ordered law and more clamant and primitive 
 obligations came into conflict and that most 
 men would risk much to lighten the shadow on 
 their home in such circumstances. 
 
 Judges know more than the science of Law 
 and are not unmoved by human misery. They 
 can visualize the circumstances and weigh the 
 motive with the deed. And whilst they con- 
 serve the interests of society they can temper 
 judgment with mercy. 
 
 It was evident that his lordship was touched 
 with the circumstances of the case and was 
 persuaded that Justice had been satisfied. 
 
 The prisoner was " Bound over to come up 
 for judgment if called upon." 
 
 There recently came before me an old convict 
 on licence. He was caught one night in the 
 office of a large public house with the contents 
 of the till in his possession, and arrested. The 
 prisoner made no attempt to put up a defence 
 and he was committed for trial. Before leaving 
 the dock he made a pathetic appeal for thirty 
 shillings to be sent to a near relation ; he claimed 
 that the money was his own and that the relation 
 was in great distress. There was no evidence 
 other than his word that the money was his and 
 
70 The Loom of the Law 
 
 no order could be made. The prisoner pressed 
 the matter with a tearful appeal and I assured 
 him that his relation would be looked after. 
 
 The story of the prisoner was verified by the 
 police and it was true in every detail. He had an 
 aged sister long past work and her husband was 
 blind. They were in extreme poverty and this 
 was the motive for his resumption of a criminal 
 career. 
 
 The prisoner was duly tried before a judge and 
 sentenced to three years penal servitude and 
 five years preventive detention. These terms 
 coupled with the remnant of his licence meant 
 an end of all hope. Life held not much more 
 than the grave. 
 
 The prisoner appealed against the sentence 
 to the Court of Criminal Appeal. 
 
 One Monday I took a busman's holiday and 
 spent it at the Royal Courts of Justice. I 
 wandered into the Court of Criminal Appeal just 
 as a case was beginning. The reviewing of the 
 facts by counsel seemed to me familiar and I 
 discovered that it was the old convict's case. 
 
 The prisoner's counsel alluded to the cir- 
 cumstances under which the offence had been 
 committed and urged that it took the prisoner 
 out of the category of habitually leading a 
 criminal life. One saw that the learned judges 
 
1 De Profundis ' 71 
 
 were disposed to take the most generous view, 
 but there were many previous convictions and 
 long terms of penal servitude. 
 
 I passed a note to counsel stating that the 
 police had made inquiries and that the prisoner's 
 story was corroborated in every detail. 
 
 The Court was not unresponsive to the motive 
 and emotions that had impelled an old convict 
 to risk again penal servitude and preventive 
 detention. After a brief deliberation the judges 
 decided that a new chance should be given to 
 this battered old criminal with the terrible 
 record, and the sentence was reduced to one of 
 eighteen months imprisonment. 
 
 Some days later I met counsel of the old con- 
 vict and he brought me this message from him 
 a tribute to the humanity of our judges 
 
 " I have done my last job. I shall go straight now. I didn't know 
 there was so much goodness in the world." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE LOOM 
 
 TN the administration of the criminal law 
 it is seldom that much difficulty arises in 
 deciding whether a man is guilty or not guilty, 
 or whether he should be committed for trial 
 or discharged. Stipendiary magistrates have 
 had experience in criminal courts, and learnt 
 at the Bar the principles of the Law and the 
 application of those principles. Even in the 
 higher courts which try indictable offences, 
 when the jury have discharged their function of 
 finding a prisoner guilty, the real difficulty 
 begins after that finding of fact. What is to be 
 done to the prisoner ? 
 
 The law gives a very wide discretion in the 
 matter of punishment to judges and magistrates. 
 It is a great trust on which infinite possibilities 
 depend. Shall the prisoner be given a chance 
 and bound over to come up for judgment if 
 called upon ? 
 
 72 
 
The Loom 73 
 
 Shall he be punished by fine or imprisonment, 
 or penal servitude ? If so, in what amount or 
 for what term ? 
 
 The prisoner's past is opened. It may be a 
 story of industry and honesty, or it may be a 
 record of crime. A clean record may only mean 
 that the prisoner has been lucky in his escape 
 up till now, or it may mean he has succumbed 
 to a sudden temptation by reason of his circum- 
 stances. A black record may mean that the 
 prisoner is definitely and deliberately pursuing a 
 career of crime, or it may mean that he has 
 been fighting a good fight to regain his lost 
 reputation, and been stricken in the midst of 
 his warfare. Certain types of crime may have 
 become epidemic, and attract to their com- 
 mission men of reputed good character. The 
 public opinion of their class may not condemn 
 such offences. Stern measures may be needed, 
 in spite of the absence of previous convictions, 
 to put an end to such epidemics. 
 
 The test for generous treatment of offenders 
 cannot be merely whether it is a first con- 
 viction, and punishment cannot be unmeasured 
 because a man's record is black. 
 
 The factors of deliberation, system, motive, 
 temptation, domestic and social circumstances, 
 and efforts at reclamation must be considered. 
 
74 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Justice is not done by imposing the same sentence 
 for the same offence. Life is not mathematical, 
 and mathematical justice would be malignant 
 cruelty. 
 
 Experience has demonstrated that it is usually 
 worth while to be generous. Occasionally such 
 generosity is misplaced, but the recipient always 
 returns. The worst that can happen is the 
 postponement of punishment. He will choose 
 his magistrate or judge as carefully as he selects 
 his " game " in any other adventure, and come 
 back for a further exhibition of clemency. On 
 such occasions " time," like money, talks ! 
 
 Illustrations of heroic recoveries, the result of 
 patience and faith, are not uncommon. 
 
 There came before one of the Metropolitan 
 Police Courts recently a man charged with 
 malicious damage to property. His offence took 
 the form of breaking windows, always within 
 sight of a police officer. The impulse was 
 neither drink nor unemployment, neither was it 
 politics nor lunacy. He was protesting against 
 nothing, and he had a grievance against nobody, 
 yet the offence recurred. The offender had 
 served several terms of imprisonment, and on 
 the days of his discharge from prison he repeated 
 his offence. There was no normal motive. 
 
 His attitude in the dock was one of silence 
 
The Loom 75 
 
 and indifference, save for his monosyllabic " Yes," 
 when asked if he pleaded guilty. Every attempt 
 to get at some understanding of his motive 
 was met with : " I've nothing to say, sir," 
 and he said nothing, in spite of every wile and 
 inducement. 
 
 Here was a man standing in splendid isolation 
 to life. He had no interest in and no concern 
 for the affairs that appeal to the ordinary 
 citizen. Time after time he threw himself into 
 the stream that washed him into the solitude of 
 his prison retreat. He chose a way of crime 
 that involved little or no social stigma, and he 
 did the wrong that impinged least on the moral 
 law. The psychology was simple enough. The 
 prisoner for some reason or another had lost the 
 will to hold his place amongst men ; he had got 
 " out of step ' ! with the world, and had no 
 desire to regain it. The normal operation of 
 law and punishment had no relativity to such 
 a case as this. There was needed some warm 
 human touch without cant and without 
 officialism. This was tried. The prisoner was 
 brought into a little sitting-room, treated like 
 a visitor and spoken to, as man to man. There 
 was certainly no exploitation here. There was 
 no motive in this behaviour that the most 
 cynical could suspect. He was astonished but 
 
76 The Loom of the Law 
 
 recalcitrant. He repeated his brief litany : 
 " I've nothing to say, sir ! " but his eyes spoke 
 when his lips were silent. 
 
 He was remanded for a week, then there was 
 another little talk, and he was given another 
 chance. The Court Missionary set him up in 
 his trade, found him a little workshop, and 
 undertook to find a market for his handiwork. 
 Tools and materials were supplied, and orders 
 were given on speculation. And the " window- 
 breaker " delivered the goods. 
 
 There is in an obscure by-way of London a 
 man who has recovered the will to live and 
 labour. Some stimulus was given to his will, 
 some word or touch found an answering response 
 somewhere in his heart, something impelled him 
 to a new resolve. One thing is clear, that 
 neither prison nor punishment was a deterrent 
 and neither prison nor punishment was a 
 stimulant. 
 
 There is more to be considered than the 
 offence and the punishment. Both of these 
 are matters of importance, but the matter of 
 urgency is the offender. Shakespeare's dictum 
 is literally true in the administration of the 
 Criminal Law : 
 
 " There is a tide in the affairs of men 
 Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.' 
 
The Loom 77 
 
 A mistake in the treatment of an offender 
 may leave a sense of injustice that will change 
 a man to an enemy of society. There is in the 
 purlieus of criminal London a man who is no 
 stranger to the cells, and his career is illus- 
 trative. He began his adventures when little 
 more than a child, and his boast is that he 
 has never asked anybody for anything. He 
 took what he wanted. His first revolt against 
 society was the result of starvation at home. 
 He belonged to a family that was knit together 
 by the ties of a great affection. He stole for 
 the sake of affection, and he suffered for it. 
 He has gone through life a rebel, a proud and 
 unrepentant rebel ; and for many he stands as 
 a type of heroism and manhood at its best. 
 
 Perhaps another kind of treatment would 
 have produced a different outlook, and society 
 might have had the gifts and the winsomeness 
 that have been turned against it. 
 
 The supercilious and the cynical may begrudge 
 the time and effort necessary to discover the 
 mind and heart of the offender, but in no other 
 way can justice be done to the wrong-doer and 
 utility rendered to the community. A wrong 
 done to a prisoner is a serious disservice done 
 to the commonweal. And it often happens 
 that a series of remands awakens in the soul of 
 
78 The Loom of the Law 
 
 the offender an appreciation of his misdeeds, a 
 vision of the possibilities that life holds for him, 
 a realization of the sorrow that he has wrought 
 for those akin to him. In these experiences he 
 suffers and pays a price that is not recorded in 
 the records of the Law. The punishment that 
 is recorded may be the least punishment, and 
 the easiest to bear. And the ends of justice 
 may be met by a generous interpretation of 
 Law, and by leaving in a man's heart the sense 
 of a great generosity, instead of the sense of 
 a great wrong. 
 
 There is often a magnanimity that is wonder- 
 ful to behold. The prisoner stands in the 
 dock, the charge is read over to him, and the 
 police officer gives evidence of the arrest. 
 Usually a part of the evidence is the statement 
 of the prisoner, and again and again the prisoner's 
 only comment is : " Yes, I expected you, but 
 don't let my people know." The anxiety is 
 not to save himself, but to save others. His 
 own suffering is forgotten in anticipation of the 
 sufferings of others. There is hidden in the 
 heart of humanity somewhere the law of vicarious 
 sacrifice. 
 
 There came before the court a youth on a 
 charge of serious felony. He was arrested on 
 a warrant, and when the hand of the law was 
 
The Loom 
 
 79 
 
 laid upon his shoulder, his only appeal was : 
 " O God ! my mother must not be told." It 
 was clear that the haunting dread of his mother's 
 sorrow had been about him day and night. 
 What awaited him was of little urgency. In 
 the dock that was all that concerned him, and 
 his last appeal as he went to the cells on remand, 
 was this : " Oh ! don't let my mother know 
 It will kill her." 
 
 It is curious, perhaps, that the feet of men 
 may wander into strange swamps of sin and 
 shame, but there are lingering memories and 
 mystic ties that hold them still to the place of 
 their innocence and childhood. And the last 
 affection and respect that they long to hold is 
 the affection and respect of her who loved them 
 from the first. 
 
 II 
 
 THE Law is very insistent upon technicalities, 
 and, the superficial will add, trifles. It does 
 not occur to the unthinking and inexperienced 
 that those technicalities and alleged trifles 
 are all in the interests of the accused. They 
 conserve the liberty of the subject and estab- 
 lish the presumption of innocence. Facts must 
 
so The Loom of the Law 
 
 be strictly proved and conditions must be 
 strictly fulfilled. No man can be convicted on 
 moral certainties nor imprisoned on probabilities. 
 Where there is a doubt of such a character that 
 it would influence the mind of a reasonable man, 
 no person can be convicted. The Law carefully 
 specifies what it will accept as evidence and 
 many kinds of proof that men accept and act 
 on in their daily affairs are not acceptable to the 
 Law as sufficient to take away a man's liberty or 
 reputation. 
 
 Our system of Jurisprudence is emphatic that 
 every man is innocent of crime until he is in fact 
 convicted of crime. He can only be convicted 
 on evidence that has been sifted and weighed, 
 and only the evidence of eye witnesses of the 
 crime or of circumstances surrounding its com- 
 mission can be heard. The Law listens to no 
 rumours, no suspicions, no hearsays, no reports. 
 The liberty of the subject and the presumption 
 of innocence are sacramental. If inadmissible 
 evidence has been accepted and a fact placed 
 before the jury that tells against the prisoner, 
 the conviction will be quashed and the prisoner 
 released. The Law takes no chances of convicting 
 an innocent man. 
 
 The reports of the Court of Criminal Appeal 
 are full of illustrations of this fact. A word 
 
The Loom 81 
 
 has been said that ought not to have been spoken. 
 A word has been kept back that ought to have 
 been said. Some fact has been withheld that 
 told in the prisoner's favour or some fact has 
 been told that ought not to have been divulged : 
 Were the jury influenced by such word or such 
 silence ? If a jury might have been so influenced 
 the prisoner must be released. 
 
 Unless he raise the issue of character the accused 
 stands his trial without any reference to his past. 
 The saint and the convict are tried alike. Though 
 his sins be as scarlet and his character red like 
 crimson he stands as though he were white as 
 snow. Whilst the Law is technical and inelastic 
 and emphatic in its requirements to prove a 
 prisoner guilty, it is elastic, adaptable and 
 generous in favour of a prisoner. Technicalities 
 and indeed express provisions are looked at 
 lightly when justice and mercy can meet together. 
 
 Sometimes grave charges are reduced to charges 
 less grave and offences that strictly should be 
 treated as indictable and sent for trial to the 
 Central Criminal Court are dealt with summarily 
 by stipendiaries. Such proceedings spare prison- 
 ers the suspense and imprisonment that intervene 
 between committal and trial. Cases occur where 
 strict logic would result in moral injustice. 
 
 The Judicature allows a large discretion and 
 
 6 
 
82 The Loom of the Law 
 
 aims at an enlightened and humane administra- 
 tion of the criminal law. 
 
 It is in cases of this kind that prisoners discover 
 that the police are, not seldom, their best friends. 
 
 After some evidence has been taken and the 
 facts of the case have shaken themselves down 
 into a coherent whole, and the mind and heart 
 of the prisoner begin to grow luminous, the 
 question is asked : " Might the case be dealt 
 with here ? " The police assent. The prisoner 
 is then given his chance to decide whether he 
 will be tried before a judge and jury or summarily 
 before the stipendiary. He elects to be tried 
 summarily and he is perhaps convicted. Then the 
 police tell their story and they are not slow to dis- 
 close and emphasize the mitigating circumstance. 
 
 There appeared at a Metropolitan police court 
 a man charged with a series of offences running 
 from drunk and disorderly to malicious damage 
 to property and assaults on the police. 
 
 The causa causans was drink, the causa, the 
 insults and taunts of a female neighbour. Under 
 the influence of drink he replied to the taunts 
 by an attack on the woman's possessions and in 
 his passion he assaulted the police officer who 
 tried to restrain him. 
 
 A night in the cells had stilled the raging 
 tempest and in the morning the prisoner's view 
 
The Loom 83 
 
 of the occurrence was almost judicial. Alas ! 
 repentance does not bring forgiveness in human 
 affairs, and men must pay the price of folly. 
 He has learnt that. The prisoner pleaded guilty 
 and then the thing that he dreaded happened 
 the resurrection of his past. There were stories 
 of violence before, violence that had been atoned 
 for in penal servitude. One watched the playing 
 of the lights of Portland on his memory, and one 
 pitied him for the anguish of his suffering. An 
 outburst of passion and all the present is alive 
 with the things that he had thought to be dead. 
 Purgatory can be created and men can suffer 
 an eternity of anguish in a moment. But the 
 police had more to say. The last sentence was 
 a dozen years ago and the intervening years 
 were years of industry and honesty and effort 
 to retrieve the past. The police laid stress on 
 this outburst as a momentary lapse in a hard 
 fight. Of repentance and regret there could be 
 no doubt. They were written in the deepened 
 lines on the grey face that had missed its sleep. 
 ' A past " sometimes is the superlative justi- 
 fication for generosity, and surely this was such 
 a case. The speedier the justice the more just 
 it would be. To hold in suspense a man who 
 had waged a good warfare since his last release 
 seemed unjustifiable and cruel. One felt that 
 
 6* 
 
84 The Loom of the Law 
 
 this experience was all that was needed to es- 
 tablish him in his path of righteousness ; and 
 justice could ordain only one decree, viz. : to 
 send him back again to his freedom with a warning 
 against drink and the tongues of women. 
 
 The Court of Criminal Appeal has laid this 
 principle down as an axiom of criminal adminis- 
 tration : " Counsel for the prosecution ought 
 not to struggle for a conviction, but should regard 
 themselves as ministers of justice assisting in its 
 administration rather than as advocates." 
 
 No virtue attaches to securing a conviction. 
 The function of counsel for the Crown is to ensure 
 that all the facts are laid before the court. They 
 should be so laid without bias and without 
 passion. The prosecution views the verdict with 
 indifference. It has no desire to secure a con- 
 viction unless the facts disclosed by the evidence 
 satisfy the court that the offence has been com- 
 mitted, and to press for the conviction of a 
 prisoner is not merely a violation of the traditions 
 of the Bar, it is a violation of the declared prin- 
 ciples of the Court of Criminal Appeal. 
 
 It is the duty of the prosecution to lay before 
 the court everything that tells in favour of an 
 accused person, and where a fact is capable of 
 two constructions, to put on that fact the more 
 favourable construction. 
 
The Loom 85 
 
 There stood in the dock a woman of middle 
 age worn with want and care and toil. She 
 was charged with attempted murder and at- 
 tempted suicide. When the charge was read to 
 her she held her hands to her eyes to shut away, 
 if she could, the horror of the suggestion and she 
 kept on repeating : " No ! No ! No ! Never ! 
 Never ! Never ! >: 
 
 She was charged with the attempted murder 
 of her children. Even if the allegation turned 
 out to be true it was clear as the day that this 
 woman loved her children with a rare devotion. 
 It was a story of squalor and poverty till a woman 
 had lost heart and almost reason. There was, 
 so she alleged, some little domestic hitch that 
 troubled her, and one night she and the children 
 lay down for the last long sleep. The door was 
 shut and the gas tap was turned on. Fortunately, 
 whether by accident or design was never dis- 
 covered, a window was slightly open and the 
 draught carried the gas up a chimney whose 
 opening was lower than the bed. She and the 
 sleeping children were found together and the 
 police came. 
 
 It was a woman distraught and frantic with 
 grief who stood in the dock in the morning. She 
 was midway in the forties but looked like a 
 woman of sixty or more. She bore conspicuously 
 
86 The Loom of the Law 
 
 the marks of malnutrition and neglect. She had 
 sacrificed all that the children might be fed. 
 
 A series of remands were ordered and in a few 
 weeks she was calmed and quietened. The rest 
 and nourishment at the prison had brought com- 
 posure and health. 
 
 The anxiety and concern of the husband was 
 beautiful to see. He wanted her back and he 
 prayed that a way should be found. 
 
 But what about the Law ? It is a serious 
 thing to attempt to commit murder. The prose- 
 cuting solicitor called the police inspector who had 
 found the woman and the children. He deposed 
 to the facts and to the statement that she made 
 when he arrested her. " I never intended to 
 harm them." There was further police evidence 
 that the window was open and that the draught 
 carried off the fumes. There was the medical 
 evidence that none of the children bore traces 
 of gas poisoning. 
 
 One more witness was submitted to the Court. 
 It was the husband. Prosecuting solicitor offered 
 him as a witness and himself raised the issue as 
 to his admissibility. Again the technicalities 
 and trivialities of the criminal law stood in 
 favour of the prisoner and the Law decides that 
 in such a case the evidence of husband or wife 
 is not admissible against a spouse. 
 
The Loom 87 
 
 All that was left to decide was whether on the 
 facts any jury would convict the woman of this 
 serious offence, and the Court decided that no 
 jury would convict. 
 
 There is one home at least that has learnt that 
 the Law is not a cold, calm, imperturbable in- 
 strument of punishment but that it endeavours 
 to help the unfortunate and lift up the needy and 
 the poor. 
 
 Before she left the dock the last words of the 
 prisoner were a tribute of thanks to police and 
 prison officials for their tenderness and concern 
 to her and hers. 
 
 in 
 
 THOUGH the Law can be generous and con- 
 siderate it is neither dominated by sentiment 
 nor restrained by fear. It can deal out justice 
 with an unsparing and heavy hand and make 
 the wrong-doer suffer even unto death. 
 
 I walked with other souls in pain 
 
 Within another ring, 
 
 And was wondering if the man had done 
 
 A great or little thing 
 
 When a voice behind me whispered low 
 
 " That fellow's got to swing." 
 
 The Law must punish the wrong-doer accord- 
 ing to that he hath done and it must deter by 
 
88 The Loom of the Law 
 
 example. The alternative is the jungle. There 
 are offences that admit of no mitigation by 
 reason of their very nature. Once the evidence 
 establishes the guilt the degree of punishment 
 is speedily decided. The more generous impulses 
 of the Law are not intended for, nor should they 
 apply to, offences of this character, which usually 
 involve qualities of deliberation and brutality. 
 Such offences are not the outflow of temporary 
 passion, or loss of restraint, or a momentary 
 forgetfulness. They are the expression of a 
 brutal and depraved nature. Robbery with 
 violence, rape, cruelty to children, violation 
 of girls, blackmail, drug traffic, and white slave 
 trade, have nothing in them that make appeal 
 to the Law's generosity. Such offenders bear 
 the mark of the beast. 
 
 A section of the community are parasites. 
 And not merely do they live on the body politic, 
 they infect it with dirt, disease and death. 
 These perform no social duty, they recognize no 
 social bond, they are restrained by no code or 
 sense of honour. Their two aims are to live 
 without labour and to escape the meshes of the 
 law. To achieve these aims they will pay any 
 price. 
 
 It is perhaps the possibility of a theological 
 repentance that keeps society from consigning 
 
The Loom 89 
 
 its parasites to the lethal chamber. They are 
 a pest and a social disease. 
 
 It is quite another thing to be a " drifter." 
 One sees the wash of this driftwood about the 
 police courts and the County of London Sessions 
 a parade of vagrants, rogues and vagabonds 
 and incorrigible rogues. Some consideration is 
 due to these souls whose chief social offence is 
 begging and wandering. They are men without 
 ambition, without effort, without ideal, without 
 hope, or friend, or God. One would like to dissect 
 the soul of such a life. What killed ambition ? 
 What spoilt faith ? Where did hope die and 
 when did God forget ? 
 
 What a parade ! Clergymen and lawyers and 
 doctors, accountants and clerks, and artisans 
 of every order. 
 
 They appear to have drunk of the waters of 
 Nirvana. They have died as literally as though 
 they had passed through the incinerating cham- 
 ber at Colder 's Green. The world that is yours 
 and mine is burnt up. 
 
 The abiding impression they give is that of 
 the hopelessness of things. Hope is dead. 
 Faith is dead. God is dead. You can relight 
 no fires of faith or hope again ever. There 
 is no resurrection and the life this side of 
 Jordan anyway. Here is social despair. Life 
 
90 The Loom of the Law 
 
 is nothing. It has nothing. A frozen mist 
 has settled on the soul and it is always night in 
 the heart. 
 
 Only one little thing lightens the gloom for 
 us. They have lost the capacity to feel or care. 
 They are automata. They move as autumn 
 leaves move at the bidding of the wind or the 
 rain and they lie till they are gathered up by 
 another gust that sweeps them to another resting 
 place. 
 
 Even death has no terrors. They have 
 already been familiar with unthinkable things 
 and one more or less makes no matter. 
 
 With slouch and swing around the ring 
 
 We trod the Fool's Parade 1 
 
 We did not care : we knew we were 
 
 The Devil's Own Brigade : 
 
 And shaven head and feet of lead 
 
 Make a merry masquerade. 
 
 These are life's " wash-outs," the people who 
 moved the Christ to tears nearly twenty cen- 
 turies ago. Twenty centuries afterwards they 
 are the most pitiful spectacle in the world. 
 
 The men who blackmail and rob are of another 
 quality. To beg they are ashamed. The results 
 of begging would not supply the tastes and 
 luxuries of the blackmailer. He has the habili- 
 ments and manners of a gentleman and his 
 taste in food and drink and dress are fastidious. 
 
 Perhaps this offence is the limit in human 
 
The Loom 
 
 91 
 
 cowardice and degradation. Such men prey 
 on the living as jackals prey upon the dead. 
 They are without manhood and without mercy. 
 
 With the wiles of friendship and words of 
 flattery they manufacture their victims, and 
 they betray every canon of honour and 
 chivalry. 
 
 During the war these pests had their harvest. 
 They victimized many and reaped a rich reward. 
 It may be that some are their victims until this 
 day. I was consulted during the war by the 
 friend of a youthful subaltern who was being 
 blackmailed. He had been accosted by what 
 appeared to be another officer in the foyer of 
 a West End place of entertainment. There was 
 a camaraderie of khaki and a brotherhood in 
 arms. The tradition of an officer and a gentle- 
 man lingered on in the New Army and not a 
 few tried to live up to this splendid tradition. 
 
 The blackmailer knows what instruments to 
 use and none is too sacred for his work. 
 
 The two soldiers chatted about the entertain- 
 ment and then the blackmailer told his story 
 of trenches and stricken fields, of dug-outs and 
 leaves at home. He was on leave and was 
 lonely and was almost on the eve of going back. 
 He was hungry for friendship. 
 
 They met the next night, and so night by 
 
92 The Loom of the Law 
 
 night they went to places of entertainment. 
 Acquaintance ripened to friendship and friend- 
 ship to intimacy. 
 
 Now the time had come to weave the web 
 round an English lad whose knowledge of men 
 and the world was gathered in a decent home 
 amongst honest men. 
 
 The blackmailer could not see his friend for 
 a few days, but he must have letters from 
 him . . . letters of intense affection, billets doux 
 of the kind that he had talked about. . . . 
 
 The lad wanted to pass as a sophisticated 
 man of the world and he wrote the letters. 
 
 At their next meeting in the lounge of a 
 luxurious West End hotel the blackmailer wanted 
 the loan of money. The subaltern had none to 
 lend. The blackmailer pressed at first and then 
 he threatened. In a moment the subaltern was 
 initiated into a new world inhabited by a new 
 race. There was an ultimatum. He could buy 
 the letters back at five pounds per letter every 
 Monday and the Monday that a letter was not 
 bought, that day the unbought letter would be 
 sent to his Commanding Officer. 
 
 An impecunious and inexperienced lad was, 
 in these circumstances, on the horns of an ugly 
 dilemma. 
 
 What was to be done ? Obviously the first 
 
The Loom 98 
 
 thing was to meet this alleged officer and 
 gentleman, and it was decided that the 
 subaltern should arrange a meeting in the hotel 
 where they had been accustomed to meet. 
 Later on another little party would come in, 
 and on its appearance the letters should be 
 demanded and if refused a signal should be 
 given. The signal of refusal was given and the 
 lad's solicitor joined him, disclosed his identity 
 and demanded the letters. The blackmailer 
 was impudent and unperturbed. He was utterly 
 disdainful at this intervention and made unflat- 
 tering remarks about the Law. Eventually he 
 promised to return the letters in the morning ! 
 His psychology was sound and having for a 
 moment satisfied the lawyer he rapidly made 
 his way out of the swinging doors of the hotel. 
 This was a critical moment. He was gone and 
 gone with the knowledge that friends of the 
 subaltern had intervened. On a quick decision 
 much depended, perhaps the future happiness 
 of an unsophisticated lad. We passed out and 
 stopped him. He resented with great show of 
 dignity being accosted by strangers. It was 
 an impertinence. How dare we do it ? It was 
 an unpardonable affront. We hailed a taxi and 
 it drew into the kerb. The request for the 
 letters was renewed with just a suggestion of 
 
94 The Loom of the Law 
 
 authority. We gave him three minutes to decide 
 as we stood by the door of the waiting cab. 
 This time our psychology was sound, for he could 
 find no clue to these happenings. Why the 
 cab ? Why the authoritative request ? Why 
 the limitation of time ? He was playing for 
 time and seeking for some elucidation when he 
 said that the letters were at Eastbourne. We 
 replied that the cab was waiting and on a nod 
 the driver would take us anywhere at any time. 
 He then asserted very definitely that he was 
 not motoring to Eastbourne that night and he 
 was at once informed that the cab would carry 
 him to Bow Street as an alternative. Two of 
 the three minutes had now elapsed and we 
 closed in on him and took him by the wrists. 
 Some one whispered to him that one of his 
 class had just gone from the Old Bailey to five 
 years penal servitude the day before. 
 
 He was groggy by now. The last blow had 
 got him and all his gameness was gone. His 
 next move was really asking for terms. He 
 put forward some hypotheses as to where he 
 stood if he did this and that. We reminded 
 him that at the moment he was not standing 
 in the dock, but that time was up and he would 
 be standing there in the morning. We all moved 
 in towards the cab. His hands went into his 
 
The Loom 95 
 
 inside pockets and he drew out the bundle of 
 etters tied together with a pink and perfumed 
 ribbon. 
 
 He handed them to me and I refused them. 
 He had surrendered so much that he had got 
 to surrender all. It was now unconditional 
 surrender. He was told to take the letters 
 into the hotel for inspection. We needed veri- 
 fication that all the letters were in the bundle . . . 
 
 The last we saw of him was a lurching figure 
 dressed in the khaki of a captain, hurrying 
 westwards from the Strand. 
 
 The fate that overtook him may be told another 
 day. 
 
 The crucifixion of the youthful subaltern would 
 not have lasted long. He went back to France, 
 and within a week of his return he fell in the 
 advance, but his life had been freed from the 
 shadows of a great shame. 
 
 The lives of many are tortured because of 
 the dread of some exposure that means shame. 
 Such an experience makes a hell of life and 
 robs a man of every chance of joy. Each day 
 is a harrowing fear and each night a fevered 
 nightmare. Herein lies the clue to many an 
 unexplained suicide. Men face death more 
 
96 The Loom of the Law 
 
 gladly than disgrace, and when the pressure of 
 blackmail becomes acute they pass away into 
 the mists of death. 
 
 I have known men of high repute and un- 
 blemished reputation whose sudden passing was 
 the handiwork of the blackmailer. 
 
 There was a London professional man holding 
 a place of considerable distinction, and who had 
 won such honours as his profession confers. 
 He was found by his bed-side one morning dead. 
 
 For months sleep had forsaken him, but it 
 was the insomnia of a haunting dread. The 
 Coroner's jury found that " death was due to 
 misadventure." So it was a dreadful mis- 
 adventure. Behind the revolt of wearied nature 
 there was the secret thing and the menace of 
 exposure. The man was married and his 
 marriage was a misery. For long years and 
 till he was past fifty he bore the burden of his 
 martyrdom. One day in the course of his 
 professional duty he met a woman and an attach- 
 ment was formed. It was very brief, because 
 he saw how impossible the position was, and he 
 made an end of it. But his decision was too 
 belated. He maintained the child that was 
 born and fulfilled every moral obligation to the 
 woman. In his generous recognition of the 
 claims of both he brought forth the fruit meet 
 
The Loom 
 
 for repentance. But Life does not allow us to 
 write " FINIS " to our romances and adven- 
 tures. Tides and emotions ebb and flow. In 
 a spasm of frankness the woman told another 
 of her romance and the woman who heard it 
 told it to a man. One night the man who learnt 
 the secret sought an interview with the man 
 who had hidden it. Ghosts walked that night. 
 The sense of duty well fulfilled and of honour 
 nobly responded to could not quieten the sicken- 
 ing fear. All that life signified crashed in on 
 him in an instant. To the old misdeed was 
 added, so he thought, professional dishonour. 
 In the interests of everybody and everything, 
 exposure must be avoided in the interests of 
 professional honour, in the interests of home 
 and friendships, in the interests, last of all, of 
 self. A price was named and it was high. The 
 price was paid, and the wages of sin were paid 
 in a currency that cannot pass from hand to 
 hand. No martyrdom exceeds that martyr- 
 dom. When another holds the key of our life 
 and can open the secret chambers, there can 
 be no surcease of anxiety till death comes. 
 
 O world, O life, O time, 
 
 On whose last step I climb, 
 
 Trembling at that where I stood firm before, 
 
 When shall return the glory of my prime ? 
 
 No more, ah ! nevermore. 
 
98 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Within a brief time another demand was made. 
 This time the price was too high both in money 
 and in honour, and a great-souled man fled into 
 the night of death in search of rest. They found 
 him on his knees. He had made his peace 
 with God. 
 
 Judas went out and it was night, and they tell 
 me that he found his field of Aceldama. 
 
 There appeared before one of the Metropolitan 
 police courts a woman charged with insulting 
 words and behaviour. She was found outside 
 a man's door creating a disturbance. This 
 was the preliminary pressure of blackmail. 
 
 There had been sickness in the house, and the 
 wife had been taken to a nursing home for 
 treatment. In a moment of recklessness the 
 man had brought a strange woman to his house. 
 It was her only visit, and after a little he put 
 away the recollection of the occurrence as one 
 of those things that are best forgotten. But 
 Fate remembered. 
 
 One night after his wife's return to convales- 
 cence and home, he was inquired for and he 
 interviewed the lady who called. The lady who 
 called was Fate which does not forget. She 
 wanted a loan and thought that he might oblige 
 her. He was in no mood for further transac- 
 
The Loom 99 
 
 tions and regretted his inability. The lady 
 thought that perhaps his wife might be more 
 considerate now she was at home. The innuendo 
 was unmistakable. The man did a wise man's 
 job. He threw the lady into the street. In 
 her expressions of surprise and indignation the 
 lady violated a section of the Police Act and 
 she found her way to the dock in the morning. 
 
 In the evening she was at Holloway. 
 
 It is a salutary rule of conduct to be chary 
 of strangers and suspicious of all aggressive 
 friendships. It is equally a salutary rule to 
 succumb to no menaces whatever be the alter- 
 native. 
 
 No matter what may be a man's guilt or sin 
 the Law does not permit its exploitation. Only 
 a neurotic can appear to view with complacency 
 a long term of penal servitude, and the con- 
 templation of it is usually a cure even for such 
 neurosis. 
 
 The Law is remorseless on the jackals of 
 Society. 
 
 But he does not win who plays with sin 
 In the Secret House of Shame. 
 
 7* 
 
loo The Loom of the Law 
 
 IV 
 
 CRIMES of violence vary in quality and degree. 
 Some of them have all the elements of pathos 
 and tragedy, others are the result of a calculated 
 brutality. 
 
 Pathos and tragedy do not win forgiveness 
 and the shadow of the gallows has fallen 
 across many a soul which already had lost all 
 because of the deed that brought the penalty 
 of death. 
 
 Quicklime has eaten the heart of a great love 
 no less than the heart of a great hate. It is 
 pitiful but it is inexorable. 
 
 The dynamic of life is love. It is the impulse 
 to all the arts and the propulsion to all great 
 effort. No human passion is in more deadly 
 need of restraint. Nature weaves spells over 
 the minds of men and blinds the human judg- 
 ment. All sense of relativity becomes lost and 
 men strike blindly and create tragedy. 
 
 Men kill because of love and because of love 
 are hanged. 
 
 I only knew what haunted thought 
 
 Quickened his step and why 
 
 He looked upon the garish day 
 
 With such a wistful eye. 
 
 The man had killed the thing he loved 
 
 And so he had to die. 
 
The Loom : lot 
 
 At times there is a less dreadful issue. Some 
 happy fate misdirects the blow and reason 
 returns before the tragedy is complete. I have 
 seen men stand in the dock rejoicing in their 
 great salvation. They struck at the heart but 
 they only hit the forearm, they struck blindly 
 but chance intervened. By the strange law 
 of some strange God they had escaped the 
 gallows ! 
 
 One goes to the gallows, another goes back to a 
 renewed and regenerated love. I have seen that 
 regeneration that might have ended on the 
 scaffold the beginning of a great happiness. 
 Strange problems haunt the mind and we wonder 
 at the how and why of things. 
 
 One struck at the heart and missed and lives, 
 another struck at the arm and killed and dies. 
 
 There appeared at one of the courts a man 
 charged with malicious wounding. There had 
 been a few days of strained relations between 
 his wife and him. She was out when he came 
 home one day and on her return he asked questions 
 about her goings. She resented the tone and 
 temper of his questionings and refused him 
 any answers. He was standing by the table 
 doing something with a knife. In a flash he 
 struck her and stuck it in her arm. Blood 
 
The Loom of the Law 
 
 spurted and reason returned. The deed was 
 done and his repentance was an agony. He 
 bound up the arm and took her to the surgeon 
 at the police station. The arm was stitched 
 and next day he was standing in the dock. 
 
 The wife told her story quietly and relevantly. 
 Rarely have I heard a woman talk in tones so 
 terrible in their coldness, and never once did 
 she lift her eyes towards the dock. The prisoner 
 never once lifted his eyes from the witness-box 
 where she stood. He was looking for a glance 
 that never came. Seldom can the use of such a 
 weapon be minimized and the Law views such 
 occurrences with gravity. The prisoner was 
 remanded in custody and he passed through 
 the door to the cells without that look that he 
 was longing for. 
 
 After a week the prisoner came back to the 
 dock. He admitted the offence, but it was 
 obvious that any term of imprisonment however 
 long would be the least part of his punishment. 
 The deed itself was his consummate punishment 
 and he had suffered more than any penalty the 
 Law could give. There only remained the 
 formal committal to the Central Criminal Court : 
 
 " Having heard the evidence do you wish to 
 say anything in answer to the charge ? You 
 are not obliged to say anything, but whatever 
 
The Loom 103 
 
 you do say will be taken down in writing and may 
 be given in evidence at your trial." 
 
 Before the caution was given the wife came 
 to the witness box. Some questions were put 
 and her deposition was read over to her. It 
 was then that she added her addendum : " / am 
 sure he never meant to hurt me" 
 
 The Law presumes that a man intends the 
 natural and probable consequences of his acts,^ 
 and if a man strikes with a knife he intends the 
 wounds, and wounds maliciously. It is a hard 
 doctrine sometimes. These two were young. 
 A mistake could mean life-long separation and 
 the spoliation of two lives : a wise discretion 
 could lead to reunion and happiness. A further 
 remand w T as ordered, this time on bail, and the 
 prisoner reappeared at the end of a week. How 
 that week had passed was written on their faces. 
 In the shame and sorrow of the last fortnight 
 these two people had seen life and its possibilities 
 at a new angle. The woman appealed for 
 66 something " to be done. " Surely it must not 
 all be spoilt now," she pleaded. A long remand 
 was ordered and at the end of it the reports 
 of the new, ordered and happy life were so satis- 
 factory that the charge was reduced to one of 
 aggravated assault and the prisoner was bound 
 over in his own recognizance to come up for 
 
104 The Loom of the Law 
 
 conviction and sentence if called upon within 
 two years. 
 
 The sequel has justified the decision. The 
 magnanimity of the wife has won a great affection 
 and I understand that the man who stabbed 
 his wife one day is now of the opinion that she 
 is the finest woman in the world. Certainly he 
 owes her much, for apart from the forgiveness 
 that she gave, her behaviour and appeal spared 
 him many a month's imprisonment. It was in 
 the shadow of the dock that he made his great 
 discovery. 
 
 But such procedure is not without its dangers. 
 There is the risk of another outburst and of the 
 possibility of murder. The fact that a charge 
 has been made may add fuel to the flames of 
 passion and a new chance may mean a tragedy. 
 
 In one of the police courts a woman had 
 applied for a separation order on the grounds 
 of persistent cruelty. In order to give the 
 Court jurisdiction the cruelty must have been 
 not merely persistent but of such a character 
 as to cause the wife to leave and live separate 
 and apart from the husband. Some issue arose 
 at the hearing as to the living apart and the 
 Court, finding itself without jurisdiction, urged 
 the parties to make up the quarrel and live 
 
The Loom 105 
 
 in peace. The woman went back and within a 
 day or two the husband cut her throat. And he 
 was hanged by the neck till he was dead. 
 
 Efforts at reconciliation may result in a 
 renewed conjugal happiness or they may lay 
 the foundations of murder. 
 
 The scope of the Bench's discretion is very 
 extensive, but the exercise of it makes a demand 
 on every quality of mind and heart and on the 
 experience of a life time. 
 
 The administration of the law is a larger task 
 than learning the substance of statutes and the 
 rules of evidence. The new ideals of the modern 
 state make the task more difficult than in former 
 times. The emphasis that is laid on giving a 
 man a chance and restoring lost characters raises 
 problems and imposes duties that gave less 
 concern to our predecessors. 
 
 No man views lightly the imposition of im- 
 prisonment, especially a first term of imprison- 
 ment. On the other hand to discharge every 
 first offender regardless of the offence and the 
 circumstances of its commission would result in 
 social demoralization. 
 
 In the last analysis each magistrate and judge 
 must decide according to his conscience and his 
 wisdom. Perhaps in the consciousness of his 
 
106 The Loom of the Law 
 
 own frailties and of his own bitter strivings, in 
 the unending conflict of good and evil in the 
 worst and in the best of us, some clue may be 
 found for wise decisions. Let us judge as we 
 would be judged. 
 
 THE Law has no quality of mercy for the cruel. 
 It is in this region that it still recognizes the 
 efficacy of flogging, and public opinion is strong 
 in its approval. 
 
 There are types of men to whom pity makes 
 no appeal, and for whom mercy has no meaning. 
 Their only response is to their own suffering. 
 The bully is known to every school boy, and the 
 cure for the bully is also within the compass of 
 a schoolboy's knowledge. The only deterrent 
 is the certainty that there is a stronger than he. 
 
 The ordinary criminal is a gentleman in 
 texture and behaviour compared with such. 
 He chooses his opportunity, and takes his 
 chance, but he draws a line at robbing women 
 or the aged. Chivalry lives to a surprising 
 degree amongst criminals, and they will suffer 
 much to save their women, and the women will 
 lie much to shield the men. Perhaps, in spite 
 of Perjury Acts this should be counted unto 
 
The Loom 107 
 
 them for righteousness. One night a stranger 
 came into a lodging house that opened its doors 
 to wanderers. It was a dull November night, 
 and such nights are provocative of tragedy. 
 The stranger was neither communicative nor 
 approachable, and he ate his supper in a corner 
 by himself. There was staying at the same 
 house a husband and wife, who had arrived 
 earlier in the day. 
 
 The stranger's behaviour appeared to cause 
 resentment in the woman, and with a woman's 
 sure intuition she found a trifle on which to 
 raise trouble. The stranger wore a watch and 
 chain. She began by addressing nobody in 
 particular : " The house is getting classy." 
 " The gentry are beginning to come, and it 
 must be nice to be gentry." " Some of us have 
 got a watch and chain." The stranger paid no 
 heed to the insulting taunts of the woman, 
 though she kept her tongue going all the evening. 
 
 Addressing the keeper of the lodging house : 
 
 ' You might see if my motor car has come ; are 
 
 you sure the footman hasn't come ? Maybe he 
 
 has got my watch and chain." And so the 
 
 hours went by. 
 
 The wanderers retired for the night, but the 
 woman kept the clamour going. The silence 
 of the stranger was an aggravation to her 
 
108 The Loom of the Law 
 
 resentment, till nothing less than violence 
 would satisfy her. 
 
 She urged upon her husband that the man's 
 behaviour was an insulting challenge to him, 
 and together they attacked the stranger in his 
 bunk. The men struggled, and the woman 
 stabbed the stranger with her scissors. It was 
 a mortal wound, and he died at the infirmary. 
 
 Murder was done 
 
 All for the sake of 
 
 The tongue of the woman that owned him. 
 
 The husband and wife were tried for murder, 
 and the husband was convicted of manslaughter. 
 The woman was discharged. 
 
 This battered remnant of manhood, with a 
 chivalry worthy of the best age of chivalry, 
 strove hard to shield the woman who had 
 wrought the misery. 
 
 The Law has a strange theory the relic of 
 another day that a woman who commits an 
 offence in the presence of her husband is pre- 
 sumed to be acting under his coercion. This 
 surely is unfair to women, and is another illus- 
 tration of sex inequality ! And so it was that 
 the chivalrous tramp went to seven years' penal 
 servitude, and he went with just a suggestion 
 of gaiety because the woman had escaped. 
 
 But there are men of another calibre, who, 
 
The Loom 109 
 
 in search of an easy job, will rob old men or 
 exploit women. They haunt lonely by-ways of 
 cities or the quietude of country lanes. The 
 only thing sacred to them is their own miserable 
 bodies, and the only avenue of appeal is to 
 make those bodies suffer pain. One respects 
 the idealism of those who desire to eliminate 
 physical force and restraint from human affairs. 
 It is a great dream that one day may know 
 fulfilment. One longs and prays for its speedy 
 consummation. Meantime, there must be a 
 strong deterrent, and experience demonstrates 
 that the " cat " deters. 
 
 If any type of criminal can be regarded as 
 " classic," it is perhaps in the two offences of 
 blackmail and robbery with violence. The 
 former is not seldom dapper and dressy ; the 
 latter is often a stunted weed who exudes 
 servility. If there are no women to rob, an old 
 man will do, and the older he is the better. 
 One of this type came before a police court 
 not long ago. He was a " classic " in appear- 
 ance and demeanour. He had the furtiveness 
 of a fox and the felinity of a cat. He was pure 
 animal, and belonged by nature to the wilds. 
 He lured an aged and drunken seaman into a 
 dark byway of East London, and tried to go 
 through the old man's pockets. 
 
no The Loom of the Law 
 
 The old sailor was a Scotsman, and as such 
 he intuitively resented, even in drink, any 
 approach to his pockets, and showed such 
 resistance as he was capable of. He was 
 promptly knocked down and severely kicked. 
 
 The police are watchful, and the robber was 
 caught, and he bears on his body the marks of 
 his " daring " and for many years he will not 
 be known in the habitations of men. 
 
 Another type of degenerate is that which 
 lives on the immoral earnings of women. The 
 only mitigating circumstance is that the women 
 aid and abet, or it could not occur. Even in 
 this offence women will lie to shield the most 
 contemptible of things created. It is worthy 
 of notice that men of this order do not seem to 
 trouble East London. I have only met him 
 once. Their haunts and habitations lie in the 
 gay and gaudy West. East London is the 
 place of toil, and squalor and teeming millions. 
 The ships come and go by thousands carrying 
 merchandise from the ends of the earth. The 
 broken and unskilled drift into its mean streets, 
 and there is often hunger, and want and cold. 
 East London sins, but it sins manfully, almost 
 with chivalry. There is no gilt or tawdry 
 drapings ; there is no gleam of lights, and no 
 music of strange instruments to give a sensuous 
 
 
The Loom 
 
 ill 
 
 setting and the camouflage of gaiety. It is 
 raw and raucous. But the deadliest insult that 
 can be offered in the East is to say a man's a 
 66 ponce." 
 
 We drink down East till we lie across the tram- 
 way lines, and we lay our heads on the gutter- 
 ways of Poplar, though it may be that our 
 visions are other than those that Jacob saw at 
 Bethel. But we leave it to the West to touch 
 the last human degradation of eating the bread 
 that is bought with the wages of shame. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE LOOM AND THE CHILD 
 
 T3ERHAPS the strangest commentary on 
 our strange humanity is that an Act 
 was passed to protect children in the year of 
 Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and eight, 
 and that a society exists whose exclusive 
 function is to prevent cruelty to children. 
 
 The thing that a priori seems impossible is 
 the thing that a posteriori is a fact, namely, 
 that the protection and prevention have relation 
 mostly to those from whom children have the 
 right to expect affection, devotion and worship. 
 
 This Statute and this Society should temper 
 the eloquence and idealism of those who think 
 that humanity is magnificent. " De minimis 
 lex non curat " is a maxim of law, and if cruelties, 
 and neglects and exploitations had been rare, 
 the Act of 1908 would not have been passed, 
 nor would the Society of 1884 have been founded. 
 The Statute and the Society are the expression 
 of the existence of a great wrong. 
 
 112 
 
The Loom and the Child 113 
 
 Thousands of children are strangers to affec- 
 tion and concern. They are without those 
 expressions of generous love that make up the 
 richest recollections of our childhood. Not a 
 few are begotten in drink and nurtured in cruelty. 
 They are the unwanted sequelae of an 
 untempered lust. 
 
 A colleague said the other day : " The only 
 power I envy God is the power to sterilize ! ' 
 
 That is a dreadful saying, but it was the out- 
 burst of a great sympathy with the children 
 whose only inheritance is disease and neglect 
 The vision of the sorrows of childhood hurts the 
 soul. 
 
 Think of this debasement ! A man appeared 
 at one of the courts not long ago. He was 
 summoned for arrears due to his wife and children 
 under a maintenance order. For many months 
 he had paid nothing and the wife and children 
 " lived on starvation." I have seldom seen such 
 a bedraggled specimen of womanhood. She was 
 weary and worn and spiritless. Literally her 
 heart had been broken. She was in her thirties, 
 but life held no enchantment and had no re- 
 siliency. By her, in legitimate wedlock, he had 
 six children ; by a bigamous marriage he had 
 two, and by two unmarried women he had two. 
 
 Ten children were begotten and born into the 
 
 8 
 
114 The Loom of the Law 
 
 bitterness of an unheeding world at the bidding 
 of an unrestrained passion and abandoned to any 
 fate that God or Devil chose. 
 
 This surely is a man without mercy and without 
 pity, without sentiment and without goodness : 
 an instrument of villainy and a vile person. 
 
 At the same court there appeared a woman 
 on a charge of cruelty to a little girl of six. It 
 was a demure and charming child that went into 
 the witness-box. She told her story as if it were 
 a normal occurrence in the world's day. 
 
 " On Sunday Daddy and Mummie went away 
 at twelve to get beer. I waited for them ever so 
 long and they did not come back. I waited till 
 nearly three and I was hungry so I took some 
 potatoes out of the pot. When Mummie came 
 back she was angry and asked me why I took 
 them. I told her I was hungry. She said, * Take 
 this as well,' and she lifted a knife and stuck it in 
 my arm." 
 
 The little arm bore the stitches of the stab 
 that had ripped for several inches. 
 
 The horrible thing about the whole case was 
 the attitude of the child. Everything that had 
 happened seemed to be the natural thing to 
 happen. There was no resentment, no sense of 
 wrong, no bitterness. The child spoke of Mummie 
 as if she were what Mummies always are. 
 
The Loom and the Child 115 
 
 A little fellow appeared at one of the children's 
 courts. He was only seven and was charged with 
 wandering. The police had found him wander- 
 ing about midnight in the by-streets of East 
 London and he was taken to a Home. He ap- 
 peared at the court and a more winsome little 
 man I never saw. 
 
 He was remanded for a week, for the police told 
 a story of his abandonment that needed further 
 investigation. 
 
 He was the son of a soldier who fell in Flanders 
 and the soldier's widow was a participator in a 
 nation's gratitude for the sacrifice of her fallen 
 heroes. 
 
 The lad came back on remand and the police 
 had brought, too, his sister who was younger 
 than he. 
 
 She was brought near by him and a forlorn 
 little soul she looked. 
 
 The little man edged closer and closer and 
 closer till he got beside her and then he put 
 his arm around her waist and kissed her on the 
 cheek. 
 
 It was the most chivalrous thing I ever saw 
 in the world and I confess I had to keep my head 
 down to hide the emotions that I felt. 
 
 This magnificent little cavalier had been 
 abandoned in London streets to any chance of 
 
 8* 
 
116 The Loom of the Law 
 
 fate or fortune and his little sister was living in 
 associations that the Law forbids. 
 
 Such is one of the prices that we pay for war, 
 and it is not the least price. Many men went to 
 the front with this dread gnawing at their hearts. 
 The fate of the children was the terror that 
 haunted them by day and by night. And some 
 men fell and in their death the children lost every 
 chance of care and affection. 
 
 Political women sometimes talk as though all 
 the cardinal virtues were woven into the texture 
 of women. That, coupled with wisdom that is 
 essentially feminine and intuitions such as men 
 can never aspire to, makes them the custodians 
 of the new world to be. It may be so. But the 
 cruelties, the neglects, the abandonments that I 
 have known have been as often by women 
 as by men. Perhaps, after all, human affection 
 has little relation to either politics or sex. 
 
 There is a desperate need of a new orientation 
 on the claims of childhood and the responsibilities 
 of parenthood. Such a matter, unhappily, 
 raises a clamour of conflicting interests politics, 
 theology, and economics ; and in the unrealities 
 of debate the actualities become obscured. 
 Meanwhile the sufferings of childhood continue. 
 
 Ought a man to call into being children whom 
 
The Loom and the Child 117 
 
 he cannot support or can only support at the 
 cost of other children ? And if the State pro- 
 vides them with food and raiment ought he to 
 call them into being unless he is prepared to 
 nourish them with care and affection ? If so, 
 why? 
 
 If their heritage is to be hunger and want or 
 neglect and indifference what is the justification ? 
 
 It is true that economic and social conditions 
 are wrong, that in an ideally ordered world there 
 would be no want and no overcrowding ; but 
 this present world is far adrift from the ideal. 
 It may be that one day other forms of a social 
 order will bring the world to a realization of the 
 ideal, but that is not yet. Meanwhile, the 
 children suffer. The number of abandoned wives 
 and children must run to thousands and the 
 number of children underfed, underclad, badly 
 housed, must run to tens of thousands. The 
 economic conditions are terrible, but the neglect 
 of parental responsibilities is equally terrible. 
 Parenthood is not exhausted in procreation and 
 its obligations are to be judged in the existing 
 circumstances. 
 
 The fact that staggers me is the multitude of 
 children without a chance, and the condem- 
 nation of the social order is not saving the 
 children. As I see them and their sufferings my 
 
118 The Loom of the Law 
 
 only feeling is an intense wish that they had 
 never been born. 
 
 The man and woman who can lightly beckon 
 children from their " Land of Dreams " to a 
 world that holds no love and no worship are guilty 
 of a terrible thing. They are bereft of more than 
 bread. Children count little on economic values. 
 Their world is woven out of things that are 
 neither bought nor sold and their only treasure 
 is human care and affection. Even this is denied 
 to millions. 
 
 It is one of the sorrows of the world. Perhaps 
 it is one of the sorrows that could be lessened by a 
 little vision and a little denial. Perhaps, too, 
 one day public opinion will accept the principle 
 laid down in Galilee. 
 
 " Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 When the children gather round us in the 
 twilight of a Christmas Eve and we share 
 in their innocence and delights there breaks 
 across the glory of it all the remembrance 
 of childhood's miseries. Why ? Why those 
 rosy faces and laughing eyes beside us ? 
 Why others with faces pinched and pale 
 and with eyes that are red with weeping. 
 Why? 
 
 It is God's world and only He can tell the 
 answer 
 
The Loom and the Child 119 
 
 ii 
 
 THERE is something bizarre in the notion of 
 Society defending itself against childhood. Every 
 sentiment and experience that we associate with 
 the nursery and home make it ridiculous, out- 
 rageous. Every nursery has its rebels and no 
 West-end roysterers protest more vigorously 
 against " closing hours " and grandmotherly 
 restrictions. Challenges and denunciations are 
 flung at the clock which puts an end to the day's 
 joys and gathers little bodies into that land of 
 sleep which is a land of lost hours and forgetful- 
 ness. Often those rebels steal moments from 
 Father Time and laugh at the enormity of their 
 offence. 
 
 In spite of domestic laws toys are hidden in 
 bed and books are put under the pillows, and the 
 injunctions that age and wisdom give are chal- 
 lenged and often disobeyed. 
 
 Quietness and order are restored and the 
 disciplinary processes of life are applied and 
 learnt in gentleness and affection. Though there 
 may be tears at times they are soon wiped away 
 in the promise of a joyous to-morrow. 
 
 How rich life grows for both the teacher and 
 the learner ! Time's loom weaves memories 
 
120 The Loom of the Law 
 
 that, to not a few, are life's glory. At all events 
 they last the longest and old men waiting in the 
 twilight often find them God's streets of gold. 
 I waited once by the bed-side of an octogenarian. 
 He was a lonely soul who had gone through life 
 as far as one could judge without friendship or 
 affection. He aimed at money and he got much. 
 And he husbanded all he had. He was almost 
 the last of his race and was waited on by strangers. 
 The world was his ; at least, all of it that money 
 can buy. But his longing was to get strength 
 enough to go back to the world that he had known 
 and once possessed. He was indifferent to his 
 deed-box and careless of his keys ; he wanted 
 to go back to Magheragall. 
 
 There were " arrangements " to be made, and 
 " things " to be attended to, but he was uncon- 
 cerned ; for Magheragall was nearer and dearer 
 than the market-places of the world. 
 
 But tens of thousands learn discipline by a 
 less generous ministry and weave memories that 
 do not grow in tenderness with the passing of 
 time. 
 
 The Law has its children and it, too, must 
 teach the disciplines of life. 
 
 " Where a child apparently under the age of 
 twelve years is charged before a Court of Assize 
 
The Loom and the Child 121 
 
 or Quarter Sessions or a Petty Sessional Court 
 with an offence punishable in the case of an 
 adult by penal servitude or a less punishment, 
 the court, if satisfied on inquiry that it is ex- 
 pedient so to deal with the child, may order him 
 to be sent to a certified industrial school." 
 
 " Where the parent or guardian of a child 
 proves to a Petty Sessional Court that he is unable 
 to control the child and that he desires the child 
 to be sent to an industrial school, the court 
 if satisfied on inquiry that it is expedient so to 
 deal with the child may order him to be sent to 
 a certified industrial school." 
 
 " Where a youthful offender, who in the 
 opinion of the Court before which he is charged 
 is twelve years of age or upwards, but less than 
 sixteen years of age, is convicted whether on 
 indictment or by a Petty Sessional Court, of an 
 offence punishable in the case of an adult with 
 penal servitude or imprisonment, the court may 
 in addition to or in lieu of sentencing him accord- 
 ing to law to any other punishment, order that 
 he be sent to a certified reformatory school : 
 provided that where the offender is ordered to 
 be sent to a certified reformatory school he shall 
 not in addition be sentenced to imprisonment." 
 6 The detention order shall specify the time 
 for which the youthful offender or child is to be 
 
122 The Loom of the Law 
 
 detained in the school. In the case of a youthful 
 offender sent to a reformatory school, not less 
 than three and not more than five years, but not 
 in any case extending beyond the time when the 
 youthful offender will, in the opinion of the Court, 
 attain the age of nineteen years." 
 
 " In the case of a child sent to an industrial 
 school such time as to the Court may seem proper 
 for the teaching and training of the child, but 
 not in any case extending beyond the time when 
 the child will, in the opinion of the Court, attain 
 the age of sixteen years." 
 
 Any person may bring before a Petty Sessional 
 Court any person apparently under the age of 
 fourteen years who : 
 
 (a) is found begging or receiving alms (whether 
 or not there is any pretence of singing, playing, 
 performing, offering anything for sale or other- 
 wise) or being in any street, premises, or place 
 for the purpose of so begging or receiving alms ; 
 
 (b) is found wandering and not having any 
 home or settled place of abode or visible means 
 of subsistence, or is found wandering and having 
 no parent or guardian or a parent or guardian who 
 does not exercise proper guardianship ; 
 
 (c) is found destitute, not being an orphan and 
 having both parents or his surviving parent or 
 
The Loom and the Child 123 
 
 in the case of an illegitimate child his mother, 
 undergoing penal servitude or imprisonment ; 
 
 (d) is under the care of a parent or guardian 
 who, by reason of criminal or drunken habits, is 
 unfit to have the care of the child ; 
 
 (e) is the daughter, whether legitimate or 
 illegitimate, of a father who has been convicted 
 of an offence under section 4 or section 5 of the 
 Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, in respect 
 of any of his daughters whether legitimate or 
 illegitimate ; 
 
 (/) frequents the company of any reputed 
 thief or of any common or reputed prostitute ; 
 
 (g) is lodging or residing in a house or the part 
 of a house used by any prostitute for the purpose 
 of prostitution, or is otherwise living in circum- 
 stances calculated to cause, encourage or favour 
 the seduction or prostitution of the child. 
 
 And the court before which a person is brought 
 as coming within one of those descriptions, if 
 satisfied on inquiry of that fact and that it is 
 expedient so to deal with him may order him 
 to be sent to a certified industrial school. 
 
 Under twelve ! Under fourteen ! And the 
 Law gathers to its cold breast the castaways, 
 the derelicts, the unwanted, and the convicted 
 felons of childhood. But cold as is the bosom 
 
124 The Loom of the Law 
 
 of the Law it is warmer than the tenderness of 
 many mothers. 
 
 The Statistics of the National Society for the 
 Prevention of Cruelty to Children are revealing. 
 During the year ending March, 1922, 36,027 
 cases affecting the welfare of 92,364 children 
 were reported. Of these 30,593 related to starva- 
 tion and neglect, and 3,130 to ill-treatment and 
 assault. 
 
 JUVENILE COURTS. The total number of per- 
 sons brought before Juvenile Courts in 1920 
 was 38,143, viz., 19,505 children, 16,559 young 
 persons and 2,079 persons aged above 16. 
 Deducting the latter persons and adding 837 
 children and 3,297 young persons who were dealt 
 with by ordinary Courts of Summary Jurisdic- 
 tion, either because they were charged jointly 
 with adults or because they were supposed to 
 be above 16, we get a total of 40,198 juvenile 
 offenders (20,342 children and 19,856 young 
 persons). This total is less than 6 per cent, 
 of the whole number of persons proceeded against 
 for criminal offences. The number of juvenile 
 offenders in 1913 was 38,341. 
 
 Of the 35,959 youthful offenders brought 
 before Juvenile Courts (omitting 105 who were 
 not tried summarily), 3,855 (or 11 per cent.) 
 
The Loom and the Child 125 
 
 were acquitted, orders without conviction were 
 made against 14,229 persons (or 39 per cent.), 
 and 17,875 persons (or 50 per cent.) were convicted. 
 
 Of the 14,229 juvenile offenders who were 
 proved guilty but not " convicted," 6,355 were 
 discharged (in some cases being ordered to pay 
 damages or costs), 2,339 were ordered to enter 
 into recognizances, 4,691 were placed under the 
 supervision of probation officers, 812 were sent 
 to industrial schools, and 32 were placed in the 
 care of relatives, sent to Institutions for Defec- 
 tives, etc. 
 
 There were 12 youthful offenders sentenced 
 to imprisonment, 46 were sentenced to confine- 
 ment in places of detention, 824 were committed 
 to reformatory schools, 1,285 males were ordered 
 to be whipped, and 15,591 (or 87 per cent, of 
 the number convicted) were sentenced to pay 
 fines. In 3,097 cases the fine was ordered to be 
 paid by the parent or guardian of the defendant. 
 
 REFORMATORY SCHOOLS. In 1920 there were 
 941 youthful offenders admitted on conviction 
 to reformatory schools. The number admitted 
 on conviction in 1913 was 1,224. 
 
 INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS. The total number of 
 children (12 under 14) admitted to industrial 
 schools was 1,409. Of this number 616 were 
 
126 The Loom of the Law 
 
 charged with crime ; the remainder were mainly 
 children found begging or wandering without 
 a home or not under parental control. 
 
 The state has made generous provision for 
 the care of the castaways and for the training 
 of its youthful offenders, but the state cannot 
 create the atmosphere, the impulses, the generous 
 understandings that operate in a normal home. 
 It creates institutions, it cannot create hearts ; 
 it provides food and raiment, it cannot provide 
 love. 
 
 It supplies instruction, but it cannot supply 
 sympathetic understanding. These are qualities 
 that money cannot hire 
 
 Perhaps one day women of fine sympathies 
 and generous natures will see a career in such a 
 work as this, and men of understanding will 
 see in it a calling. 
 
 Denunciations and flamboyant paragraphs 
 exposing the harshness and joylessness of Borstal 
 or reformatories excite the emotions for a 
 moment, but transient emotionalism is singularly 
 ineffective. It is impersonal, and barren. 
 
 The alleged superfluous woman, whom the 
 war is said to have robbed of all the things that 
 matter, may find a fosterage that will utilize 
 all the pent-up love that longs for children, 
 
The Loom and the Child 127 
 
 and it may be that a joyousness, too. will come 
 by reason of the love she gives to those who 
 are strangers to its gentle patience and for- 
 giveness. In giving much she may gain much. 
 It is the personal touch that counts, and it is 
 affection that restrains. Perhaps most of us 
 have committed just those offences for which 
 lads and girls have been sent to industrial schools. 
 The environment made all the difference. I 
 confess to have committed malicious damage 
 and assaults, and I know I might easily 
 have been beyond control only I dared not 
 hurt one who understood. Love holds where 
 law fails. 
 
 Older and wiser and disillusioned I have dared 
 more than once to challenge accredited authority 
 because it was claimed in a spirit that lacked 
 understanding. Affection tones down mis- 
 demeanours, and the things out of which felonies 
 are made can be transmuted to offences that bear 
 a less ugly name. The Law does its best to 
 discipline and teach its young offenders, but it 
 is a poor best. Alas ! Communism does not 
 seem to work even in the unmaterialistic kingdom 
 of childhood. 
 
 If it could operate there it would be an easy 
 matter to " communize " in more material 
 affairs. The fundamental of that kingdom is 
 
128 The Loom of the Law 
 
 that it is more blessed to give than to receive. 
 And the things that it most desires are eternal. 
 And the greatest of these is love. 
 
 in 
 
 A Children's Court is usually a joyous place, 
 though now and then there are elements that 
 make fo* sadness and sorrow. The impulses to 
 most offences are those bubbling animal spirits 
 and that indomitable joie de vivre that made 
 the Cockney a glorious fighting man on the 
 fields of Europe and Asia and Africa. The 
 Cockneys were the soldiers who went singing 
 through the war. " Tipperary " was emphatic 
 in its idolization of Piccadilly and its longing 
 for Leicester Square. 
 
 The stone figures on a park fountain make 
 and always will make the fingers of boyhood 
 tingle to throw stones, and street lamps have 
 had a fatal fascination for the lads of this genera- 
 tion and the last, and maybe, the one before. 
 From the ratepayers' point of view it is very 
 reprehensible and merits discouragement, but 
 it hardly reveals a criminal disposition. You 
 and I have done it and grown into citizens of 
 passable respectability. Some of the lads may 
 
The Loom and the Child 
 
 129 
 
 live to be deacons at the Ebenezer Chapel or 
 even curates of the Establishment. 
 
 We, too, have played football in the street 
 with rag balls, and whilst it is true that a jab 
 on the mouth with a bundle of wet rags is dis- 
 concerting, it is equally true that boys won't be 
 girls ! And perhaps, on the whole, it is not an 
 unsatisfactory arrangement. At times some lad 
 forms a dislike to a maiden lady who, in his 
 opinion, is officious and interfering, and he takes 
 it out of her cat. The charge is mostly one of 
 throwing stones at the cat. He may even cut 
 the clothes line or lift the milk from the door- 
 step and thus fall into the offence of malicious 
 damage or larceny. 
 
 Empty houses are an endless source of adven- 
 ture. The wood work comes in handy at home 
 for mother, and the water-taps and gas brackets 
 and the zinc and brass and lead and other precious 
 metals provide inexhaustible treasure trove. 
 
 Fireworks are a super- delight. 
 
 English lads appear not to have discovered 
 the " annoying value " of cayenne pepper and 
 cotton wool. Once on the Bench, in a moment 
 of mental aberration, I nearly disclosed the 
 formula for its user, but a reproving glance from 
 the clerk restored me to a proper appreciation 
 of what was expected of me. 
 
 9 
 
130 The Loom of the Law 
 
 At the Children's Court there is a parade of 
 glorious boyhood at its worst and best. Rest- 
 less, bursting with energy, longing for adventure, 
 responsive to the push and pressure of many- 
 sided, infinite life. Here we find the young 
 savage and the old citizens attempting a read- 
 justment or, as the politicians say, " trying to 
 find a formula ! 5! 
 
 What manly, merry little men they are ! 
 Rosy faces and sparkling eyes and white, lithe 
 limbs, and little trousers into whose pockets 
 dirty little hands are driven to the tide marks on 
 the wrists. 
 
 They know the meaning of honour, and they 
 pledge their word " not to do it again." They 
 wait about the door till the " beak " comes out, 
 and shrill little voices wish him " Good-day." 
 This is the sign and symbol that they understand 
 that he has understood. But the Children's 
 Court has other aspects. At times it becomes a 
 microcosm of the holocaust of childhood. What 
 wastage of high possibilities ! What lamentable 
 parental obtuseness and indifference ! What 
 perversion and subversion of motherhood ! 
 
 Theologically human life is a rich and precious 
 thing. Its value transcends that of sheep and 
 oxen and even gold and precious stones. 
 
 The theological appraisement contains all the 
 
The Loom and the Child 
 
 essentials for rhetorical appeal. What else can 
 move in the same degree the response of a political 
 assembly or push votes into the ballot-box ? 
 An election could be won to-morrow on the cry 
 " Justice for Childhood." 
 
 This appraisement, God's value, is unchallenged 
 except in actuality. And the men and women 
 who are cruel or neglectful or indifferent would 
 be the first to lead a mob to lynch a neighbour 
 who meted out the same injustice to his child. 
 
 Those in search of a ministry and purpose in 
 life or for a joyousness that only children can 
 give might find them at a Children's Court, and 
 incidentally they might enrich the community 
 in training and equipping one of these little 
 pilgrims. A day amongst the forlorn and neg- 
 lected chiMren of London sets in a queer light 
 the abandoned affection that is wasted on pam- 
 pered dogs till the dog himself becomes an 
 unnatural and repulsive obtrusion. The sub- 
 stitution of a little white man for a little black 
 pug in the affections and homes of women 
 worn with ennui and listlessness would bring 
 such women into a world of joy of which they 
 have only dreamed. 
 
 Is all this profusion of dog-love an affecta- 
 tion, or is it a perversion of human affection ? 
 There may be winsomeness in dogs, but there 
 
 9* 
 
132 The Loom of the Law 
 
 is neither cleanliness nor delicacy and there 
 are none of the potentialities that attach to " one 
 of these little ones." 
 
 Once I knew a lady who was the relict of a 
 wealthy manufacturer, and she inherited a 
 substantial fraction of a million. She was 
 overwhelmed in ennui and ranged and roved the 
 world in quest of some satisfaction. She knew 
 most of the world's capitals at least, the best 
 hotels of those capitals, and some of their 
 churches. She and a dog ! 
 
 The nearest she knew of a demonstration of 
 pure affection was the unsanitary lick of a dog 
 on her cheek, and she was starving for some warm 
 human dependency. Once I suggested that an 
 infinitude of human affection was being wasted 
 in the world and she assented. I told her 
 stories of the new world that had been created 
 at the touch of baby hands. She became 
 suspicious. 
 
 At last I became concrete and told her of the 
 children that were waiting for some hand to 
 guide them and some heart to love them . . . 
 waiting for her. The lady looked at me in 
 amazement at my audacity and gravely suggested 
 that I was verging on the indecent ! 
 
 There is something ghastly in the sheer im- 
 becility of luxurious limousines taking Fido 
 
The Loom and the Child 133 
 
 for a drive ! He would be happier running by 
 the wheels. 
 
 No woman's life is functioning normally who 
 is bereft of the comradeship of children. With 
 all respect to the possibilities offered by the 
 " enfranchisement " of women and in all deference 
 to the intellectual equipment of the " enfran- 
 chised " it is probable that mother Nature will not 
 forget the law she enunciated when both women 
 and the world were younger. 
 
 The most sinister figure that appears is the 
 stepmother. I wonder why ? Is there here 
 some relic of a primordial law ? It is certainly 
 more than an impulse conditioned by the tem- 
 perament of the individual. Again and again 
 one meets with wanton injustice and deliberate 
 unkindness. There came before a court a 
 girl of fourteen. She was prepossessing and 
 intelligent ; she was charged with being " beyond 
 control." 
 
 One looked at the accuser and the accused. 
 One question and answer elucidated the whole 
 problem. " Stepmother ? Yes ! " That was the 
 relevant and dominating fact. 
 
 Everybody spoke in glowing terms of the girl's 
 abilities, of her disposition, of her character, of 
 her tractability except the stepmother. 
 
 The father was silent, though it was clear he 
 
134 The Loom of the Law 
 
 held those views, perhaps he had memories of 
 other days. 
 
 One pitied him. The girl was offered a chance 
 of going home again to try and make a new 
 beginning or going to an institution. 
 
 All the bitterness and sorrow of her young 
 life found expression in a sentence. " I won't 
 go home. I prefer to go to gaol ! " 
 
 This woman had robbed the girl of life's best 
 treasure, and in robbing the child she lost her 
 own soul. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE LOOM AND THE LOST 
 
 T HAVE heard it argued that in response to 
 some all-compelling law, there must be 
 
 ' women of convenience." This involves as a 
 corollary that each generation must muster its 
 own recruits. The innocence of yesterday must 
 be sacrificed to the necessities of to-day. We 
 are what we are and what must be will be. But 
 there is this curious proviso in our acceptance 
 of the " Necessary " law, that the recruiting 
 area ought to lie beyond our domestic environs 
 and outside the radius of our friendships and 
 affections. Once the new recruit is a Martha 
 or Mary whom we know and care for, the all- 
 compelling law becomes a devastating tragedy 
 and the man who argued the necessity will lynch 
 the man who responded to its compulsion. 
 
 It is easy to be naturalistic and philosophic 
 when the tragedy rips the heart of X or Y or Z, 
 
 135 
 
136 The Loom of the Law 
 
 but the inexorable law withers into an unescapable 
 lie in the revealing light of a personal sorrow. 
 
 The opinion of medical authority seems to 
 confirm the instinctive revulsions of such a sorrow. 
 
 Once I heard it argued in a train. A man of 
 the world had stated the empirical law and 
 quoted authorities in justification. The law and 
 the supporting dicta appeared to be beyond 
 challenge. One man brought the problem into 
 a true perspective and relativity. 
 
 " 1 know a man who wants to meet your sister." 
 
 " Who is that ? " There was mentioned the 
 name of a roue of the neighbourhood. 
 
 " Why does he want to meet her ? ' 
 
 " He wants to assist her to graduate in the 
 oldest profession in the world." 
 
 The philosopher of empiric law became vio- 
 lently indignant, but the other man challenged 
 his right to be indignant by reason of the fact 
 that there was a roue true to his temperamental 
 tendencies and responsive to a necessary law. 
 Prostitution like patriotism demands the sacri- 
 fices of others. 
 
 There is a heart-breaking parade at police 
 courts of those " sad gay girls that ply for hire." 
 
 These are the real cohorts of the damned, 
 for they are always social lepers. They are 
 
The Loom and the Lost 137 
 
 the playthings of men at their foulest and the 
 culture-beds of loathsome disease. The disease 
 of the mind is not less than the disease of the 
 body. 
 
 Something dies in a girl's soul, and she becomes 
 fearful in her utter unresponsiveness. She has 
 plumbed the depths of life's degradation. There 
 is nothing left to gain or lose or fear. 
 
 There came before the court a girl of sixteen 
 charged with a street offence. She had all the 
 freshness and colour of healthy English girlhood 
 and the dock of a police court was the last place 
 in the world where one would have looked for her. 
 
 The police had found her " plying for hire " 
 in Chinatown. She was put back in order that 
 the lady missionary at the court should talk 
 to her. On her return to the dock she appeared 
 responsive and was " Bound over not to frequent 
 Chinatown," and put under the care of the 
 lady missionary. 
 
 Within a few months the girl was back again. 
 She had broken the terms of her recognizance 
 and had returned to Pennyfields. She was 
 found soliciting coloured men. This time she 
 was remanded for a week. An effort was made to 
 find some lady who would take the girl into her 
 home and train her for domestic service. 
 
138 The Loom of the Law 
 
 A lady consented. Her home was down in 
 Kent. There were flowers and children and a 
 happy domesticity. One felt that here were 
 all the circumstances that could win and hold 
 the affections of girlhood. The missionary fitted 
 her out with clothes and a complete equipment 
 for the new start and arranged to meet her for 
 the journey to the new home. The girl never 
 came but instead she disappeared. 
 
 She was lost for many months. 
 
 One morning a woman went into the dock 
 on the charge of being a disorderly prostitute. 
 Her violent behaviour and filthy abuse in the dock 
 left little doubt as to her character and conduct. 
 She was violent, debauched and degraded, and 
 her only response to an offer of an interview with 
 the missionary was further and fouler abuse. 
 
 It was then that it was discovered that this 
 was the girl who some months before had missed 
 the chance of a decent life. She had aged in 
 appearance and degradation beyond recognition. 
 It was a revelation of the rapidity with which 
 we can pay the wages of sin. 
 
 The physical degradation was nothing in 
 comparison with the mental and moral disinte- 
 gration of her character. 
 
 This was the handiwork of some man who had 
 obeyed the all-compelling law ! 
 
The Loom and the Lost 
 
 139 
 
 One morning a pretty girl of eighteen stood 
 in the dock. In dress, appearance and behaviour 
 she might have stood there for the preparation 
 of a film. Nothing less like an offender could 
 be imagined. She, too, was brought from the 
 purlieus of Pennyfields. She pleaded guilty 
 to the offence of soliciting and inquiry was made 
 as to whether her parents were present. A 
 woman of superior appearance went into the 
 witness-box and mother and daughter looked 
 at each other across the court. It was a poignant 
 spectacle and one saw the unfathomable sorrow 
 of motherhood. Can any sorrow equal this 
 sorrow ? 
 
 The mother was asked if she would take her 
 daughter back ? Her answer was a passionate 
 affirmative. ..." Yes ! willingly, gladly ! " 
 
 The girl was asked if she would go back to her 
 mother, but she gave no answer. 
 
 Rarely have I heard such pleading as the 
 mother gave across the grey old court. 
 
 She was oblivious of the bench, the lawyers, 
 the officials, the public. She was battling with 
 some power of evil that had seduced the heart 
 and body of her child. But the girl never spoke 
 a word. 
 
 It was arranged to let them have a private 
 room to talk it over, but still the girl spoke not 
 
140 The Loom of the Law 
 
 a word. Every response to appeal appeared 
 to be frozen, and even the burning tears of her 
 mother did not thaw that frost. 
 
 The girl in some mad freak or frenzy had 
 married a black man whom she had met some- 
 where, somehow. She never lived with him. 
 His presence was a torture to her. And at 
 eighteen when life should be silently opening 
 the doors of colour and beauty, love and romance, 
 when spring and summer should be full of the 
 splendours and mysteries and glory, this English 
 girl had plumbed the depths of strange experi- 
 ences that killed the soul of her girlhood, and 
 she was plying for hire amongst the strange men 
 whom the ships bring from the ends of the world. 
 
 What is to be done ? Ah ! this book has 
 no purpose, and those who follow the ancient 
 if dishonourable profession present a problem 
 not easy of solution. 
 
 The Churches, I believe, profess to have a 
 dynamic and I think they have, only they have 
 failed somehow to establish contact. Recruit- 
 ing might be stopped. A lapse from chastity 
 in the fervour of a great passion or trusting 
 confidence is a long way short of professional 
 prostitution and contains none of its moral and 
 social menaces. Some sanctuary might be found 
 for the broken-hearted, and charity that greater 
 
The Loom and the Lost 141 
 
 thing than faith or hope might cover the 
 despairing with the shadow of its wings. 
 
 The poor are generous in their charity and 
 great in their forgiveness. They attach none 
 of the shameful obloquy that belongs to other 
 strata of society. They have the understanding 
 heart, and regard the matter as the unhappy 
 resultant of youthful romance. They under- 
 stand and forgive. 
 
 There is one surprising fact. The girl usually 
 shares her responsibility in the adventure. I 
 have never known a case where she adopts the 
 pose of injured innocence and talks of being 
 deceived. Sometimes the men are shameless 
 in their cowardice. Application is made for an 
 affiliation order so that the man shall contribute 
 to the support of the child and a defence is 
 put up denying all responsibility. In order to 
 escape they will endeavour to rob the girl 
 of her character. At such times one sees moral 
 indignation at its best. 
 
 A case came before the court and the man 
 elected to play the coward. The girl gave her 
 evidence and he was asked if he had any questions 
 to put to her. 
 
 His only question was an emphatic denial. 
 
 The girl shook with indignation and looking 
 him up and down with scorn made this reply : 
 
142 
 
 The Loom of the Law 
 
 " O, the cat must have brought it to me 
 sometime when I wasn't looking ! ' 
 
 The war made a heavy toll on women's trust 
 and they paid it in sorrow and dishonour. There 
 were many officers and some gentlemen in 
 khaki. One officer made the acquaintance of 
 a girl of good family and honourable position 
 who was serving in the V.A.D. He paid her 
 much attention and offered her an honourable 
 courtship. The days and weeks ripened their 
 attachment into a passionate intimacy. The 
 strain of war and separation and desire ended 
 in an hour's forgetfulness and began the story 
 of a tragedy. 
 
 She told him how it was and wanted his advice 
 as to the best course. He solved the problem 
 for himself by abandonment He closed the 
 chapter of that romance by refusing to see her. 
 In the fury of her despair she threatened to write 
 to the War Office to see what could be done 
 for her. 
 
 The officer consulted a lawyer as to whether 
 she could not be intimidated by a threat of 
 arrest for blackmail. The girl saw the lawyer 
 and was offered money at the instigation of the 
 officer. She spurned the offer and went out in 
 the grey twilight of London. 
 
The Loom and the Lost 143 
 
 She said as she went out that she knew a 
 road that was easier for her and the unborn 
 child than the road on which she walked. 
 
 Whether she took that road or not is uncertain, 
 but no one has heard of her or seen her since. 
 
 The officer, I have no doubt, has forgotten 
 this slight romantic episode that was an incident 
 in his distinguished efforts to make the world 
 fit for honest men, but, to my thinking, the 
 Hun that murdered Nurse Cavell was no more 
 foul than he. 
 
 ii 
 
 IT is not suggested that these " professional " 
 women are the involuntary victims of fate and 
 men. Neither are they the product of external 
 and economic circumstances. The subjective 
 factors account for their choice. Whatever be 
 the alleged cause of their decision it is usually 
 a definite and deliberate selection. Many of 
 them admit their profession without demur and 
 without shame and, sometimes, when they 
 appear before the court on charges that have 
 no relation to their calling they proclaim it to 
 an indifferent world. 
 
 The chief incentive to this career appears to 
 be dislike of an industrious and disciplined life. 
 
144 The Loom of the Law 
 
 They will not submit to conditions that attach 
 to the life of any ordinary respectable woman. 
 It is the monotony and discipline of respectability 
 against which they revolt. This is one expres- 
 sion of the mental and moral lesion that follows 
 on an irregular life. As has been indicated in 
 another chapter these mental and moral sequelae 
 are, if less visible, no less terrible than the physi- 
 cal. It amounts to a disintegration of the 
 ordinary moral reactions. It is this that causes 
 the enormity of the problem of rescue. The 
 experiences of social workers in the demi- 
 monde will corroborate this view. This class 
 have lost the will to rise. 
 
 They have experienced enough to be dis- 
 illusioned. The life has no glamour, no 
 romance, no illusion, no poetry. It is a trade 
 a cold deliberate act of hiring the user of the 
 body for a price. There is the same degree of 
 the romantic in the hire of a taxi. It is a 
 challenge to nature to do her worst and nature 
 has dreadful ministers that do her bidding. One 
 has seen their remorseless hands weaving the 
 shroud for the bodies of the regardless and it 
 is perfumed with the heavy odour of carbolic 
 acid. 
 
 It has been suggested by some authorities 
 
The Loom and the Lost 145 
 
 that those of the demi-monde are of a low 
 mental type sometimes verging on the line of 
 mental deficiency. It is a view that is flatter- 
 ing to human nature but it has little justification. 
 In no case of the large numbers that have come 
 before me have I seen anything to warrant the 
 acceptance of this comforting doctrine. The 
 old method of approach to the problem was to 
 regard these as the involuntary victims of men 
 or as irresponsible defectives and the remedial 
 efforts were adapted to the prognosis. Experi- 
 ence has demonstrated that the prognosis was 
 wrong. 
 
 No woman, however unfortunate her past or 
 unhappy her present, is without an alternative. 
 The alternative may not be, comparatively, 
 attractive. But no redemptive process is attrac- 
 tive. It does not admit of the idle and luxurious 
 self-abandonment that attaches to the " Half- 
 world," but it is salutary and effective. There 
 are doors wide open that lead to avenues of health 
 and honour and honest work. 
 
 For the unhealthy there is healing, for the 
 unskilled there is training, for the friendless 
 there is friendship. I have met with no case 
 where complaints were made of unsympathy 
 or unkindness even by girls who had relapsed into 
 the old ways. On the contrary, girls have 
 
 10 
 
146 The Loom of the Law 
 
 written to testify that at the hostels they have 
 met with so sympathetic an understanding that 
 they hope to forget the unhappy past in a new 
 life. 
 
 There is in one of the London hospitals a girl 
 occupying a position of trust and responsibility. 
 The senior surgeons have found her capable, 
 adaptable, and skilful, almost indispensable. 
 She has just the " touch " that makes the 
 difference. 
 
 One morning, she stood in the dock of a 
 Metropolitan police court, and it was not her 
 first appearance. She had been there before, 
 and more than once, for the same offence. 
 Her arrest this time had about it something of 
 the psychology of Fate. It was literally her 
 day of salvation. She had an interview with 
 the probation officer and this appeared to be 
 her " locus poenitentise." 
 
 She was put on probation and went into a 
 hostel for training, it may be that the sorrows of 
 the Magdalene gave her the " touch " that the 
 surgeons say " makes all the difference." 
 
 Girls on the threshold of a prostitute's career 
 are often responsive. They find discipline en- 
 durable, and have a responsiveness to affection 
 of which the older women have been bereft. 
 
 At the Thames Court during the year October 
 
The Loom and the Lost 147 
 
 1920 October 1921, seventy-five women and 
 girls were put on probation. Of these seventy- 
 five the preponderating majority were young 
 girls and the charges chiefly related to street 
 offences. Fifty-two have proved satisfactory, 
 nine have disappeared and left no trace, nine have 
 been charged again, five have warrants against 
 them awaiting execution. 
 
 Thus about one-third have broken the terms 
 of their recognizances to lead an honest and 
 industrious life and report changes of address to 
 the Probation Officer. 
 
 These girls have had a chance and a friend to 
 help and advise. They have thrown away the 
 chance and refused the friendship. What is to 
 be done with them and for them ? Most of them 
 are young, often under twenty ; they refuse to 
 undertake training at a hostel or an honourable 
 career. They can be fined, but the fine is paid 
 often by a coloured man who has, by the payment, 
 obtained a first mortgage on a white girl's body. 
 They can be sent to prison in default of finding 
 sureties to be of good behaviour, but prison is 
 hardly the place for a wayward girl who is with- 
 out wisdom and without understanding. 
 
 What is to be done ? This is a question to 
 which an answer is needed and a dissertation on 
 the liberty of the subject is, if relevant, at least 
 
 10* 
 
148 The Loom of the Law 
 
 not helpful. It has been suggested that there 
 is needed some power of indeterminate pre- 
 ventive detention. It is a curious anomaly that 
 a girl cannot contract into legitimate wedlock 
 without permission, but she can contract into 
 illicit wedlock and into prostitution without 
 interference. A young girl must not debase her 
 body and mind with dangerous drugs. Cocaine, 
 opium, morphine and chlorodine are forbidden. 
 The tolerated way to death is venereal disease. 
 Preventive detention would be limited to the 
 girls of immature age. They ought to be in a 
 position to appreciate the nature and quality of 
 the career upon which they have embarked. 
 The place of detention should have nothing that 
 is suggestive of punishment or stigma and the 
 sphere of their training should be larger than 
 preparation for domestic service. 
 
 In another chapter reference will be made to 
 the Garden Colony at Basingstoke, where lads who 
 have fallen into crime are trained and fitted for an 
 open-air career. In the colony there is absolutely 
 nothing that suggests conviction or detention. 
 There is little surveillance and the lads take 
 a portion of their earnings for pocket-money. 
 
 If such a colony has proved successful in the 
 problem of lads an experiment along the same 
 lines would be well worth the effort. 
 
The Loom and the Lost 149 
 
 A girl in her teens ought not to be allowed to 
 will her own destruction, and parents who have 
 no control over their adolescent daughter ought 
 not to be considered. When a woman has 
 reached full age and appreciates the nature of an 
 immoral life there is little left but the operation of 
 the ordinary criminal law. 
 
 The chief objection, it seems, against preven- 
 tive detention of young girls of this character is 
 that it involves a principle of sex-distinction. 
 
 One is forced to admit that such objection is 
 grounded on fact. For sexual offences of this 
 character no penalty attaches to men. But 
 Nature appears to have violated Logic at the 
 beginning and no suggestions appear to be 
 forthcoming to remedy Nature's initial mistake. 
 
 Meanwhile young girls embark upon a prosti- 
 tute's career by thousands. This surely is the 
 triumph of Logic ! 
 
 The cry of punish the men has one limitation. 
 
 It squares the bill, but it does not wipe out the 
 debt. Prevention is better than punishment. 
 
 Where is the remedial worth of punishment in 
 such a case as this ? 
 
 There stood in the dock an old and wizened 
 Chinaman. The witnesses against him were three 
 children the eldest of whom was twelve, and the 
 story that they told involved their initiation into 
 
150 The Loom of the Law 
 
 all the mysteries and privacies of human relation- 
 ships. The veil had been torn from life and the 
 eyes of childhood had witnessed a world of whose 
 existence they should never have been aware. 
 Moie than their little bodies had been violated, 
 there was outrage laid upon their souls. For 
 twelve long months, week by week, these 
 children unaccompanied and singly had a rendez- 
 vous with shame. For twelve long months they 
 kept their dreadful secret and it was only at the 
 initiation of another child that the ghastly facts 
 were known. This is an experience that makes 
 death a delectable thing. The man was punished by 
 a long term of imprisonment the maximum that 
 the law allows and he was recommended for deport- 
 ation, but his punishment and deportation could 
 never right the wrong. Not even God could re- write 
 innocence upon the hearts of violated childhood. 
 
 A lad of sixteen stood in the dock and the 
 charge was a serious one involving the chastity 
 of a girl of thirteen. She was only a child and 
 should have had the innocence and outlook of 
 childhood. She was pregnant and bore the 
 physical evidence of her condition. At twelve 
 she had conceived. It was a torture to see. It 
 was a blinding outrage. It felt like a perversion 
 of every sanctity that life holds. 
 
The Loom and the Lost 151 
 
 She told her story. It was one of nights 
 spent at dancing-halls and of promiscuous friend- 
 ships. In cross-examination she admitted she 
 had several lovers ! 
 
 This surely is the core of tragedy. 
 
 Doctrines of sex-equality and clamour for the 
 elimination of every legal and social distinction 
 seem strangely irrelevant to the tragic facts that 
 shatter life. 
 
 The lad was punished, but the child brought 
 forth her child. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE LOOM AND THE INDISCREET 
 
 FT happens at times that a girl who is ac- 
 counted respectable and of unchallengeable 
 virtue finds herself in the dock on a charge of 
 " insulting behaviour." The innuendo in the 
 charge is that she was accosting men. This is the 
 type of charge that interests the public and it 
 receives a corresponding publicity. 
 
 The evidence of the police is given and the 
 police are cross-examined, in detail, as to the 
 alleged occurrence. They are cross-examined as 
 to the girl's history and character. She is of the 
 highest reputation, her virtue has never been 
 challenged before. She was in town shopping or 
 visiting a sick friend or attending lectures. 
 
 Of all these things the police know nothing. 
 They may be true. The police depose only to 
 the things that they allege they saw and heard. 
 
 On the girl's credentials she obviously has 
 every qualification for vestal virginhood. 
 
The Loom and the Indiscreet 153 
 
 An outcry ensues. The public demand pro- 
 tection against the Prussianism of the police. 
 
 Our wives are menaced and our daughters 
 are unprotected. The shadow of a foul charge 
 may fall across our domestic felicity at any 
 moment. " Something " must be done ! 
 
 Life is much less simple than the simple 
 suppose, and the feet of the virtuous wander into 
 unexpected avenues of desire. Romance and 
 adventure make larger appeal than we volun- 
 tarily confess and we at times experiment with 
 the adventitious. The clue to those " extra- 
 ordinary " cases may lie here. 
 
 There is a form of romance that is, if not 
 general, at least not rare. If not known to 
 every schoolboy it is known to some students. 
 
 The young lady from the country or the 
 suburbs wanders aimlessly from shop-window to 
 shop-window and the young man from the town 
 mistakes her for the girl he met at his maiden 
 aunt's garden-party last summer. By the time 
 they have exhausted their deliberations on the 
 possible places where they must have met, they 
 are almost old friends. The girl knows the man 
 is lying and the man knows that she knows. 
 Then there is the kinema and a little dinner ; 
 and a recurrence and a recurring recurrence. 
 One day an injudicious miscalculation is made. 
 
154 The Loom of the Law 
 
 It brings shame and exposure. And the 
 magistrate is asked to believe, in the teeth of the 
 sworn and corroborated evidence, that singing 
 in the choir is the antithesis of the adventurous. 
 Exposure may be its own punishment and shame 
 may bring wisdom, but it is perhaps as likely 
 that Ada was adventurous as that the policeman 
 was a Prussian. 
 
 The vicarage may respond to the romantic 
 no less than the millinery department at the 
 stores and studying music need not exhaust 
 all the possibilities of life's harmonies. " And 
 God made man in His own image : male and 
 female created He them." 
 
 The police appear, also, to stag-hunt inoffensive 
 clergymen. The clothing of a clergyman seems 
 to affect some policemen as the clothing of a 
 policeman affects some dogs. Both are strange 
 studies in the antipathetic. Amid the crush 
 and hurry of the Strand or in the lengthening 
 shadows of an autumn evening in the park a 
 policeman singles out a clergyman and interrupts 
 his meditations with a preposterous and im- 
 possible charge. 
 
 If singing in the choir is the antithesis of the 
 adventurous, what of this ? It is the climax of 
 the paradoxical, it is the achievement of the 
 impossible, it is an exhibition of the preposterous. 
 
The Loom and the Indiscreet 155 
 
 Again the public demand protection for their 
 clergy. Our priests are menaced and our deacons 
 are unprotected. " Something " must be done ! 
 It is on record by the testimony of eye-witnesses 
 that the clergy have been known to experiment 
 with the adventitious. What emasculated ro- 
 mance lies in the brief informal chat in the 
 park or in the quiet squares of Bloomsbury ! 
 
 There was nothing very wrong, if nothing 
 very right. 
 
 It was just a little fingering with the fringe of 
 sin. But there was the risk of an injudicious 
 miscalculation and an appalling exposure and a 
 ridiculous misunderstanding. 
 
 The lady misunderstood his motive. She 
 imagined a major adventure where he only 
 intended a minor romance and she told the police. 
 
 His next experiment was the " odd chance " 
 one, and it was for him the threshold of shame. 
 Exposure is its own punishment, but it is perhaps 
 as likely that there was a reverend indiscretion 
 as that there was a Prussian prosecution. 
 
 The credulity of the public passeth under- 
 standing. They believe the unbelievable and 
 deny the obvious. They walk by " stunts " and 
 neither by faith nor sight. To-day they will die 
 for the thing that to-morrow they will have 
 
156 The Loom of the Law 
 
 forgotten. It is interesting and attractive and 
 lovable, but of such is not the texture of Justice 
 and the administration of the Law. 
 
 Courts of Criminal Judicature experience day 
 by day the frailties of our human nature and 
 the follies of a thoughtless hour. The traditions 
 of yesterday cannot answer for the deeds of to-day 
 and a spotless reputation is no answer to an 
 actual happening. And after all the indis- 
 cretions of the innocent are a tribute to their 
 virtue and inexperience. In a romantic or lonely 
 hour a casual companionship may make appeal 
 and give delight. But in the World's metropolis, 
 with its mixture of good and bad, the claims of 
 public order place strict limits on the uncon- 
 ventional. The sternest penalty is not the 
 forty shillings of a police court, but the shocked 
 surprise of acquaintances and friends. The 
 bitterest penalty of folly is the penalty of 
 publicity. The police court carries the blame, 
 but it is the Press that causes the anguish and 
 dismay. Perhaps it would be well at times if 
 the Press would turn a blind eye on human folly. 
 
 An obscure provincial makes a mistake and at 
 Bow Street or Marlborough Street he pays his 
 forty shillings for the offence. A deacon or a 
 priest, a man prominent in public or financial 
 affairs experiments with folly and the forty 
 
The Loom and the Indiscreet 157 
 
 shillings does not atone for his indiscretion. The 
 price he pays is the exposure. The penalty hits 
 him and all associated with him and the bitter- 
 ness of the suffering is out of all proportion to 
 the evil that he did. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE LOOM AND YOUTH 
 
 r I ^HE fact that is most impressive is the 
 lamentable wastage of human life. It 
 obtrudes itself in every direction till it is un- 
 escapable. Wastage of manhood and woman- 
 hood. Wastage of boyhood and girlhood and 
 childhood. It is the ghastly negation of the 
 Incarnation and the Atonement and of every 
 doctrine proclaimed by the Christian Church. 
 
 " How much then is a man of more value 
 than a sheep ! >: Human life is the cheapest 
 commodity in the markets of the world and 
 the standard of value is no mere resultant of 
 economic doctrines. 
 
 In London I have never seen a lost ox or ass 
 nor have I seen golden treasure on the highway. 
 New Scotland Yard husbands lost treasures and 
 holds them for reclamation and restoration. 
 But I see lost men and women, lost boys and girls. 
 Perhaps the causes are subjective or they may 
 
 158 
 
The Loom and Youth 159 
 
 be partly objective. Whatever be the cause 
 there is the tragic spectacle. These lost ones 
 are at times washed by the tides of life into 
 the harbourage of the cells and at times they 
 are unfit even to occupy the dock. More than 
 once I have heard the evidence in the yard of 
 the court because the prisoners were too un- 
 sanitary for the usual trial place. Are these the 
 by-products of our civilization or are they 
 decadents ? Not a few are without hope or will 
 or effort. They have no desires other than to 
 eat and drink. 
 
 Out of such experiences it is easy to make 
 ad hominem appeals and to storm the imagina- 
 tion with pictures of a new world and a new day. 
 What an appeal ad miser icordiam ! What a 
 condemnation of the social system ! What a 
 clamorous call to new experiments in governance ! 
 Is the blame the world's blame ? And who are 
 the world ? Are lost men and women the 
 product of predestination or are they the finished 
 product of their own desires ? 
 
 Are lost lads and girls the product of the 
 social order ? And what is the social order ? 
 
 These lads and girls belonged to somebody. 
 Somebody begat them. Somebody nurtured 
 them. Somebody jettisoned them into the sea 
 of life. One gets a clue at times to the violation 
 
160 The Loom of the Law 
 
 of a more primitive law than any known to 
 sociology or political economy. 
 
 A little lad was brought from the cells and 
 was going into the dock. He had given his 
 age as sixteen, but that was obviously a heroic lie. 
 Thirteen summers at the most were the measure 
 of the days of his pilgrimage and his feet were 
 kept from standing in the place where felons 
 stand. The police had found him wandering 
 in a dark cul de sac of East London looking for 
 a place to sleep. He had slept there the two 
 previous nights and had eaten nothing for two 
 days. Those days of his fasting were Christmas 
 Eve and Christmas Day ! 
 
 I recalled Christmas Eve and little ones that 
 lighten life's way for me who were waiting in 
 white beds for the coming of Santa Claus . . . 
 and this little bit of glorious boyhood had not 
 where to lay his head. 
 
 No economic law committed this outrage and 
 no doctrine of sociology bears its shame. In- 
 quiries were made by .the police in a town not far 
 from London. The lad had run away. The 
 facts were disclosed to the lad's father and all the 
 circumstances were explained to him. The father's 
 obligations towards the boy rose to this superlative 
 magnificence : "I don't object to his coming 
 back if he will promise to behave himself." 
 
The Loom and Youth 161 
 
 The boy was not worth the train fare to Lon- 
 don ! The lad was asked if he would return to 
 his home. His answer has no political or economic 
 significance but it suggests much. " My father 
 drinks and he beats me and I would rather do 
 a month." 
 
 The lad was remanded for a month and sent 
 to the Boys' Colony, and at the end of the month 
 he re-appeared at the court. The master of the 
 colony had sent a letter asking as a favour to 
 him and to the colony that this little wanderer 
 should be sent back because he was the life and 
 soul of the place and one of the keenest sportsmen 
 that had ever been at the home. Had it been 
 permissible the police themselves would have 
 kept him as a mascot ! 
 
 London has little knowledge of its lost children. 
 They are not usually orphans, but they have 
 no homes. They drift from home often, live 
 anyhow and sleep anywhere. Their eating 
 places are the coffee-stalls and they find the 
 price of food and doss by pilfering from shops 
 and stealing from vans. They have nearly all 
 been " educated." Most of them can read and 
 write for they have done the statutory curri- 
 culum. But they leave school without discipline, 
 without ambition, without ideal or energy. I 
 lay no blame on the teachers of the Council 
 
 ii 
 
162 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Schools. Their patience and pluck are an 
 abiding wonder. Perhaps the curriculum is 
 wrong, perhaps the school conditions are wrong. 
 Certainly the home conditions are terribly wrong. 
 That in some degree is economic and social, 
 but others in similar circumstances are training 
 decent citizens. 
 
 What invariably happens when a lad is charged 
 with such offences as stealing and receiving is 
 that he is " Bound over " under the care of the 
 probation officer for one or two years. The 
 probation officer advises him, helps him to find 
 work and assists him in every way. If a lad 
 has no home, or the home conditions are such as 
 to give him no chance, he can be sent to the 
 Boys' Home at Yiewsley or to the Garden 
 Colony at Basingstoke. Here he is trained in 
 a special branch of horticulture and gardening ; 
 when he is efficient work is found for him and 
 during his period of training he retains part 
 of his earnings as his property. 
 
 At Yiewsley and Basingstoke there is 
 absolutely no stigma of conviction, no warders, 
 and no departmental surveillance. 
 
 Once a lad is trustworthy he comes and goes 
 freely in his off time. It is seldom that this 
 freedom is abused, though most of the lads have 
 had at least one fall before they came to the 
 
The Loom and Youth 163 
 
 colony. A spirit of esprit de corps is developed 
 and the colony becomes their Alma Mater. 
 
 One day a couple of lads at Basingstoke grew 
 restless and discontented and decided to bolt. 
 They took with them a bicycle belonging to the 
 colony. They took turns at riding and running 
 and ultimately arrived near by Woking. They 
 were resting there and each looked at the other. 
 At last one said, " This is a dirty trick." 
 
 "It is," said the other, "Let's go back." 
 About midnight the superintendent let in two 
 shamefaced and very weary lads. He listened 
 to their full confession and in the confession he 
 found his triumph. 
 
 Yiewsley and Basingstoke are in the true 
 sense of the word " homes." Both places have 
 the home atmosphere, the home attachments, 
 and the home freedoms. 
 
 Nothing more unlike " institutions " could be 
 devised. There are no uniforms, no badges, no 
 distinctive marks. There are no warders and 
 no cells. And it frequently happens that lads 
 settle down to work in the neighbourhood after 
 their discharge from the Home. 
 
 The Boys' Garden Colony at Basingstoke 
 began with an experiment in 1917 and is largely 
 the handiwork of my colleague (H. L. Cancellor) 
 at the Thames court. 
 
 n* 
 
164 The Loom of the Law 
 
 In four years, one hundred and seventy-six 
 have come under the care of the Home. Thirty- 
 six have joined the Army, and two the Navy. 
 Nursery or garden work has been secured for 
 twenty-four, work on farms for four. One has 
 become the labour-master at the colony and 
 has won distinction in the work. Twelve have 
 obtained other situations in Basingstoke and 
 fifty- six have returned to their own districts 
 and found work. 
 
 The Garden Colony is the antithesis of every 
 popular notion of preventive detention, and 
 the lads detained are the antithesis of every 
 popular notion of a criminal. 
 
 The success or failure of such experiments is 
 determined largely by those in command, and 
 the garden colony has been fortunate in its 
 superintendent. He has the audacity of a 
 great faith and his own children associate freely 
 with the lads who come from the police courts 
 of the four quarters of the metropolis. In such 
 an atmosphere there grow up attachments and 
 affections, a sense of duty and respect until all 
 the elements of a real domestic life are created. 
 A Sunday spent enfamille at the colony is one 
 of my happiest recollections. 
 
 It is no exaggeration to say that the Law is 
 more anxious to save than to destroy. It is 
 
The Loom and Youth 165 
 
 very sensitive in dealing with the juvenile 
 offender. Prison is the last desperate act of 
 despair. It is true to say that, generally, no 
 lad is sent to prison or to Borstal for a first 
 offence. Invariably the youthful offenders are 
 " Bound over " under the care of a probation 
 officer for one or two years. And it is when 
 the home conditions are so unsatisfactory 
 that the lad has no real chance that the 
 Garden Colony becomes a real haven. These 
 colonies are in no way associated with the 
 ordinary criminal administration. Unlike Bor- 
 stal institutions which are maintained and 
 directed by the State, the colonies are maintained 
 by voluntary funds and directed by a special 
 committee associated with the Police Court 
 Mission. 
 
 BORSTAL INSTITUTIONS 
 
 The Prevention of Crimes Act, 1908, sec. I. 
 provides that : 
 
 (1) Where a person is convicted on indictment of 
 an offence for which he is liable to be sentenced 
 to penal servitude or imprisonment and it appears 
 to the court 
 
 (a) that the person is not less than sixteen 
 nor more than twenty -one years of age ; and 
 
 (b) that by reason of his criminal habits or 
 
166 The Loom of the Law 
 
 tendencies, or association with persons of bad 
 character, it is expedient that he should be 
 subject to detention for such term and under 
 such instruction and discipline as appears most 
 conducive to his reformation and the repression 
 of crime : it shall be lawful for the court in lieu 
 of passing a sentence of penal servitude or 
 imprisonment, to pass a sentence of detention 
 under penal discipline in a Borstal institution 
 for a term of not less than two years nor more 
 than three years. 
 
 Provided that, before passing such a sen- 
 tence, the court shall consider any report or 
 representation which may be made to it by, 
 or on behalf of, the prison commissioners as to 
 the suitability of the case for treatment in a 
 Borstal institution, and shall be satisfied that 
 the character, state of health and mental con- 
 dition of the offender and the other circumstances 
 of the case are such that the offender is likely 
 to profit by such instruction and discipline as 
 aforesaid. 
 
 By the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 
 1914, it is provided that : Where a person is sum- 
 marily convicted of any offence for which the 
 court has power to impose a sentence of imprison- 
 ment for one month or upwards without the 
 option of a fine, and 
 
The Loom and Youth 167 
 
 (a) it appears to the court that the offender 
 is not less than sixteen nor more than twenty- 
 one years of age ; and 
 
 (b) it is proved that the offender has previously 
 been convicted of any offence or that having 
 been previously discharged on probation he 
 failed to observe a condition of his recognizance ; 
 and 
 
 (c) it appears to the court that by reason of 
 the offender's criminal habits or tendencies, or 
 association with persons of bad character, it is 
 expedient that he should be subject to detention 
 for such term and under such instruction and 
 discipline as appears most conducive to the 
 reformation and the repression of crime, it shall 
 be lawful for the court in lieu of passing sentence, 
 to commit the offender to prison until the next 
 quarter sessions, and the Court of Quarter Sessions 
 shall inquire into the circumstances of the case 
 and if it appears to the court that the offender 
 is of such age as aforesaid and that for any 
 such reason as aforesaid it is expedient that the 
 offender should be subject to such detention 
 as aforesaid, shall pass such sentence of detention 
 in a Borstal institution. 
 
 (2) A Court of Summary Jurisdiction or Court 
 of Quarter Sessions, before dealing with any 
 case under this section shall consider any report 
 
168 
 
 The Loom of the Law 
 
 or representation which may be made to it by 
 or on behalf of the prison commissioners as to 
 the suitability of the offender for such detention 
 as aforesaid. And a Court of Summary Juris- 
 diction shall, where necessary, adjourn the case 
 for the purpose of giving an opportunity for 
 such a report or representations being made. 
 
 By the latter Act under which many of the 
 commitals to Borstal institutions take place 
 there are, in fact, three inquiries into the case. 
 
 The offender is charged before the Magistrate, 
 and convicted of an offence punishable with 
 imprisonment without the option of a fine. 
 There must, too, have been a previous conviction 
 for an offence. 
 
 The accused is remanded for a report from the 
 prison commissioners, who inquire into the whole 
 of the circumstances of the offender health, 
 environment, disposition, etc. 
 
 The accused is then committed to the Court 
 of Quarter Sessions, which reviews the whole 
 case, and passes sentence of detention at a 
 Borstal institution. 
 
 Generally the essential qualifications for 
 Borstal are : 
 
 (a) Previous conviction for an offence. 
 
 (b) A conviction for an offence punishable 
 with imprisonment without the option of a fine. 
 
The Loom and Youth 169 
 
 (c) Criminal habits, or tendencies or associa- 
 tion with persons of bad character. 
 
 (d) The offender is over sixteen and under 
 twenty-one years of age. 
 
 Occasionally there are suggestions made that 
 Borstal institutions lack attractiveness, and that 
 the discipline is at times severe. Attempts at 
 escape occur, and naturally the lads make 
 violent protest against both detention and dis- 
 cipline. It should be kept in mind that these 
 lads are not first offenders, but adolescents, who 
 have already embarked upon a criminal career. 
 
 " Seven hundred and seventy-four persons 
 (698 males and 76 females) were admitted on 
 conviction, of whom 560 were convicted on 
 indictment. As compared with 1913, there was 
 an increase of 227 males and 29 females. Two 
 hundred and ninety- two were convicted of 
 burglary, and 92 were convicted of burglary 
 and similar offences, and 404 of larceny and 
 fraud." (Criminal Statistics, 1920.) 
 
 The scheme of Borstal treatment involves : 
 
 (1) Education special and personal attention 
 
 is given to the education and training of the 
 
 inmates. Those who have not passed Standard 
 
 III. receive instruction in classes, and those 
 
170 The Loom of the Law 
 
 who have passed that standard receive further 
 instruction in evening classes. Lectures and 
 addresses are periodically given, and the inmates 
 are encouraged to use the library. 
 
 (2) Trade-instruction. Special workshops are 
 provided, and every inmate is taught some 
 useful industry carpentry, building, baking, 
 black- smithing, or agricultural or horticultural 
 work. 
 
 (3) There is regular drill and gymnastic 
 exercise. 
 
 (4) Scheme of rewards to encourage industry 
 and good behaviour. 
 
 "A person undergoing detention in Borstal 
 institutions does not earn remission of sentence 
 as a matter of course, but is eligible for con- 
 sideration for licence after he has earned marks 
 representing not less than six months' sentence. 
 The Institution Board (composed of such officials 
 of the institution as the prison commissioners 
 select) consider each case on its merits, and 
 submit it to the Visiting Committee, who, if 
 they think fit, may recommend to the prison 
 commissioners that he be discharged from the 
 institution on licence. 
 
 " The time spent under training necessarily 
 varies with the individual, and remission is 
 
The Loom and Youth m 
 
 only granted where it appears that the prisoner 
 is likely to benefit by release, rather than by 
 serving under the system the whole of his 
 sentence, and in this connection special regard 
 is paid to the report of the Borstal Association 
 on the arrangements which can be made for his 
 employment and on his prospects generally." 
 (Archbold's Criminal Practice. 25th Ed. 1443.) 
 The State has provided the institutions and 
 created the opportunities, but the men who 
 work the institutions and help the unfortunate 
 to respond to the opportunities are the factors 
 that matter. Again the personal touch is every- 
 thing. Recently there appeared in The Times 
 an advertisement for officers for the Borstal 
 institutions. It was an appeal for men of 
 culture, education and vision, to undertake this 
 work. At all events, the authorities are alive 
 to the importance of the personnel in the efforts 
 towards reclamation. The Home Office can 
 do little more than offer the opportunity to 
 those who have ideals and capacity. And to 
 make a good man out of a reckless youth is a 
 mighty social service. It may be that one day 
 our theological colleges will find in such an 
 environment the opportunity of bringing their 
 students and preachers into actual contact with 
 the problems that challenge their Gospel, and all 
 
172 The Loom of the Law 
 
 that it claims to accomplish. The whole cir- 
 cumstances are ideal for the play of one mind 
 and heart upon the mind and heart of another. 
 And the Borstal lad is removed from the dis- 
 tractions and temptations that might lead him 
 to treat lightly so important a fellowship and 
 ministry. 
 
 Can we find a cure for humanity's distress ? 
 And what change of circumstances and externals 
 will create hope, effort, ideals and desires ? 
 Such questions press continually upon those 
 who are called upon to meet in intimate contact 
 the foolish and fallen of their fellows. Can any 
 form of Government inspire the regardless ? 
 Can any executive brace the listless ? Can any 
 legislature make laws that will eliminate selfish- 
 ness and lust, egotism and cruelty ? 
 
 There is something heroic and pathetic in 
 humanity's quest of the ideal commonwealth. 
 In every expression of the Corporate or com- 
 munal life there are elements against which the 
 conscience or the emotions protest. One section 
 of the body politic finds life delectable ; another 
 section finds it intolerable. There ensue con- 
 fusion and conflict, unrest and upheaval, but 
 there has not yet been evolved a universal 
 happiness. From Abraham to Lenin and de 
 Valera men have gone out, not knowing whither 
 
V 
 
 The Loom and Youth 173 
 
 they went, to make a great nation. Every 
 avenue of governance has been explored from 
 the autocracy of prophets to the autocracy of 
 epileptics, from the councils of kings to the 
 Soviets of the people. Humanity's faith in 
 altered externals appears indestructible. 
 Nothing less than this could make politics a 
 thing of enthusiasm . 
 
 The ideal of an altered world is the dynamic 
 of every political campaign. Speeches are made 
 out of the texture of dreams and policies are 
 woven out of the Apocalypse. " They shall 
 hunger no more, neither thirst any more, and 
 all tears shall be wiped away." 
 
 Out of the slums and culture-beds of disease 
 shall come a glorious A 1 land, and heroes shall 
 walk in the streets thereof. And there shall be 
 homes for heroes. 
 
 From Isaiah to John of Patmos, and from 
 John to the last election and the next and 
 the next. 
 
 And there shall be eliminated from amongst 
 the children of men the law of the ancient curse : 
 " Thou shalt eat bread in the sweat of thy 
 brow." And, instead, the hours of our toil 
 shall be at most two hours or three, and there 
 shall be doles for the weary. 
 
174 
 
 The Loom of the Law 
 
 By such dreams are men lured on, and in 
 those dreams do they find solace or the impulse 
 to violence. 
 
 It all means postponement, delay, " practical 
 points to be decided," reference to a committee 
 of experts. It means non-effort and non- 
 fulfilment. 
 
 Perhaps the best social service we can render 
 is to ease the burden of our neighbour, and 
 respond to the cry of the needy in our own 
 time. And it may happen that in so doing 
 some of our dreams may come true. 
 
 John Hay's doctrine of angels has a philosophy 
 in it : 
 
 And I think that saving a little child 
 And fetching him to his own, 
 Is a derned sight better business 
 Than loafing around the throne. 
 
 And the practice of that philosophy is better 
 than finding a formula. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE LOOM AND THE CROSS 
 
 TN contact with certain types of offenders 
 one is in contact with something more than 
 a problem of psychology. They are indifferent 
 to the ideas and motives that impel and restrain 
 the normal man, and they have fixed their 
 standard of life on an almost animal basis. 
 They live in a world that impinges on our world 
 but is not of it. The hopes and fears, the 
 actions and reactions, the punishments and 
 rewards that operate in a normal life find no 
 response in them. They accept the sanctions 
 of the law and pass out to pay them usually 
 without complaint. In intimate association with 
 such one learns that they have a point of view, 
 an unreasoned philosophy, and it is surprising 
 how much one has in common with them, and 
 how easily one might accept their essential 
 doctrines. They are mostly fatalists. I went 
 recently to see an old convict at Pentonville. 
 His career began in the early nineties and there 
 was a succession of terms of penal servitude. 
 
176 The Loom of the Law 
 
 When I saw him he was serving a term under 
 the Prevention of Crimes Act. He had no 
 grievance against the Law or the police or society. 
 It was Fate. " I have been in more than once 
 when I have done nothing." . . . Then a light 
 of humour went across his face, and he con- 
 tinued : " I don't say I wouldn't have done it 
 if I had had the chance, but I hadn't the chance. 
 Anyhow, there wasn't much injustice." When 
 a man accepts as his axiom of life that he is the 
 plaything of chance and that the things that 
 happen come to pass without regard to his 
 volition or effort, there can be no regeneration. 
 There is a power not himself that makes for 
 wickedness. The will is diseased. The mind is 
 disordered. 
 
 One recalls those dreadful lines of John 
 Davidson : 
 
 Perhaps we are in hell 
 For all that I can tell ; 
 And cursed and damned 
 And served up hot to God. 
 
 The urgent need is to create or recreate a 
 purpose and to create or recreate effort. These 
 offenders need an inspiration that something is 
 worth while. They need a new conception of 
 personal worth and individual responsibility. 
 Some experience, some illusion, some belief 
 must operate so powerfully that they break with 
 
The Loom and the Cross 177 
 
 the past and set out on a new future. What is 
 needed, and nothing less will meet the facts, is 
 a renewal of the will. In view of the teaching 
 of science it is a large call to make on Nature to 
 cleanse the texture of the brain and wipe out 
 the lusts and passions that have dominated the 
 body throughout the years. That is regenera- 
 tion with a vengeance, and it appears a 
 scientific absurdity. 
 
 But no consideration of crime and criminals 
 can be complete without the most definite and 
 deliberate reference to the claims of the Galilean. 
 
 The theories and experiences associated with 
 His work are associated with the churches to-day. 
 His doctrines are openly proclaimed, and the 
 Church is as national and visible as are the 
 courts of law. There are spiritual lords as 
 well as law lords, and there are deacons as well 
 as police constables. 
 
 The theories of life and conduct and sin are 
 as definite as is the Common Law. The Church 
 faces the world with a challenge. 
 
 Its raison d'etre is to deal with just those 
 problems of distractions, disease, despair. 
 It reiterates and repeats such challenges as these : 
 
 " I came not to call the righteous but sinners." 
 
 c They that are whole have no need of a 
 
 physician, but they that are sick." 
 
 12 
 
178 The Loom of the Law 
 
 The Church claims that men can be made new. 
 
 It actually uses the word " regeneration " 
 as a human experience and necessity. 
 
 " In Christ ye are a new creation." That 
 claim is emphatic ; it is the condition precedent 
 to the coming of the new order. 
 
 The crippling limitations and lusts of life are 
 not merely forgiven, they are dominated. There 
 is an indwelling spirit or fellowship with Christ 
 that so transforms and reforms that a man conies 
 to glory in the frailties that are his because 
 where frailties abound grace abounds much more. 
 
 Just in the places of defeat and despair men 
 meet the illimitable and transforming power, 
 so that the call to splendour of living is not con- 
 ditioned by our frail human possibilities, but in 
 proportion to the splendour of the call is the 
 splendour of the power to realize and to be. 
 
 If those claims are true humanity has healing 
 for its wayward children, and can transform 
 the tears of anguish into the joys of a new 
 achievement. We can face the men of broken 
 wills without despair, we can hope for them 
 even to the uttermost. But nothing less than 
 this meets the needs of the broken. Literally 
 they have got to be reborn in spirit and in will. 
 Thirty years ago I watched the career of a 
 notorious character of a provincial city. He 
 
 i 
 
The Loom and the Cross 179 
 
 seemed absolutely bad and absolutely debauched. 
 In the picturesque language of the Gospels he 
 was possessed of devils, and most of his time was 
 spent in jail. 
 
 One day a strange thing happened. He saw 
 what his life had been and what the end of it 
 must be. Every nerve was steeped in drink 
 and every power of resistance was weakened, 
 if not destroyed. This weak-willed man claimed 
 for himself an experience akin to those recorded 
 in the Acts of the Apostles. At all events his 
 experience, whatever it was, produced the 
 same results. His life was transformed ; he 
 was remade in mind, in will, in desires, and he 
 became in the most literal sense " a new creation." 
 I do not know what Freudians would call this 
 experience or whether alienists consider it a 
 form of delusion. The man himself said that 
 he was " saved by the Grace of God." That 
 experience or delusion or obsession whatever 
 it be has stood the test of the intervening years, 
 and society was saved the cost of maintaining 
 a drunken and debauched citizen in its jails. 
 
 The problem of the criminal is a very real one. 
 His existence is a condemnation of himself and 
 a reflection on us. 
 
 The Gospels appear to indicate a line of 
 
 12* 
 
180 The Loom of the Law 
 
 remedial treatment that the modern state has 
 more and more adopted. The Probation of 
 Offenders Act, 1907, and Criminal Justice Ad- 
 ministration Act, 1914, are an expression of the 
 new Christian principles operative in criminal 
 administration. 
 
 (a) "Locus pcenitentiae." The whole circum- 
 stances surrounding the commission of an offence 
 are considered and every mitigating fact is 
 weighed in favour of the prisoner. 
 
 (b) A new chance and a new chance without 
 the record of a conviction. 
 
 (c) Friendship and Faith. The State has pro- 
 vided probation officers and missionaries who 
 are literally the friends of the unfortunate. 
 
 In 1906 two articles of mine appeared in a 
 London monthly entitled " The Criminal Law 
 of the Gospels," dealing with this aspect of 
 remedial work. I said, " Our remedial efforts 
 end with punishment. We avenge society, we 
 do no more. But in His knowledge of the need 
 of men and the need of God, Jesus laboured 
 incessantly to make the criminal realize his 
 worth and to reach out to its fulfilment. And 
 that cannot be done in old criminal environ- 
 ments and comradeships. The fallen man must 
 be 6 fellowed ' with an unf alien man. The 
 
The Loom and the Cross 181 
 
 environment of Christ and faith must replace 
 the environment of crime and lawlessness. It 
 is a mighty sacrifice, but it has got to be faced 
 for Christ's sake and man's. One feels to-day 
 that if we are theologically right we are adminis- 
 tratively wrong : if our faith be true our justice 
 is false. We must believe in the possibilities 
 of the race if we take our philosophy of life from 
 Galilee." 
 
 In 1907 the Probation of Offenders Act came 
 into operation. In 1920 the Home Office ap- 
 pointed a departmental committee to inquire 
 into methods of training and appointing proba- 
 tion officers. The committee's report was 
 issued in 1922. The committee's references to 
 the value of probation are worth recording : 
 ic Before discussing the questions immediately 
 referred to us, we should like to say a few words 
 on the great value of probation as a means of 
 reformation and the prevention of crime. The 
 system has long passed the experimental stage 
 and has, we venture to think, taken a prominent 
 and permanent place in our judicial system 
 as in that of other countries. The underlying 
 idea is the value of the influence which a man or 
 woman of strong personality may exercise over 
 one of weaker or immature character who, 
 owing to lack of discipline, bad associations, 
 
182 The Loom of the Law 
 
 or other circumstances, has been led to commit 
 offences, and is liable to fall into or persist in 
 criminal habits. Experience has proved beyond 
 doubt that the ordinary methods available to 
 judicial authorities for dealing with offenders, 
 such as fine or imprisonment, too often fail 
 either as reformative or preventive agencies. 
 On the other hand probation, when applied in 
 suitable cases, has frequently proved successful 
 in producing a real change in the moral attitude 
 of persons brought before the Courts, restoring 
 their self-respect and enabling them to take 
 their places as decent and law-abiding citizens." 
 
 And the statistics justify the report. For 
 example : 
 
 Thames Police Court : 191975 men and lads 
 over 16 placed on probation (9 lapsed and were 
 recharged). 192086 men and lads over 16 
 placed on probation (13 lapsed and were re- 
 charged). 192176 men and lads over 16 placed 
 on probation (8 lapsed and were recharged). 
 
 West London : 191950 men and lads over 16 
 placed on probation (4 lapsed and were re- 
 charged). 1920 57 men and lads over 16 placed 
 on probation (7 lapsed and were recharged). 
 192143 men and lads over 16 placed on pro- 
 bation (2 lapsed and were recharged). 
 
 Old Street: 1919117 men and lads (of all 
 
The Loom and the Cross 183 
 
 ages) placed on probation (13 lapsed and were 
 recharged). 1920128 men and lads (of all ages) 
 placed on probation (20 lapsed and were re- 
 charged). 1921 112 men and lads (of all ages) 
 placed on probation (8 lapsed and were re- 
 charged). 
 
 North London: 191980 men and lads (of all 
 ages) placed on probation (9 lapsed and were re- 
 charged). 192085 men and lads (of all ages) 
 placed on probation (10 lapsed and were re- 
 charged). 1921103 men and lads (of all ages) 
 placed on probation (8 lapsed and were re- 
 charged). 
 
 The statistics of nine police courts within the 
 Metropolitan Police area : 1919 601 probation 
 orders, 78 unsatisfactory. 1920 608 probation 
 orders, 89 unsatisfactory. 1921 532 probation 
 orders, 46 unsatisfactory. 
 
 The new legislation appears to provide an 
 attempt to answer John Davidson's " Waiting." 
 
 From the mansion and the palace 
 
 Is there any help or hail 
 For the tenants of the alleys, 
 
 Of the workhouse and the jail ? 
 
 You might try to understand us ; 
 
 We are waiting night and day 
 For a captain to command us, 
 
 And the word we must obey. 
 
 The great majority of probation orders are 
 made by Courts of Summary Jurisdiction. Of 
 
184 The Loom of the Law 
 
 the 9,655 orders made in 1919 those made by 
 Courts of Summary Jurisdiction amount to 
 9,068. A very small number were made by 
 Courts of Assize (7), and a comparatively small 
 number by Quarter Sessions (580). Of these 580, 
 the majority (465) were made by the County of 
 London Sessions under the Chairmanship of Sir 
 Robert Wallace, K.C., LL.D. And Sir Robert 
 Wallace and his colleague Mr. Allan J. Lawrie 
 are emphatic that in the interests of both the 
 prisoner and the community the probation order 
 is the most beneficial and beneficent treatment of 
 the criminal. 
 
 Perhaps Sir Robert Wallace's experience will 
 lead to a more extensive use of that treatment at 
 Quarter Sessions and Assizes. 
 
 The Departmental Report of the Home Office 
 Committee appears to justify the practice of the 
 London Sessions : " The marked decrease in the 
 prison population and in the number of com- 
 mittals to reformatories and industrial schools 
 which has taken place during the last few years 
 may be attributed partly to the increasing use of 
 probation." 
 
 An occasional visit to the cells of our criminal 
 courts and to the prisons is a useful experience 
 for those who administer the criminal law. A 
 
 
The Loom and the Cross 185 
 
 little self-examination and imagination can 
 create an atmosphere in which to get some ap- 
 proach to the emotions that must thrill in the 
 hearts of at least some of the prisoners. 
 
 The time cannot be far distant when there will 
 be a clearer line of demarcation between the un- 
 fortunate who in some weak moment has broken 
 the law and that other class who with deliberation 
 embark upon a criminal career. The State has 
 set up its system of preventive detention to 
 segregate the apparently incurable. 
 
 One thing is true, that there has grown up a new 
 spirit in criminal administration, and it is the 
 desire of those responsible for that administra- 
 tion to set upon their feet again those who have 
 fallen on the way. The Law expresses in many 
 statutes that it can show a great compassion. 
 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE WEST-END AND THE EAST-END 
 
 nnHE West-End is only a caravansary. It 
 is a place of hotels and clubs and restau- 
 rants, of theatres and shops and bars, of flaring, 
 blazing signs and long ranks of taxi-cabs. It is 
 the antithesis of normality and stability, of home 
 and domesticity and work. It is exoteric and 
 exotic. Eros is its god and his graven image 
 keeps watch and ward at Piccadilly. Every- 
 thing is for hire. You hire your bed ; you hire 
 your cup and saucer, your knife and fork, your 
 cab and your companion. You can hire such 
 intimate things as a shirt, or a suit of clothes or 
 pyjamas. 
 
 The West-End is the region of the transitory. 
 Temporariness is its characteristic quality. You 
 have a night in town or book a seat at a music- 
 hall or hire a taxi. It is the area of the super- 
 ficial. The plays are the realities and the realities 
 are revues. Work is play and play is work. 
 Eating is an affectation and drinking a habit ; 
 and appetites are hand-made. Friendships are 
 
 186 
 
The West-End and the East-End 187 
 
 a casual occurrence and love is a perfumed pre- 
 tence. The wages of sin is life and the gift of 
 God is what a joke ! Up West, gifts are paid 
 for in money and furs and wine. It is an under- 
 world in evening-dress. Coarseness is trans- 
 muted into Art and vice into Music. And the 
 crudest animalism can become a fashionable 
 cultus. Chivalry is openly paraded as a lie and 
 virtue is a gibe at every street corner. Ter- 
 minological inexactitudes prevail and camou- 
 flage is common. A brothel not seldom is called 
 a restaurant, and an adultress is usually a 
 respondent. And shame has no shamefulness. 
 At times honourable men keep company with 
 dishonourable women and pretty men parade 
 with rouged and powdered faces. The wash of 
 the world's vice surges about its police courts, 
 and there are days when the words of an old 
 prophet grow luminous and significant : 
 
 The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. 
 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no 
 soundness in it ; but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. 
 
 Those who are familiar only with the West- 
 End are strangers to the wit and witchery, to the 
 humour and romance of London. East of Aid- 
 gate is the London of commerce and craftsmanship, 
 of ships and sailors and the sea. It is the 
 rendezvous of the citizens of the world. Poplar 
 
188 
 
 The Loom of the Law 
 
 and Millwall have the men who fit and man the 
 ships and traverse seas and load and unload 
 cargoes. They are broad-chested, hairy and 
 brown, men who can look you in the face. 
 These are the men who made the Port of London. 
 And the Port of London made the Metropolis of 
 the world. The docks are the symbol of the 
 greatness of England, for is she not mistress of 
 all the seas ? The tall ships come from the 
 world's end laden with merchandise and carrying 
 with them the memories of Eastern suns and 
 Northern seas spices and fruits and sugar, 
 brandies and wines, and timber from the North- 
 lands. Men from the four quarters of the world 
 walk by the waterways and the tongues of many 
 peoples are spoken. At night this strange mix- 
 ture of the world's men wander in the streets of 
 the East seeking for adventure. There is a 
 strange uniformity in the realm of desire. Wine 
 and the hands of women hold the keys that un- 
 lock the doors of satisfaction and delight. The 
 gamut of sin is soon run. 
 
 But life is less exotic down East. There is 
 sin, but there is robustness and manliness and 
 cleanliness in the marrow. Our dirt is only 
 skin-deep. There is something of the moral 
 health of the provinces and sometimes almost 
 the freshness of the Northumbrian uplands. 
 
The West-End and the East-End 189 
 
 Night is not turned into day and the garish 
 artificiality of Piccadilly is as far from Poplar 
 and Millwall as it is distant from Chillingham 
 and the Alnwick moors. The virus of London 
 does not operate east of Temple Bar. It may be 
 that work is an anti-toxin to artificiality. The 
 offences so far as the white men are concerned 
 are usually associated with drink and the sequelae 
 of drink. They take on a cargo far above their 
 Plimsoll line and are unable to steer back to 
 their ships or homes. They lie on tram-tracks 
 or gutterways or across the pavements. 
 
 Drink makes some men egotistical, and these 
 usually obtrude their personality on the public 
 by undertaking, unasked, the duty of directing 
 the traffic. A policeman on point-duty makes 
 strong appeal and is a sore temptation to some 
 men in drink. Drink makes others disagreeable 
 and looking for trouble they soon find it. They 
 usually stand in the dock in pairs. Friendship 
 displaces the enmity of the night before and 
 forgetfulness swallows up the passion that im- 
 pelled to the dispute. And it is not unusual for 
 one man to pay the fines of both. Adversity 
 is the womb of true friendship. Expressions of 
 regret are unanimous and universal. But one 
 discovers that regret and repentance are not 
 coeval and coequal. The regrets of the morning 
 
190 The Loom of the Law 
 
 are forgotten by the evening and offers to " join 
 the pledge " are general on a second appearance. 
 The third appearance during a ship's sojourn 
 in the port is explained by no explanations at 
 all. These are simply strong expressions of 
 self-condemnation and self-contempt and they 
 usually borrow adjectives from the repertoire 
 of Mr. George Bernard Shaw to describe the 
 category of the foolish to which they belong. 
 
 The Irishman is a genuine delight in " drunk " 
 charges. There was one who, in order to avoid 
 all unnecessary explanations and complications, 
 resorted to the obvious and simple device of 
 giving a false name. The face was much too 
 merry to be forgotten within a week. I said 
 to him : " O'Sullivan, when were you here last ? " 
 " Sorr," said he, " O' 'Sullivan was never here 
 before." " But I have seen you before," I 
 replied. The jailer then came to the assistance 
 of the Court " O'Sullivan was charged with the 
 same offence last Thursday but in a different 
 name." "Ah!" I said, "you can change 
 your name a dozen times, but I never forget a 
 face." Imperturbably and with the blandest 
 of innocent smiles, he tried to placate the Court 
 with this : " Do ye know, sorr, I have a grand 
 remembrance for faces myself ! ' ! We were kins- 
 men at least in mental equipment. 
 
The West-End and the East-End 191 
 
 An Irishman by the weapon of his wit can 
 often accomplish what others could only attempt 
 by impudence. An old Irishman was charged 
 with drunkenness and it was his third appearance 
 within a week. He went into the dock and was 
 called on to plead. His mind seemed to be 
 engaged on some more important affairs than the 
 matter of the charge. The jailer put the charge 
 to him again, and waving his hand to the jailer 
 as though he were brushing aside a triviality, 
 the Irishman said : " Of course, I'm guilty ! ?: 
 . . . and he proceeded to address the Bench on 
 a far more important topic in a rich Southern 
 brogue that was bred in the neighbourhood of 
 Blarney. " Do ye know, sorr, it's thirty-six 
 years since I came to this counthry, and, plase 
 God, this time next year I'll be back in County 
 Cork. I think, sorr, the treaty will be ratified 
 sure enough, and it will be a grate day for every- 
 body concerned when ..." I intervened and 
 reminded him of the little matter that was 
 charged against him. He looked grieved and 
 surprised that I had failed to appreciate matters 
 of real importance, and it was clear I had fallen 
 in his esteem. He replied : " Och ! shure that's 
 only a trifle. What do ye say to five shillings ? " 
 I reminded him that it was his third appearance. 
 " Och ! shure the whole thing's not worth 
 
t 
 192 The Loom of the Law 
 
 talking about. I'll lave the five shillings with 
 the jailer." And he did. 
 
 Births, christenings, marriages and funerals 
 are frequently responsible for the appearance of 
 women in the dock. Having no gauge of their 
 capacity they collapse on the way home. They 
 are overwhelmed with shame and regrets and lay 
 emphasis on the fact that they were " never in 
 such a place as this before." And in order to 
 assuage their sense of utter humiliation an effort 
 is made to impress on them that some " quite 
 respectable " people come to " Thames ! " 
 
 Occasionally a note is struck that is far from 
 joyous. Drink can work sore havoc and spoil 
 every possibility that life offers. There is a 
 woman who, for nearly twenty years, has been 
 a regular " offender." She is midway in the 
 thirties and first came before the court in her 
 teens. At sixteen she was declared an habitual 
 drunkard and sent to a Home. The treatment 
 was a failure and the intervening years have 
 been filled with terms of imprisonment. What 
 lamentable tragedy is gathered up in such a life f 
 A few months ago she appeared at the court and 
 pleaded with tears for one chance more. It 
 seemed utterly hopeless, but with such a record 
 who could refuse her the chance she pleaded for ? 
 The magistrate told her that he would treat her 
 
The West-End and the East-End 193 
 
 as though it were her first offence, and he dis- 
 charged her. She was back in the dock in the 
 morning. 
 
 And in drink men do things that out of drink 
 they believed impossible. Therein lies the 
 subtlety and the danger. Drink sometimes 
 affects the judgment and disturbs the normal 
 functioning of the mind. In some the dis- 
 turbance is trivial, in others it is tragic and 
 disastrous. 
 
 A man of good character and responsible 
 position stood in the dock the other day on a 
 charge which, if not serious, was shameful. 
 In drink he had been guilty of conduct that led 
 to his arrest and had his arrest been delayed 
 he might have been charged with a grave offence 
 involving penal servitude. The prisoner stood 
 aghast at the story told by the witnesses and had 
 a revelation into his own heart that terrified 
 him. Every man must bear his own burden and 
 the recklessness that is born of intoxication may 
 be the expression of a personality of whose exist- 
 ence he had been unaware. The Law as yet has 
 no knowledge of dual personality, and Philip 
 sober must pay the penalty for the misdeeds of 
 Philip drunk. 
 
 East London is the area where young men see 
 visions and old men dream dreams as was written 
 
 13 
 
194 The Loom of the Law 
 
 by the prophet. I am not sure that it is not a 
 magnet that draws the idealists, for it draws 
 men and women by some mystic charm and 
 those whom it draws are those who love humanity. 
 It was in East London that Mr. F. N. Charrington 
 made the great renunciation, and East London 
 claimed General Booth and gave the impulse 
 to his great adventure. It has lost none of the 
 lure that drew men and women in the reign of 
 the Great Queen. There are still the heirs of the 
 faithful. Sir John Dickinson, late chief Metro- 
 politan police magistrate, began his Metropolitan 
 magisterial work at Thames and refused to leave 
 East London for twenty-three years. East Lon- 
 don had a large part in equipping him with the 
 wisdom, patience, courtesy and knowledge of the 
 world that made him the greatest chief magis- 
 trate within living memory. No man can live 
 in contact with East London without faith in 
 and affection for humanity. There is no beauty 
 in it that men should desire it. It distresses 
 the fastidious and the cynical. The dilettante 
 is suffocated by its atmosphere. 
 
 Here and there in the dull grey streets one 
 finds green pastures and waters of quietness. 
 Men and women mostly young it is true, but 
 the older ones are their inspiration have left 
 Queen's or Caius, or Newnham, and have found 
 
The West-End and the East-End 195 
 
 Canning town or Stepney or Poplar a joyous 
 place. They say it is not a renunciation ; it is 
 the great acceptance. And they have told of 
 the dull, deadening monotony of the life in 
 Mayfair or the outer suburb that they knew, 
 and compare it unfavourably with the adven- 
 turous hours that claim them in the East. 
 A denizen of Park Lane could find no less attrac- 
 tion in the contemplation of a return to Petticoat 
 Lane. East London has its own tests of value, 
 a fact that throws some light on recent municipal 
 happenings. And it may be that the hard lot 
 of the present impels it to a contemplation of the 
 days to come. Like John of Patmos they look 
 for a city coming down from God out of Heaven 
 whose builder and maker is God. Dreamers 
 have a strange forgetfulness of economic laws, 
 and political economists a strange remembrance 
 of the pursuit of wealth as the only purpose of the 
 economic man. East London has much to tempt 
 it, but it has escaped the lust of money. And 
 in this backwater of the world human nature 
 reveals strange depths of magnificence of which 
 patience and mercy are not the least. They 
 rejoice in simple things and their courage is 
 colossal. Crimes of violence are rare and crimes 
 of greed are rarer still. Its thieves are usually 
 adolescent lads and its malicious woundings are 
 
 13* 
 
196 The Loom of the Law 
 
 done in a paroxysm of sudden passion, or in 
 the impulse of a great love. Down East ac- 
 quaintanceship easily ripens into friendship and 
 one is frequently surprised in wandering through 
 its alleyways and back streets at the nods of 
 recognition, though the acquaintanceship is 
 founded on an introduction that was effected 
 by the instrumentality of the police. The 
 warmest greetings I have had in East London 
 were from men I sent to jail. It is fitting that 
 we think less than harshly of East London's 
 millions. The setting of their lives is grim and 
 sordid ; they are haunted by dread of unemploy- 
 ment and sickness and want. But there are, 
 behind all their faults and follies, qualities that 
 win them more than our regard. And in them 
 we can find the virtues that have made the 
 greatness of the English race. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE DOCKS 
 
 1\ /T AJOR or minor indiscretions in drink do 
 " - not sum up the tales of seamen and the 
 sea at Thames. Men come sometimes with the 
 stains of blood upon their hands. Racial or 
 religious differences become acute ; disputes 
 arise relating to work, or loans or fancied slights, 
 and in the blindness of passion a blow is struck. 
 It is then a tale of murder. 
 
 There came to Thames a youthful Indian 
 fireman. He was only a lad, and he carried the 
 dignity and beauty of the East. He bore him- 
 self with composure and restraint. He knew no 
 English, and was a pathetic figure standing 
 alone in the dock. There had been a racial 
 feud in their quarters, and the men had taken 
 sides. Bickerings, and menaces and insults had 
 continued for some days. One night an attack 
 was made by one side on the other, and in 
 
 course of it a man was killed. The prisoner was 
 
 197 
 
198 The Loom of the Law 
 
 the lad who struck the fatal blow. As happens 
 so often in human affairs, it is the relatively 
 innocent who pay the price for the absolutely 
 guilty. He came into the disturbance after it 
 was well begun, and struck the fatal blow in 
 warding off a blow that was aimed at him. So 
 he said. He was committed on the lesser 
 charge, and convicted of manslaughter at the 
 Central Criminal Court. 
 
 At times batches of seamen are charged with 
 refusal to obey the lawful commands of their 
 officers. For some fancied or real grievance 
 they join together and hold up the work of the 
 ship. It is a serious occurrence, but it is 
 important to find out the circumstances. It is 
 by no means the worst men who do the unlawful 
 thing, and it happens at times that the unruly 
 behaviour is one expression of the bravery that 
 has made the British Mercantile Marine. 
 
 There came before the court a batch of ten 
 seamen charged with disobedience. The cir- 
 cumstances out of which the trouble arose were 
 trivial. The men had expected to be paid off 
 at a certain time and place, but the ship had 
 to be moved a little further on. A little delicate 
 manoeuvring could have cleared the trouble, but 
 some men in authority are very authoritative, 
 and their sense of dignity becomes ridiculous. 
 
The Docks 199 
 
 The men countered the authoritative dignity 
 by revolt, and they stood before the dock. 
 These were no slackers. They were British 
 seamen. 
 
 A little of the case was heard. It was more 
 a case for common sense than law. A little 
 lecture on the traditions of the sea, a little 
 tribute to the Mercantile Marine in war-time, 
 a little talk on the childishness of sulking, and 
 the atmosphere was cleared. A discharge from 
 the court was more effective than a fine. 
 Officers and men went back to their ship all the 
 better for their day's outing at the court. 
 
 Sometimes offences, trivial in themselves, 
 become serious by reason of the extent of them 
 and the conditions under which they occur. 
 Enormous quantities of merchandise are stored 
 in the Docks. The ordinary citizen has no 
 conception of the wealth of commodities that 
 pours into the Thames day after day every 
 necessity and every luxury of food, and drink 
 and clothing grain and sugar, spices and fruit, 
 and nuts, tinned foods of every description, wines, 
 spirits and liqueurs, silks and satins and 
 woollens. In the sugar-sheds the bags are piled 
 up in mountains, till you believe there is sugar 
 enough for the world for a generation. The 
 vaults have enormous barrels of rum bv the 
 
200 The Loom of the Law 
 
 thousands, and the quay-sides are crowded with 
 barrels of wine. The quantities are so vast 
 that a little taken away can make no difference ! 
 
 Stealing at the Docks became a disease. 
 There appeared to be no public opinion against 
 it, and a conviction and a fine carried with it 
 no stigma and no shame. The watchmen who 
 were paid to watch stole the goods they were 
 watching, and storekeepers partook of their 
 stores. Men of long and honoured service 
 helped themselves liberally of the good things 
 about them. The men insured each other, and 
 paid each other's fines. All kinds of devices 
 were utilized to carry away the goods. Hot- 
 water bottles were adapted to carry off wines 
 and spirits, and special pockets and attachments 
 were made in clothing. Large barrels were 
 spiled to fill a rubber bottle, and the barrel was 
 left running to waste. Insurance companies 
 increased their premiums, and the Port of 
 London increased their police. Nothing was 
 safe. The Docks were in a state of complete 
 demoralization. 
 
 It is not a pleasant thing to send a man to 
 prison. It is doubly unpleasant if he is a man 
 of reputed unblemished character and of long 
 standing in his firm. Yet such were the men 
 who paraded the dock on charges of stealing 
 
The Docks 201 
 
 from the Port of London. There were some 
 painful scenes. Men woke up suddenly to the 
 shame of their position, but they went to jail. 
 
 There appeared in the dock a man of nearly 
 sixty. He had spent all his working life in the 
 area of the Port, and risen to a position of trust. 
 One day he was searched as he left the Docks, 
 and underneath his clothes was packed enough 
 children's underwear to stock a little shop. 
 He was unmarried. Appeals were made for 
 leniency. His long service and position of trust 
 were urged in mitigation of the offence. Rightly 
 or wrongly, I took the view that just in those 
 circumstances lay the most serious aggravation. 
 Imprisonment deters in offences of this char- 
 acter, and a few months of unemotional judg- 
 ment helped men to resist the impulse to 
 " scrounge." 
 
 The Docks attract many visitors, and the 
 Port of London Authority is generous in its 
 offer of facilities. But strange things happen 
 unexpected, impossible things ! 
 
 A couple of well-known professional men 
 stood in the dock one morning on the charge of 
 " unlawful possession of wine." They had been 
 visitors to the Docks. As they were passing 
 out of the gates they were challenged : " Have 
 you anything in your possession that does not 
 
202 
 
 The Loom of the Law 
 
 belong to you ? " They had. Each had a small 
 sample bottle of wine. They were arrested 
 and charged, and stood in the dock. They 
 alleged that the bottles had been given to 
 them by an official. The official denied the 
 allegation, but inasmuch as an admission by 
 him would have meant dismissal, there was a 
 substantial doubt and the professional men 
 were discharged. 
 
 They were more fortunate in their fate than 
 the three scientists and scholars who came 
 to the Docks on a visit. A party of them had 
 spent an afternoon at the Docks in the interests 
 of science and scholarship. They wanted the 
 " local colour," and the traditions and the spirit 
 of British commerce. As it happened, three of 
 them got it to the full. 
 
 At the gate the party was challenged, and 
 three of them undoubtedly had on them things 
 that did not lawfully belong to them. In 
 passing through the mountains of merchandise 
 one had lifted a tin of sardines, another took 
 a handful of nuts, and the third took a tin of 
 fruit. These were little mementoes of their 
 visit ! 
 
 It is a dreadful moment when the hand of 
 the Law rests upon your shoulder. Dread, 
 consternation, horror, seized upon them. But 
 
The Docks 203 
 
 the charge was true. They had, indeed, " taken 
 and carried away certain goods, the property of 
 the Port of London Authority, with intent to 
 deprive the said Port of London Authority of 
 them." Legally it was so. In reality they did 
 not mean to steal. They only meant to take 
 them as a memento ! There is a difference, 
 but it is hard to explain. Three men lived in 
 hell for a week, awaiting the return day of the 
 summons. They neither knew rest nor sleep 
 nor peace. Their days were a shadow, and 
 their nights were an agony. But they stood 
 before the dock. One could not readily define 
 the difference between larceny or unlawful 
 possession, and taking a memento, but there 
 was a difference. To record a conviction in 
 such circumstances might be technically right, 
 but it would be outrageously and morally wrong. 
 Payment of costs atoned the indiscretion, and 
 three men learnt that day something of the 
 agony that is found in the way of transgressors. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE SEED OF ABRAHAM 
 
 TT has been said by some that Stepney is 
 the capital of Poland. This is denied by 
 others who assert that, on the contrary, it is a 
 suburb of Jerusalem. Both allegations pic- 
 turesquely express the truth that East London 
 has a very large alien Jewish population. The 
 area of its location is largely confined to Stepney 
 and Whitechapel. The shop-signs on the Com- 
 mercial Road are indicative of the faith and 
 nationality or at least the faith and place 
 of origin of its chief tradesmen. Cloth from 
 tweeds to crepe-de-chine, furs, millinery and 
 all the things that appertain to the comfort 
 and adornment of the body are largely in 
 evidence. The street markets that are carried 
 on in the side thoroughfares take one into an 
 environment as alien as he could find in Poland 
 or Palestine. Within a mile from the Royal 
 Exchange one finds the social and domestic 
 atmosphere of another race. These people have 
 brought with them their own faith and tongue, 
 
 204 
 
The Seed of Abraham 205 
 
 their own traditions and ideals of life. They 
 stand completely detached from every social, 
 religious and political idea associated with the 
 English race. These are the children of Israel, 
 as real, as distinctive and as impressive as when 
 they were in bondage in Egypt. The traditions 
 of five thousand years, the memories of old exiles, 
 the achievements of great leaders and the 
 promises of the prophets are all woven into the 
 texture of this people. These are history and 
 prophecy and undying hopes. They are the 
 survival of countless pogroms, of endless perse- 
 cutions. They have no country, yet they are a 
 people. They have no state, yet they have 
 traditions and aspirations that knit them in one 
 race. They have left their impress upon history. 
 Many empires and peoples have risen and fallen 
 into forgetfulness but this strange race gathers 
 yet about the promises that were made to 
 Abraham and Isaac and Jacob : 
 
 I will make of thee a great nation and in thee shall all families of 
 the earth be blessed. 
 
 Acquaintance with their history and traditions 
 and contact with the humbler members of the 
 race certainly do not compel contempt. They 
 are loyal to their traditions and faithful to their 
 obligations. They are industrious, thrifty and 
 prolific. They are law-abiding as a rule and 
 
206 
 
 The Loom of the Law 
 
 invariably sober. The loyal fulfilments of their 
 domestic obligations is almost characteristic. 
 Their occupations are very limited. If they are 
 not traders they follow some sedentary work. 
 There must be thousands who are street-traders. 
 Some have shops, but most of them trade with 
 costers' barrows from their dwelling houses. 
 The poorer fraternity are journeymen tailors 
 or fur- workers, but they dream of the day when 
 they will be mastermen too. 
 
 Commercial Road on a Saturday afternoon is 
 strangely unlike an English city. It has more in 
 common with a Jewish city of Eastern Europe. 
 The streets are crowded with young life and there 
 is an air of prosperity and contentment. The 
 children are well-nourished and strikingly well- 
 dressed. The Jewish young men and women are 
 groomed in the latest fashions in suits and furs. 
 They are in dramatic contrast to the British 
 workman who is occasionally seen in this area. 
 Road-making, lorry-work, or labouring at the 
 Docks make no appeal to the Jewish mind. I 
 have never met a Jewish artisan nor have I ever 
 seen a Jew in corduroy. It may be that manual 
 toil offers no future to the toiler or that it is 
 unsuitable to the Jewish physique or tempera- 
 ment. 
 
 Jews sometimes stand in the dock at Thames. 
 
The Seed of Abraham 207 
 
 Their offences are usually neither drunkenness 
 nor disorderliness. At times a Jewish lad takes 
 too literally a prophecy of possessing the ends 
 of the earth and refuses to abstain from obstruc- 
 tion of the free passage of the footway. The 
 police end the debate by taking him to Leman 
 Street or Arbour Square, and at Thames he learns 
 of Police Acts that are subsequent to the prophecy. 
 Seldom are there charges involving violence, 
 though the summons' list in the afternoon is 
 full of allegations and counter- allegations of 
 assaults and battery and abuse. Considering 
 the state of over-crowding that exists in this area 
 the wonder is that more outbursts do not occur. 
 Most of the streets are in complete occupation 
 of the Jewish people and the impressive fact is 
 the extraordinary power of adaptability possessed 
 by this ancient race. They can settle in any 
 environment and literally enter in and possess the 
 land. They wander from Warsaw to Berlin, 
 and from Berlin to Antwerp and from Antwerp 
 to London. They are citizens of the world. 
 They have kinsmen in every city and the God of 
 Jacob as a shield and buckler. 
 
 They are largely indifferent to politics and 
 systems of government. All they ask is to be 
 left in the Ghetto to carry on their faith and 
 family life and to work in peace. They do not 
 
208 The Loom of the Law 
 
 appear to be disloyal, although they are not loyal 
 in the sense that sacrifice for a political ideal or 
 a national tradition appeals to them, but this 
 surely is a high standard to demand or expect. 
 There were thousands during the war who had 
 reaped a rich harvest from British freedom and 
 English institutions who demurred to undertake 
 the burden of arms for her welfare and who 
 deserve a graver censure than do those alien 
 denizens who dwell within her shores. 
 
 There is a criminal section of Jewry. Shop- 
 breaking, warehouse-breaking and burglary appear 
 to be their distinctive line and as a rule the 
 execution is daring and original. They believe 
 in the homely adage that : "It is as well to be in 
 for a sheep as a lamb." It is the daring coup 
 and the large result that appeal. Some of the 
 most daring and clever jobs have been done by 
 this class. It is undoubtedly true that most 
 evasions of the Aliens' Restrictions Regulations 
 are committed by Jews and these are mostly 
 Russians. In some cases there are reasons to 
 suspect political motives, but this is much less 
 frequent than might be supposed. The reasons 
 usually given for the evasion is a desire to escape 
 from Bolshevik rule, and they tell strange tales 
 of this beneficial regime. More than once young 
 fugitives have stood in the dock and they allege 
 
The Seed of Abraham 209 
 
 that they are the last of their family. It is a 
 story of murder and cruelty, and starvation. 
 Wherever the truth may lie, there is this much 
 credibility attaching to their story that they give 
 proof of their preference for the old regime by 
 risking six months' imprisonment and deportation. 
 
 The Rabbis have their own courts and many 
 disputes amongst the faithful are settled there. 
 They fulfil a most useful work and not seldom 
 domestic and neighbours' quarrels find there a 
 solution of their troubles. If possible, the Jewish 
 litigants are persuaded to have their differences 
 adjusted by the Rabbi. But the Rabbis' courts 
 do not settle all disputes. After a trial there 
 they sometimes come to the police court. It is 
 perhaps a tribute to the administration of 
 English justice that these litigants come to the 
 Gentile court as a sort of Court of Appeal. At 
 times one attempts to make appeal to the parties 
 by the ancient traditions and associations of 
 their race. Sometimes it is effective, for the 
 older people especially are proud of the traditions 
 of Israel. 
 
 Once, sitting at North London Court, I had an 
 assault case before me involving some five or 
 six parties. After hearing a little of the case I 
 had the parties lined up together, and as they 
 had some acquaintance with the English tongue, 
 
 14 
 
210 The Loom of the Law 
 
 I read to them the 133rd Psalm. I then advised 
 them to ponder the matter and adjourned the 
 summonses sine die. They were never reinstated. 
 At Thames one day an ancient Jew had sum- 
 moned one of his brethren for an assault. He 
 was old and worn, and one felt that perhaps 
 injured pride was the primary factor and the 
 compelling motive of the summons. His com- 
 plaint was listened to for a little time and I 
 repeated the North London experiment, but 
 with less success. The Court interpreter trans- 
 lated verse by verse these words : 
 
 Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to 
 dwell together in unity. It is like the precious ointment upon 
 the head, that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron' s beard ; 
 that went down to the skirts of his garment ; 
 
 As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon 
 the mountains of Zion ; for there the Lord commanded the 
 blessing, even life for evermore. 
 
 The old patriarch nodded his head in assent to 
 the beautiful sentiments of the Psalm, for it 
 gathered about it all the holy associations of 
 Zion, and I thought a reconciliation was pending. 
 I asked the interpreter to ask him what he thought 
 of the Psalm. The translation of his answer came 
 back to me thus : " Ah ! it is beautiful, very, 
 very beautiful, but the Law says an eye for an 
 eye and a tooth for a tooth ! ' : 
 
 As I watch from day to day representatives of 
 this race, I feel that every Jew is an epitome of 
 
The Seed of Abraham 211 
 
 his race and an epitome of history. To see 
 merely a man or woman with the physical 
 resemblances and the characteristic demeanour 
 of a race is to miss all that is true and dramatic 
 and romantic. And I find myself recalling 
 snatches from Mr. James Douglas' description of 
 Beerbohm Tree as Shy lock : 
 
 " Irving's Shylock was inconceivably august 
 and impossibly austere. Tree's Shylock is a 
 Shylock of the Ghetto. You can smell him 
 across the footlights. Yet his moral squalor is 
 never vulgar, for the racial fury in him is always 
 lif ting him far above his mean mind. . . .Another 
 fine thing is Mr. Tree's caricature of the Jewish 
 voice. It is not the voice of the actor you hear, 
 but the husky servility of centuries, for the woes 
 of the ages have made the voice of the Jew an 
 echo of his anguish. There is for me something 
 awful in this ancestral voice, which issues out of 
 the throat of every Jew in the world, whatsoever 
 language he may speak and howsoever earnestly 
 he may strive to acquire the intonation of the 
 Gentile. It always lashes me like a knout when 
 I hear it, for it calls up all the moans of all the 
 persecutions that defile across the wilderness of 
 history. Just as you catch the murmur of the 
 seven seas in the shell at your ear, so you can 
 
212 The Loom of the Law 
 
 hear the sighs of all the tribes of Israel in every 
 word uttered by every Jewish mouth. The 
 tragedy of this cry lies in its unconsciousness. 
 It will never be silenced until the last Jewish 
 mother cries the last cry of travail. 
 
 " The Jewish voice of Shylock is not more 
 characteristic than the Jewish gait and the 
 Jewish gestures. Mr. Tree not only talks like a 
 Jew, but he also walks like one. He moves with 
 that dreadfully furtive shuffle which the Jew has 
 never forgotten since he hung the first harp on 
 the first willow by the waters of the first Babylon. 
 It is the shambling shuffle of the serf and the 
 slave. It is the slithering motion of feet that 
 have learned the horrible art of going delicately 
 in dangerous paths. The bent back, the recoiling 
 elbows, the deprecative hands, the flabby supple- 
 ness of the beseeching knees all the physical 
 helotry of the Jew is found in this marvellous 
 portrait. And behind it all is the deathless 
 insolence, the indomitable hate, and the un- 
 conquerable vision, which have made the Jew in 
 all ages a poet, a painter, and an artist. Yes, 
 Mr. Tree's Shylock has in him a spark of the 
 artist who is, after all, the eternal outcast. He 
 is an epitome of the rebel soul at war with things 
 as they are." 
 
 (" Adventures in London," by James Douglas.) 
 
The Seed of Abraham 213 
 
 This race has been persecuted as no other race 
 has been persecuted. They have been fugitives 
 upon the face of the earth. They own no 
 country and no shores, but find a lodgment with 
 all the peoples of the earth. They carry with 
 them their faith and their traditions, and those 
 who are loyal to the faith and the traditions of 
 Israel make for an ordered, industrious and con- 
 tented people. 
 
 For I will make of thee a great nation and in thee shall 
 all the families of the earth be blessed. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 BLACK AND YELLOW AND WHITE 
 
 TN spite of the rhythms of poets East meets 
 West and they meet often in the most 
 sacred intimacies of life. Whether they meet in 
 the mystical depths of the mind may be dubious, 
 but that they meet in the physical depths of 
 passion admits of no debate. The bloods of 
 East and West commix and commingle, and at 
 times black and white, and white and yellow 
 become a living soul. Judged by the larger 
 philosophy our pity may be the product of 
 prejudice and our despair the fruition of ig- 
 norance, but the pigmentation of the sun is dyed 
 into baby bodies and little almond eyes and 
 white-black faces peer at you as if they were 
 asking questions of God. Can the instincts and 
 reactions and traditions of the desert become 
 balanced and adjusted to the instincts and 
 reactions and traditions of Western civilization ? 
 Does white qualify and temper black or does 
 black inflame and madden white ? Is the 
 
 214 
 
Black and Yellow and White 215 
 
 almond eye only a physical configuration or may 
 there be an " almond-eye " of the soul ? The 
 illicit loves of abandoned women can raise strange 
 problems for the race. The pigmented product 
 of an Arab's lust or love stirs no instincts that we 
 associate with motherhood. It is only the by- 
 product of an hour's madness or money. The 
 play is the thing. Go on with the play. 
 
 And so night by night and year by year Cable 
 Street re-echoes with the passings of the men of 
 the desert. And the sons of Ishmael meet with 
 the daughters of Isaac hard by the tents of Israel. 
 Arabs and Indians, Mulattoes and Negroes eat, 
 drink and make merry in their cafes and caravan- 
 saries. They talk the language of their tribes- 
 men and sing the songs of their mud- cabins and 
 kraals ; and they crown their joy and gaiety in 
 the arms of white girls. The lying-in hospital 
 and the workhouse are the realism of an Arab's 
 romance, and a brown-yellow baby is its tragi- 
 comedy. It is born to isolation and desolation. 
 It is the comedy of the neighbourhood, but 
 tragedy is woven into its texture till death un- 
 ravels it into the kindly earth of forgetfulness. 
 It is the visible expression of a black man's lust 
 and a white woman's shame. The elementals of 
 its life are the formula of an unforgiven ostracism. 
 It knows no race, no kindred, no native land 
 
216 The Loom of the Law 
 
 This is life's " throw-out." We meet them in 
 the East and we have seen them in the dock 
 nestling in the white bosoms of women. But 
 the black men have no stronghold. They have 
 set up no boundaries to mark off the area of their 
 habitations. They are interspersed amongst the 
 whites. There are black men but there is no 
 black civilization. 
 
 It is otherwise when you pass further east 
 into the region of London's Chinatown. In 
 Limehouse you have Chinamen, but there is 
 more. There is China's atmosphere, China's 
 morals, China's traditions and sins and trans- 
 gressions. Commercial Road is the highway 
 that leads to the waterways of the world. It is 
 the pathway to the Indies, to China and the East. 
 And in sight of the ships is Pennyfields, the 
 Chinese settlement. 
 
 To the unimaginative and the uninitiated it is 
 a narrow squalid street of dilapidated houses 
 the wreckage of a forgotten respectability. In 
 the daytime it is dull and dead. There is little 
 passing to and fro. It is only an obscure vein 
 that feeds the greater arteries of London. But 
 in the twilight there is an atmosphere of another 
 civilization. It tingles in the air and stirs in the 
 depths of the imagination. There are memories 
 or dreams of old sleeping cities, of villages from 
 
Black and Yellow and White 217 
 
 Manchuria to the confines of Europe. Soft- 
 footed Chinamen move noiselessly in the stillness 
 of the shadowy street and little groups gossip in 
 the gutter way. There are strange sounds, little 
 more than murmurings, strange smells, strange 
 sensations that are little more than fantasies. 
 On the doorposts hang little signs in the picture 
 words of Chinese, and in rooms that have no 
 privacy are companies of yellow men throwing 
 the dice or marking off the symbols in puck-a-poo. 
 There is no clamour, no clangour, no boisterous 
 behaviour. The Chinese have achieved the culture 
 of silence. Only the distant rumble of the traffic 
 by the Docks breaks the evening stillness. Every- 
 body is impassive. Everything is shrouded in 
 quietness. Limehouse dislikes the limelight at 
 least, in Pennyfields. It is content to lend its 
 name to a distinctive quality of rhetoric now 
 remembered only by the resentful. 
 
 Pennyfields is as exclusive as a well-bred club. 
 Initiation is necessary and introduction impera- 
 tive. It does not resent intrusion. It makes 
 intrusion impossible. A little sound, and a 
 little sign and Pennyfields is open to the sun. 
 There is no molestation, no menace, no obstruc- 
 tion. Its streets, its cafes and its homes are open 
 to the gaze of the curious. The stranger may 
 join the groups that throw the dice, but the 
 
218 The Loom of the Law 
 
 stranger is not observed. Eyes look at him but 
 he might only be a shadow on the wall. It is 
 the look of recognition that a blind man gives 
 out of his withered eyeballs. The audacious may 
 mount the stairways of a ramshackle house whose 
 steps creak at every footfall. A Chinaman will 
 pass you on the stairs. It is a shadow passing a 
 shadow. He may look back when his figure 
 passes into the darkness. A queer sensation 
 moves inside the heart. Something of the 
 mystery and wonder and dread associated with 
 the East creeps across the flesh. It is like walk- 
 ing into a sepulchre alone. The doors may shut. 
 There may be ? Yes, there may be any- 
 thing. Devices are not unknown to hamper the 
 police and impede the path of the curious. En- 
 trances may lead to exits that are known only to 
 those who know ! A door is opened. In the 
 stillness and the darkness your torch lightens up 
 a figure lying in the corner. It stirs at the dis- 
 turbance and looks at you. That is all. It is 
 wrapped in the dreams that bring to Pennyfields 
 the memories and the joys of home. 
 
 There is more vivacity at the cafes. The night 
 wears on and it is the time for delights. The 
 menu is as varied as at the Carlton or the Pic- 
 cadilly and each may eat the food that appeals. 
 Yong Tow Sus Wah, Sen Arp Hai Fun, Kai See 
 
Black and Yellow and White 219 
 
 Min, Gum Loo Min. The fastidious or the gour- 
 met may have special delights on a half-day's 
 notice. Char Tee Kai, Dun Po Sum Gup or Pat 
 Po Chun Ap. The ships have come from the 
 Orient and the sailors relax both their morals and 
 their muscles, amongst the gaiety and girls at 
 Pennyfields. The circle of romance is circum- 
 scribed and its contents are but permutations of 
 the things that delighted Noah or Solomon and 
 the succeeding races that they begat. There 
 come from the shadowy street well-dressed girls. 
 They steal by the walls of the houses from out of 
 England into the heart of China. They are in 
 search of the love of the East. The lure is more 
 than money, perhaps it is more than love, for 
 money can be earned and love can be sold by the 
 flare of the lamplights at Piccadilly. Instead, 
 they come to the shadowed squalor of Penny- 
 fields. There have passed from mouth to mouth 
 stories of its witchery and romance, and young 
 girls on the margin of the age of consent come in 
 search of Oriental delights. It is a shambles of 
 virginity. 
 
 In a quiet corner of a cafe sat a white girl of 
 seventeen or so side by side with a Chinaman. 
 He was handling her with hands of an infamous 
 familiarity, but there was neither remonstrance, 
 resistance nor resentment. She was oblivious 
 
220 The Loom of the Law 
 
 of the white man's gaze that witnessed her shame. 
 This was no wanton from amongst the sailors' 
 women, no battered remnant of harlotry in 
 decline. She was a novitiate into the realms of 
 concupiscence. The yellow face leered into the 
 white face and loathsome hands touched her on 
 the breasts. The cafe became a rendezvous as 
 the night wore on. Yellow and black and brown 
 men crowded into it, and the only whites were 
 women. Familiarities became more familiar, and 
 the barriers of reserve were broken down. Every 
 device that animalism inspires in men's hearts 
 was practised. The hands of white girls were 
 fouled by nameless contacts and their bosoms 
 polluted by the lecherous touch of black and 
 yellow hands that oozed with a sweating noisome 
 excrement. It was degradation upon degrada- 
 tion, it was shame upon shame. It was 
 Despair . . . 
 
 Limehouse, too, had its shrines to the dreamy 
 Dope-god. The house that held a shrine seemed 
 divorced from air and sunlight and everything 
 that ministered to health. It had all the squalor 
 that can be embodied in worn brick and crumb- 
 ling mortar and windows begrimed by the dirt 
 of years. Hard by ran an overhead railway- 
 bridge and the drip of the rain from its girders 
 was like the sorrowful tears of a thousand years. 
 
Black and Yellow and White 221 
 
 Only a distortion that had eaten into and de- 
 stroyed the depths of even the sub-conscious could 
 endure it. Everything was offensive offensive 
 to the eyes, the ears, the touch, the smell. There 
 was a nausea that was almost an anaesthesia. 
 Here, on filthy trappings, women of refinement 
 and beauty lay down to dream. A little pellet 
 of opium touched to life by a little spark of fire 
 and souls were carried away into a place that is no 
 place, into experiences that are phantasies, into 
 dreams that are half-heaven, half-hell. Colour 
 and music and beauty and satiety blend into a 
 co-ordinated unreality, into unconscious con- 
 sciousness. There is no pain, nor sorrow, nor 
 crying any more . . . the Dope-god has wiped 
 away all tears from every eye. It is the transient 
 fulfilment of an Apocalypse. There is an 
 awakening. But the personality forgets to bring 
 back all that it took into the shadows. Some- 
 thing is left behind of the conscious and some- 
 thing of the sub-conscious. There has been 
 disintegration. At another time the soul will go 
 back in search of its lost particles. But the 
 texture of the mind has been unravelled thread by 
 thread and the balanced reactions of life disturbed 
 and destroyed. The thoughts, emotions and 
 desires of a normal being become transformed to a 
 cruel abnormality, and death seems to be the only 
 
222 The Loom of the Law 
 
 avenue of escape from the torture of the ab- 
 normal. 
 
 From day to day and for many days, these prob- 
 lems in many phases came to the dock at Thames. 
 One day it was a white girl, another day it was a 
 yellow man. The charges were as various as the 
 forms of human transgression. And more than 
 once the court heard the lamentations of a 
 mother . . . 
 
 The hectic nights of Pennyfields seem ended. 
 The white parade is seen no more. To open 
 cafes as rendezvous for vice means arranging 
 for a journey to the East. Handling dope is 
 handling danger and deportation. And to live 
 in Pennyfields involves the recognition of an 
 elementary rule to obey the laws of England 
 and humanity. 
 
 But this does not sum up the whole tale of 
 Chinatown. Limehouse has its Chinamen who 
 are industrious and law-abiding citizens. These 
 have driven their stakes deep into the English 
 soil and given hostage to fortune, for they marry 
 English women and beget British children in 
 lawful wedlock. They are generous in their 
 behaviour to the women and affectionate towards 
 their children. No grounds exist for a condem- 
 nation of the Chinese in East London other than 
 those which belong to every people the section 
 
Black and Yellow and White 223 
 
 who live in ease by the exploitation of human 
 weakness. The vigilance of the police, supported 
 by public opinion, led to the expulsion of the 
 class that brought discredit upon an industrious 
 race. And often those who pay the best tribute 
 to the Chinese denizens in Limehouse are those 
 who live in closest contact with them the white 
 women who have chosen to join their lives to the 
 strange race who have come from the world's end. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MISCELLANEA 
 
 TRIGGER problems than the purely legal are 
 *^ presented to a Metropolitan police magis- 
 trate. One of his duties is to act as adviser to 
 the poor. These bring to him morning by 
 morning all the distractions and annoyances of 
 their lives. Some of these are legal problems and 
 they cover the whole area of law written and un- 
 writtenthe law of Limited Liability Com- 
 panies, Hire Purchase, Landlords and Tenants, 
 Rent Restrictions, Industrial Life Insurance, 
 Divorce and Easements. Some people have a 
 devilish ingenuity in evading Ethics and con- 
 forming to Law, and they are usually a Company 
 Limited. It must be a satisfactory state of 
 affairs that companies have no soul to be damned 
 and no body to be kicked. If the itinerant 
 evangelist is accurate in his forecasts of the future 
 a Judge in another place may be able to sort out 
 the directors and secretaries. 
 
 For a generation and more there has been a 
 
 systematized exploitation of the poor in their 
 
 224 
 
Miscellanea 225 
 
 most sacred sentiments. Whatever be the 
 limitations of the ignorant and they are many 
 they have a holy regard for the dead. The 
 living will sacrifice much to do them honour. 
 For a life-time premiums are paid in order that 
 there may be a decent and honourable burial. 
 This sentiment can be exploited and turned into 
 a neat little gamble which the Law has forbidden. 
 There is a doctrine of " insurable interest " that 
 defines the limits within which one can insure the 
 life of another. It is a salutary doctrine and 
 easily understood by people interested in the law 
 of life insurance. It is fully comprehended by 
 insurance companies and by their staffs. In 
 practice, large numbers of the poor are induced to 
 insure life in which there is no insurable interest 
 and the fact of the absence of insurable interest 
 is well-known to the companies or their agents. 
 During the war cases occurred in which women, 
 whose only source of income was the separation 
 allowance paid to the dependants of soldiers, 
 were inveigled into insuring their husbands, and 
 the policy that was issued expressly declared that 
 the policy was void if the assured died as a result 
 of naval or military service. What the com- 
 panies do not know during the currency of the 
 payments, they discover when it comes to 
 honouring the payments. They were lax in 
 
 15 
 
226 The Loom of the Law 
 
 their law whilst laxity paid them, they become 
 purists when purity pays. 
 
 Hire Purchase, too, troubles the poor. Having 
 paid their instalments for months or years their 
 consciences are outraged that there should be a 
 forfeiture because of a few outstanding payments. 
 The Law of Limited Liabilities has this amongst 
 its many other virtues that it enables heartless 
 exploiters to masquerade sometimes as honour- 
 able gentlemen. 
 
 In other problems that are presented to the 
 court the legal and the personal get strangely 
 mixed. A little hatred here or there, a little 
 cussedness, a little revenge and the heather is 
 ablaze. Crowing fowls, gramophones, sewing- 
 machines and bag-pipes appear, in certain re- 
 lations, to be instruments of the devil. Cabinet 
 making or chopping wood overhead is not in- 
 effective. Failing these, a pair of navvy's boots 
 or a pair of tongs used with discretion can cause 
 a satisfactory degree of annoyance. A door can 
 be left open when the neighbour wants it shut, or 
 vice-versa, and leaving the water-tap running 
 till it floods out the " party " underneath is 
 superlative in its capacity to annoy. Besides, 
 there is always the defence of accident or forget- 
 fulness. We are not all students of" Mr. Pelman !" 
 
 The possibilities of the more intimate domestic 
 
Miscellanea 22? 
 
 relationships for wrangling and misunderstanding 
 are infinite. Mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law, 
 sisters and brothers whether of the whole or the 
 half-blood, cousins and second cousins and blood- 
 relationships far beyond the limits recognized by 
 the Canon Law. 
 
 The squabbling of neighbours is unending. 
 There is a daily parade of these who want sum- 
 monses and cross-summonses. Abuse, threats, 
 assaults, insulting behaviour, malicious damage 
 are favourite allegations, and they mostly repre- 
 sent little or nothing. There have been emo- 
 tional outbursts and epithets are flung about 
 without any reference to their primary connota- 
 tion. To call a lady a or a gentleman a 
 
 does not mean and is not intended to mean that 
 the defendant was satisfied that either the lady or 
 the gentleman is or was carrying on this or that 
 trade, profession or calling. The terms are 
 merely handy and popularly descriptive, and the 
 complainant's repertoire being exhausted, he 
 has no alternative but to apply for two-shillings' 
 worth of revenge in the form of a summons. As 
 for threats a suggestion that the other is the 
 better man or woman who has succeeded in " put- 
 ting the wind up " the complainant, is met with 
 a prompt and emphatic denial. Fear is an un- 
 known experience ! No one likes his courage 
 
 15* 
 
228 The Loom of the Law 
 
 to be challenged. But nothing less than an 
 admission of fear makes a threat effective in the 
 sight of the Law. The complainant usually goes 
 home " on the horns of dilemma." He cannot 
 make up his mind whether it would have been 
 better to plead cowardice in order to convict or 
 whether he did the right thing in flaunting his 
 courage before the world. 
 
 There seems to be much matrimonial misery, 
 and it is impossible to apportion the blame or 
 diagnose the cause. One thing is certain, how- 
 ever, that no man or woman can make marriage 
 a success. It takes a man and a woman. 
 Even accepting the doctrine of Lord Hugh Cecil 
 that marriage is a vocation, the best that can be 
 achieved by the efforts of one is to turn matri- 
 mony into a martyrdom. Amongst the older 
 couples they have simply drifted apart. The 
 complaints or the summons for separation orders 
 are the culmination of years of indifference and 
 neglect. Some men think wives have no rights 
 and some wives think men have only such rights 
 as they permit. The mothering instinct can be 
 too pronounced and an undue emphasis of it is 
 worse than a workhouse school. Drink destroys 
 in many cases marital happiness. Some men in 
 drink are cruel in conduct and beastly in be- 
 haviour. And some men are cads drunk or sober. 
 
Miscellanea 229 
 
 At a Metropolitan police court a woman ap- 
 plied for a separation order on the ground of 
 persistent cruelty. At the hearing she deposed 
 that she was married to the defendant twenty- 
 six years and had by him four children. The 
 family had grown up and a son and a daughter 
 were on the eve of marriage. The court was 
 satisfied with the evidence and an order was made 
 for the maintenance of the wife and the two 
 younger members of the family. Suddenly 
 the defendant said to the Magistrate : " You 
 can make the order if you like, but it is no use . . . 
 we never were married." The daughter was in 
 court with her mother. The magistrate re- 
 quested the woman to go into the witness-box 
 and he put the question to her. Standing there 
 with her was her daughter. The daughter 
 watched her mother's face . . . waiting for the 
 denial. There was a silence deep as the grave. 
 A moment passed, but it felt an eternity. The 
 magistrate put the question again, and the worn, 
 weary woman made her confession. The 
 daughter, who was dreaming of the nuptials so 
 near at hand, shut out the light of day with her 
 hands. It was a cry of bitter despair that rang 
 through the court that afternoon : " O Mother ! 
 Mother ! Then I'm a bastard ! I'm a bastard ! " 
 After the tragedy had burst, the man saw the 
 
230 The Loom of the Law 
 
 evil he had wrought and tried to undo it. He 
 said : " I'll pay the money all right, for she is one 
 of the best in the world." But the woman only 
 shook her head. Alas ! it was too late. An 
 irrevocable decree had written a hated word upon 
 the hearts of her children. 
 
 Not a little of the married unhappiness of the 
 young is due to family interference. To most 
 of them marriage brings disappointment because 
 they had thought of it as a delirium or at least an 
 enduring intoxication. But there are duties, 
 concessions, disappointments, disillusions. They 
 had not counted on these. Relatives seem 
 to delight in making marriage a misery. No 
 woman was ever good enough for another woman's 
 son, and the mother-woman keeps an eye on the 
 wife-woman to see that she does her duty. She 
 is invariably a failure, and the mother-woman 
 tells the neighbours of the tragedy : 
 
 If, perchance, you should see him, 
 
 By one look at his face you can tell, 
 That already he has rued of his bargain 
 
 And found out that marriage is hell ! 
 
 Should the man " cleave unto his wife " as the 
 Scriptures enjoin, it is only an expression of the 
 subtle and sinister influence of the wife. One 
 old lady summed it up in unintentional poetry : 
 
 She wheedled him, she wheedled him, 
 She wheedled him awa'. 
 
Miscellanea 231 
 
 And it has been known for a mother to attribute 
 her son's devotion to his spouse as a sure evidence 
 that he is " weak-minded." The maternal in- 
 stinct is so pronounced in some that the marriage 
 of the daughter means an increase in the family. 
 Instead of losing a daughter they gain a son-in- 
 law. It is another man to be managed and 
 controlled. 
 
 Perhaps the most pathetic and difficult aspect 
 of the matrimonial differences is the effect upon 
 the children. It means for them, literally, the 
 loss of a parent. A wife sought a separation 
 order, but she would probably not have ob- 
 tained it. She appeared in the witness-box at 
 the opening of her case and in her arms was a 
 little fellow of three. The boy gazed round the 
 court and suddenly he noticed his father stand- 
 ing where defendants stand. The boy had 
 missed him from home and lo ! here in this 
 strange place, amongst strange people, he had 
 found him. He could not contain his joy at 
 this important discovery. He pushed a little 
 finger into his mother's face and chuckled, " O 
 Mummy, there's Daddy ! " It seemed to him 
 that Mummy must have missed him too, and 
 come here to find him. The child created an 
 atmosphere for reconciliation. Finding that 
 Daddy was such a delight that to rob him of 
 
232 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Daddy was to rob him of much, and the woman's 
 anger could only be appeased at the cost of the 
 boy's affection, both the man and the woman 
 weighed things up and judged of the things 
 that mattered in the tense silence that followed. 
 Only one thing could happen. The lad was 
 asked to take Daddy home with him and Mummy, 
 and his mission was joyfully undertaken. He 
 started forthwith to find his Daddy's hand. 
 The summons was adjourned sine die and so it 
 stands even until this day. 
 
 The police courts, like the Divorce Court, 
 hold the ashes of many a romance. There are 
 left only the dead embers. The intimacies, the 
 disclosures, the disappointments, and impa- 
 tiences of conjugal life have choked the fires 
 that were supposed to burn with the flames of 
 an undying passion. Even long association in 
 a common life has left no memories that are 
 sacred and tender. All that remains of romantic 
 dreams and romantic experiences are legal obli- 
 gations to be cursed and evaded. So complete 
 is the severance between the spouses that affec- 
 tion for the children is not powerful enough to 
 make tolerable the presence of one another. 
 The statistics of maintenance and separation 
 orders are a commentary on the transience of 
 passion. That it dies is a truism, that it can 
 
Miscellanea 233 
 
 turn to hate is an every-day experience. Police 
 courts in one aspect of their jurisdiction are a 
 miniature divorce court, and they experience 
 the problems and perplexities, the distractions 
 and disasters that can be associated with the 
 adventure of marriage. It is no new revelation, 
 for it is older than Solomon. Others than 
 cynics have wondered why some of the fore- 
 bodings that attach to death do not attach to 
 marriage. A wise man once said that marriage 
 was a more serious affair than death, because in 
 death you are in the hands of a merciful God but 
 in marriage you are at the mercy of a woman. A 
 wise woman who heard him, concurred, subject 
 to the alteration of one word. Their conjoint 
 judgment would seem to be a statement of 
 unchallengeable fact. 
 
 All intimacies mean disillusionment and all 
 friendships mean revelations. It is as true of 
 philosophers and scholars as it is true of husbands 
 and wives. It is only to our intimates that we 
 disclose ourselves. We tell them our thoughts, 
 our ambitions, we reveal our tastes, our habits, 
 and by our revelations we put into their hands 
 the measure by which to judge us and our 
 achievements. Our very speech betrayeth us. 
 In the intimacies of a common life many a man 
 first proclaimed himself to be a cad. By the 
 
234 The Loom of the Law 
 
 record of some effort of his own in the world he 
 has revealed to his spouse what manner of man 
 he is. And so there is more than was expected 
 and less than was desired in the marital ad- 
 venture. Other interests creep into the in- 
 dividual lives, other duties become clamant, 
 and the personality protests against becoming 
 a Siamese twin. 
 
 Every marriage is an adventure into the 
 Unknown. Coming to court is usually the last 
 stage of the domestic unhappiness. It is the 
 climax of the intolerable. Months of misery 
 have preceded the publicity that attaches to a 
 summons, and women do not readily proclaim 
 to the world that they have lost the power to 
 hold their husband's affection and regard. 
 Maintenance and separation orders are made 
 on the grounds of desertion or neglect to main- 
 tain, persistent cruelty or habitual drunken- 
 ness. Sometimes one or other ground is alleged 
 in a summons without any substantial founda- 
 tion. It is really an attempt to intimidate a 
 husband into a proper spirit of subjection. 
 
 One man came before the court on a summons 
 for desertion. The wife told her story and it 
 was brief. " One night he came home from his 
 work and ' after a few words ' he went out. I 
 have not seen him since until now." It is usually 
 
Miscellanea 235 
 
 wise to find out what the wife's " few words " 
 signify. It is often illuminating and simplifies 
 many apparent difficulties. The man had gone 
 out one evening after tea and met a work- 
 mate with whom he had spent an hour or so. 
 He went home about nine o'clock and found a 
 spouse with a frozen countenance and full of 
 interrogations. She wanted an accurate and 
 detailed account of her husband's movements 
 during the evening. The man, happily or un- 
 happily, was not in a mood or temper to be 
 cross-examined and was audacious enough to 
 say so. Demands developed into menaces and 
 menaces into abuse. And so the night went on. 
 The morning light saw a recurrence and the 
 evening shadows fell on its continuance. The 
 man left home. The worm had turned. But 
 he was summoned for desertion. A little ex- 
 posure, a little reflection and a little advice 
 smoothed the crinkles of their domestic infelicity, 
 but it may be that the man took the view that 
 a ;t night out " was scarcely worth the price. 
 Perhaps he asks permission now and ranges over 
 a wider area of adventure. Life gives compen- 
 sations usually. 
 
 There are other desertions less justifiable. 
 Men abandon women and children with the same 
 nonchalance as they abandon a disused news- 
 
236 The Loom of the Law 
 
 paper. Moral or legal obligations have no 
 existence for them, and the loftier appeal of 
 humanity finds in them no response. The women 
 they have wedded, the children they have be- 
 gotten may take any course and meet any des- 
 tiny. They are indifferent. A suggestion that 
 they should share their short-time wages or out- 
 of-work dole impresses them as wanton un- 
 reasonableness. " What ! " they will say, " and 
 go short myself ! v It is the most preposterous 
 of all preposterous propositions. And there is 
 always " the parish." " The parish " is some 
 sort of mystical entity that operates through a 
 relieving officer, and maintains women and 
 children who are abandoned, in order that 
 husbands may go about with other women. A 
 husband appeared at the court on a charge of 
 " running away and leaving his wife chargeable 
 to the Guardians." He had gone to a district on 
 the outskirts of London and set up a new menage 
 with a new wife and a new baby. The old wife 
 and a series of old babies were on the parish. 
 When the prisoner was asked what he had got 
 to say on the matter of not maintaining his wife 
 and family, it was a man burning with indigna- 
 tion at the injustice of the Law who replied : 
 " What do you expect me to do ? I have already 
 one home to keep ! " He was sincere in his 
 
Miscellanea 237 
 
 indignation. Some of us judge of justice and 
 mercy by its adaptability to our personal con- 
 venience, but it looks less ugly and more romantic 
 in the High Court of Justice (Divorce) than in 
 the purlieus of a police court. 
 
 Perhaps desertion assumes its most pathetic 
 form when a woman is abandoned after many 
 years of a common life because her health has 
 failed, or Time has taken its toll of her charm. 
 There are no allegations of failure in duty, or of 
 unfaithfulness in devotion. The man, forgetful 
 of a higher law, has fallen a victim to the charms 
 of a " fancy woman." There has been years of 
 association, of a common life, of common 
 interests and memories, and all is torn asunder 
 at the bidding of some impulse that shatters 
 honour and humanity. He leaves her to her 
 fate. There is perhaps a physiological basis 
 for such behaviour, and analogies could be 
 found in the animal kingdom, but it is a pitiful 
 tragedy. Ours is a scientific age, and it may 
 be that in the pursuit of science we have lost 
 something that does not admit of a material 
 analysis. 
 
 A woman appeared at one of the courts asking 
 for a maintenance order ; she and her children 
 had been abandoned, and the apparent cause 
 was that paralysis had made her a burden. To 
 
238 The Loom of the Law 
 
 ease her burden the husband left her and her 
 children unprovided for ! At the hearing his 
 chief concern was that the order should involve 
 the smallest possible weekly payment. We 
 idealize love, and attribute to it the quality of 
 immortality. Its crown and glory is sacrifice. 
 Via crucis via lucis* What, then, is this that 
 masquerades as love, and calls itself by the holy 
 name ? May it not be that what is commonly 
 called love is only the expression of the quality 
 that we hold in common with the beasts ? 
 
 Sometimes the women allege habitual drunken- 
 ness as the ground on which they seek a separa- 
 tion order, and occasionally it happens that she 
 contributes the major share to the destruction 
 of marital happiness. Recently a woman sought 
 such an order. The man admitted that he was 
 occasionally drunk, denied that he was incapable 
 of managing his affairs, and alleged that his 
 wife was drunk as often as he. The man had 
 been in his present employment for more than 
 twenty years. The man expressed his willing- 
 ness to take the pledge, and become a teetotaller, 
 if the wife would. The lady saw no reason why 
 she should go without her drop of beer ! The 
 case was adjourned to give her time for reflec- 
 tion, but it has never been reinstated in the lists. 
 
 The problem of domestic mastery frequently 
 
Miscellanea 239 
 
 arises. The woman claims an absolute autocracy 
 over the home and everything appurtenant 
 thereto. The man sometimes takes St. Paul's 
 view that the husband is the head of the wife, 
 and on some pretext or another a summons is 
 obtained by the woman. A short time ago a 
 woman got a summons on the alleged ground 
 of persistent cruelty, but before the return- 
 day of the summons she returned to her marital 
 duties. Both, however, appeared at court, and 
 as there had been a resumption of their common 
 life, the summons was dismissed. Before the 
 husband left the court he appealed to the 
 Bench to settle the question that was the cause 
 of all the trouble : " Who was the master ? ' 
 He was referred to Paul's Epistle to the 
 Ephesians, ch. 5, v. 22-23, and advised to read 
 it to his wife and await results. He made a 
 note of the reference, but I have little doubt 
 that he had much difficulty in finding it. The 
 doctrine of the verbal inspiration of the Scrip- 
 tures must have solved many a domestic problem 
 not so long ago. Those were the days for 
 married men ! 
 
 Sometimes there come seekers for advice and 
 help for whom we can do but little. Our utmost 
 is to treat them kindly, courteously. At one 
 time it is an ex-soldier whose brain has an 
 
240 The Loom of the Law 
 
 hiatus. One obsession bothers him. It bothers 
 him by day and it bothers by night, and so he 
 comes to be guided on his course. Somebody is 
 poisoning his food, or somebody troubles him, 
 so that he cannot sleep, or somebody is laying 
 false charges against him, and he wants the 
 police to see that he is innocent. At another 
 time it is some old woman who has outlived her 
 generation. All the friends of olden days are 
 dead. She is a relict, a remnant. And the 
 texture of the mind becomes torn, and ravelled, 
 and the realities of other days and people are 
 the only realities. She becomes impatient and 
 annoyed with the things and the people about 
 her, and wants the court to help her to find the 
 peace that she will only find within the grave. 
 
 And the bewildered send letters written in 
 some tense moment that mean nothing and 
 convey nothing : 
 
 "Sra 
 
 " you are quite right their is mischief 
 and the police themselves make it that one who 
 told you he went to the house where I stayed 
 and the woman told him I was wrong in the 
 head I went in Bow Police Station and found 
 out what his head was do away with him is that 
 plotting to murder I know all their tricks and 
 
Miscellanea 241 
 
 so do my learned friends in Mr. Justice Darling's 
 court they only make trouble for you have a 
 
 rest Sir 
 
 " Yours faithfully 
 
 " A FREEMASON." 
 
 And perhaps no finer tribute can be paid to 
 the Metropolitan police courts than this that 
 to them come the needy, the troubled and the 
 poor, if perchance they may find surcease from 
 their anxieties and sorrows. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Burke, author of " Limehouse 
 Nights," writing recently in a London daily 
 paper, gave his experience of London police 
 courts, and no one is in a better position to 
 judge and no judgment is more worthy of 
 credence : 
 
 " To most of the respectable poor the police 
 court in prospect holds unnameable terrors. 
 But these terrors are without foundation. I 
 have found the Metropolitan magistrate wise, 
 understanding, humane and courteous except 
 to the c twister.' He is willing to help, rather 
 than harass, kindly rather than cynical ; though 
 Lord knows the job would turn most believers 
 into cynics. Even when sentencing an old 
 offender he seems to turn a twinkling eye on 
 human frailty." 
 
 16 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE PROBATION OFFICERS 
 
 F T AD I the ideals and the enthusiasm of 
 the mid-twenties wedded to the experi- 
 ence and knowledge of the mid-forties, I would 
 choose to be a probation officer at a Metropolitan 
 police court ; and had I the heart that is touched 
 with a feeling of our infirmities, at the police 
 court I would find my metier. It is the area 
 of the romantic and the unexpected ; it is the 
 sphere for the redemptive social processes. Par 
 excellence it is a white man's job. And strangely 
 enough it is the abode of the optimistic. In 
 most other places, where the virtuous, the un- 
 tempted, the unfallen and the lucky dwell, there 
 is no optimism. Optimism is a quality that 
 lives in shadows and darkness, in sorrow and 
 regrets. Absence of ennui is not optimism, 
 and neither is the normal functioning of the 
 digestive processes. For many, optimism and 
 pessimism are terms relative to the harmonious 
 or unharmonious operations of an internal organ. 
 
 242 
 
The Probation Officers 248 
 
 In the Metropolitan police courts there are 
 bigger concerns than the condition of the liver. 
 The human race can be splendid. What 
 heroic braveries are exhibited day after day ! 
 What resolution and effort ! What self-abnega- 
 tion and fullness of forgiveness ! Pluck pre- 
 dominates. Only once have I seen a cringing 
 coward, and he was neither English, Irish nor 
 Scotch, for he was gathered from some by-way 
 of Eastern Europe. His journey into the dock 
 was reminiscent of an Irish fair. Not until 
 then had I realized the capacity of the human 
 voice and frame to express cowardice and terror. 
 I often watch a man take his first step from 
 freedom with admiration and wonder. He has 
 done the wrong, but he goes to his place of 
 atonement with a splendid bravery. Mankind 
 seems to be fairest in adversity. That is one 
 of the dramatic revelations of life. Prosperity 
 breeds pomposity and egotism, but sorrow seems 
 to temper the hard-hearted and grief gives a 
 true perspective to the greedy. One watched 
 this manifestation frequently during the war. 
 Men who had built up fortunes at the cost of 
 a hundred thousand neglects, and who sneered 
 at sentiment, would gladly have bartered all 
 to keep in life the lad who was catching the 
 
 troop-train at Victoria. I have watched it 
 
 16* 
 
244 The Loom of the Law 
 
 and wondered at it and loved it. And I have 
 seen men weep at Waterloo. It was one of the 
 compensations that the troop-trains gave for 
 the sorrows of the many separations. We see 
 it, too, by beds of sickness. What was meanly 
 refused in health is willingly proffered in sickness, 
 and valuations alter in the shadows of the parting. 
 
 At police courts these depths of humanity's 
 greatness are plumbed. Humanity shows its 
 naked heart. Emotions are unrestrained. Men 
 are revealed as better than they seemed and 
 women as nobler than they looked. And the 
 children ? They are just children, doing and 
 saying and daring the things that children do 
 and say and dare ; but sometimes they live too 
 close to the nets of the criminal law. 
 
 Round about the courts that administer the 
 criminal law there is a beneficent ministry. The 
 old days of convicting at sight are gone so far 
 as the Legislature is concerned. If there be a 
 rancour or revenge it is not due to the harshness 
 of the law, but to the hardness of some human 
 heart administering the law. Not a few judges 
 and stipendiaries have to justify imprisonment 
 to their own consciences. One Metropolitan 
 magistrate put it this way to me : " Before I 
 sentence a prisoner I try to change places with 
 him, and I pass the sentence that, in those cir- 
 
The Probation Officers 245 
 
 cumstances, I should be prepared to take as my 
 punishment." And I have heard one say of 
 adolescents in the dock : "I try to do for them 
 what, if need be, I should like another to do for 
 mine." It is not a bad test to see in the wayward 
 girl your own daughter, and in the foolish lad 
 your own son. It tempers the judgment and 
 gives a touch that may be the touch of healing. 
 There are attached to the court men and 
 women whose duty it is to counsel, help and 
 befriend the unfortunate. No prisoner need 
 be friendless. About that friendship there is 
 no official stigma, no official attachments and 
 no official obligations. Over it the Executive 
 holds no control and with it it does not interfere. 
 It is a friendship full, free and untrammelled, 
 and it is the friendship of a man or a woman 
 who has been and is in daily contact with the 
 unfortunate. At times proposals are made that 
 the administration of the probation system should 
 be vested in paid commissioners and controlled 
 by the Home Office. The surveillance of pro- 
 bationers would become the work of a Govern- 
 ment department. Up till now they have not 
 been acceptable, and in my opinion the real 
 regenerative worth of probation work lies in 
 its complete severance from departmental con- 
 trol. The emotions that impel men and women 
 
246 The Loom of the Law 
 
 to new efforts towards redemption cannot be 
 stirred by the touch of the Civil Service. In 
 the report of the Departmental Committee on 
 the appointment of probation officers to which 
 I have alluded in a previous chapter, this 
 appears : 
 
 " As the success of the probation system 
 depends so much on the personality of the 
 probation officer, it follows that the greatest 
 care should be taken to attract the right men 
 and women to this form of social service. The 
 task is not an easy one, as the power of influencing 
 others depends on qualities of character which 
 cannot readily be ascertained. Many qualities 
 were mentioned to us as desirable in a good 
 probation officer sympathy, tact, common- 
 sense, firmness are but a few but there was 
 general agreement that a keen missionary spirit, 
 based on religious conviction, is essential. We 
 were impressed by the testimony borne by 
 magistrates and others to the character of many 
 of the probation officers now employed and to 
 the valuable work done by them, and the oppor- 
 tunity which we had of meeting some of those 
 officers tended to confirm this testimony. Some 
 witnesses, however, considered that many pro- 
 bation officers are not sufficiently equipped in 
 training and experience, and that their outlook 
 
The Probation Officers 247 
 
 is narrow, particularly because they belong to 
 Societies which require their officers to be total 
 abstainers or to subscribe to the texts of a par- 
 ticular religious communion. Some of these 
 witnesses urged the need for educational attain- 
 ments and more specialized training, such as 
 would be afforded by a course of social science 
 at a university. It must be remembered, 
 however, that the men and women who go to 
 the universities, usually do so to get knowledge 
 for a professional career, and it is doubtful 
 whether a probation service, arranged on the lines 
 we consider desirable, would provide oppor- 
 tunities or prospects which would usually attract 
 candidates of university training. We agree, 
 however, that so long as regard is paid to the 
 essential qualities of character and personality, 
 there is much need in the probation service for 
 men and women of the higher qualifications 
 referred to, who may be willing to devote them- 
 selves to the work either permanently or for some 
 years." 
 
 The Report also goes on to recommend that 
 the selection of probation officers should not 
 be limited to members of the Church of England, 
 and that the Police Court Mission should be con- 
 trolled by a special committee. 
 
 " The remuneration of probation officers is 
 
248 The Loom of the Law 
 
 unsatisfactory in many places. It is suggested 
 that full time officers (men) should receive not 
 less than 200 at the age of thirty, and rise to 
 350 at the age of forty-five. Women should 
 receive 150 and rise to 250. Two-thirds of 
 the salary of officers is at present paid out of 
 the public funds." 
 
 The statistics of probation work have been 
 dealt with in a previous chapter, and the ex- 
 periences expressed by those figures reveal the 
 police courts as less squalid and sordid than the 
 average citizen imagines. And I put on record 
 this opinion that no organization is more active 
 or more anxious in its efforts to help the needy, 
 inspire the fallen and restrain the foolish than 
 are the personnel of the police courts. 
 
 That the courts are not dominated by senti- 
 ment alone is to say that they are dominated 
 by sanity. Emotionalism is not mercy, nor 
 are tears a symbol of repentance or remorse. 
 The work is social surgery : we deal with the ills 
 of society. And the restoration of a healthy, 
 disciplined, orderly citizen is a greater achieve- 
 ment than burying him and his freedom in the 
 fastness of Portland or Pentonville. 
 
 The work of probation offers the superlative 
 opportunity of social service, and one day it 
 will draw to its service the men and women of 
 
The Probation Officers 249 
 
 great abilities and sympathies who are in search 
 of a great ministry. 
 
 Addressing the 10th Annual Conference of 
 Probation Officers in London in 1922, Sir Robert 
 Wallace, K.C., LL.D., chairman of the County 
 of London Sessions, said : 
 
 " As I find so many of those who know so much 
 about this Act (Probation) as it is worked present 
 here to-night the learned police magistrates, 
 gentlemen from the Home Office and many 
 others I propose that the burden shall fall upon 
 them rather than myself. I have that advantage 
 because I am speaking first, and I am, therefore, 
 practically scrapping the address that I originally 
 intended to give, in order that you may hear 
 from others their personal experiences of the 
 workings of the Act, but you will permit me, I 
 know, of your kindness and courtesy, to say first 
 a few words in regard to the Act itself. I had 
 the privilege, many years ago now, of having 
 many conferences with the Home Secretary 
 (Lord Gladstone) at the time this Act was being 
 passed. I was then chairman of Sessions. We 
 had in connection with the Sessions for some years 
 a voluntary probation worker, working very 
 much upon the lines which have since been laid 
 down in connection with the workings of the Act 
 itself, and I remember perfectly well being invited 
 
250 The Loom of the Law 
 
 to take part in a discussion with a well-known 
 Judge in regard to the comparative merits of 
 long and short sentences. My reply was simply 
 this : That I was not much concerned with the 
 length of time spent in prison, but that what I 
 was concerned with was the keeping of men out 
 of prison altogether if possible the strong point 
 of our work. Of course, in connection with the 
 London Sessions, it is my lot to see much of 
 what I may describe as the sad and seamy 
 side of life, to see great numbers of men and 
 women who have made shipwreck of their lives 
 altogether. And what really led at first to my 
 taking so great an interest in the working of 
 probation itself was the result of reading the 
 records of the different persons as they were 
 placed before me, for, as you know, in these 
 days the most careful inquiries as to the ante- 
 cedents of our prisoners are made by the police, 
 and what I discovered was this, that looking 
 down at that sad roll, with past convictions 
 numbering sometimes ten or twenty, I saw that 
 almost invariably the starting point of that 
 career was the young man or woman sent to 
 prison for a first offence sent to prison without 
 any helping hand held out to them. And what 
 is the natural result of being sent to prison ? 
 People may say what they please, but prison has 
 
The Probation Officers 251 
 
 no reforming influence upon those persons. It 
 may be, and doubtless is, sometimes a necessity, 
 and it is a sad necessity, but all who know 
 anything regarding the matter know that the 
 best thing is to keep them from going there at all. 
 In regard to those who pass through prison, 
 what chance have they in life ? They have 
 breathed the prison air, and maybe have the 
 prison taint ; they have come out of prison 
 with their character gone, with their situation 
 lost, and all respectable people of their own class 
 refusing association with them as persons whom 
 they describe as gaol-birds. What chance has 
 such a one ? It does seem to me that, as far as 
 possible, we should strive to help, and particularly 
 those led into sudden temptation. Of course, 
 each case must be dealt with on its particular 
 merits, but we should take care that an oppor- 
 tunity should be afforded those young people of 
 standing them upon their feet again. What does 
 probation mean ? What is a probation officer ? 
 A probation officer may be very shortly de- 
 scribed, in one sense, almost as a sort of legal 
 guardian of the probationer. But there is a 
 second and more important description of the 
 probation officer, and that is that he is not 
 merely the guardian of the probationer, but the 
 friend of the probationer. What men want most 
 
252 The Loom of the Law 
 
 of all is someone in whom they can confide. Does 
 anyone realize, in regard to life, its terrible 
 loneliness for men who are cut off from their own ? 
 It is in that loneliness, which almost produces 
 despair, that the probation officer generally 
 comes in, and by his friendship encourages a 
 spirit of confidence in men most anxious to find 
 help. The probation officer should be a person 
 of sympathy of great sympathy. We are all 
 agreed in regard to that, in order that he or she 
 might gain the confidence of the probationer. 
 But they must also be persons of understanding, 
 or they will continually find themselves deceived 
 by the prisoner. The probation officer must 
 also be a man or woman of the world, in order 
 that they may be able to give the necessary 
 advice and guidance which the probationer 
 needs, and also and this is a very important 
 part of the work that they may be able to deal 
 with employers and others in order to obtain 
 situations, of which the probationers were so 
 greatly in need. But, above all, there is some- 
 thing more. The probation officer should be 
 inspired with missionary zeal. Almost the best 
 part of his or her work lies in finding out what 
 good there is in every man, giving that good 
 the chance to emerge, and giving the individual 
 the chance of standing upon his or her feet. 
 
The Probation Officers 253 
 
 You will fail utterly in the end, in regard to the 
 great object which we are seeking in restoring 
 true manhood, unless you can touch them in the 
 conscience and awake again the moral sense 
 which is lying dormant. There is just one other 
 word, and that is in regard to the charges which 
 are made by some in regard to the effect of 
 probation. Well, I think I can say that I have 
 known more about the work of probation than 
 anyone else. Looking up the statistics the other 
 day, I found that one-third of the probationers 
 for indictable offences came from the London 
 Sessions. That is a dangerous confession to 
 make, but it remains, and I know the anxiety 
 that was felt originally in regard to the action 
 of the judges at the London Sessions touching 
 the workings of the Probation Act. My dear 
 old friend, who was then the Under-Secretary 
 of State, Sir Edward Troup, stated at one of our 
 gatherings that the Home Office, when first 
 our work began, were alarmed as to what it was 
 going to lead to, but they said after years of 
 observation of the working that the result of the 
 Probation Act had absolutely convinced them 
 that we were proceeding along the right lines, and 
 were achieving a wonderful success. May I 
 just say this in connection with this ? You 
 do not care much for figures, but they are neces- 
 
254 The Loom of the Law 
 
 sary sometimes. Out of every 100 probationers 
 who have been bound over at the London 
 Sessions and some of them for offences which 
 certainly their own friends would say called for 
 heavy punishment, but to whom chance and 
 opportunity were given out of every 100 pro- 
 bationers for years past, the average of those who 
 have never returned to criminal life and never 
 come back to prison has been 96. I just want 
 you to consider what that means. Why, if 
 one half of them, remembering the class from 
 which they come, remembering the lives they 
 have had to live, the people with whom they 
 have had to associate in that daily life, out 
 of that 100 thus bound over 96 are saved from 
 sinking down into ruin and degradation, can we 
 not thank God ? The only other figure I have 
 to intrude upon you is to meet the other side. 
 It is said : ' Oh, of course this may be excellent 
 in regard to the persons themselves, but what 
 about its effect upon the general crime of the 
 country ? ' Well, now, again I propose to give 
 you a simple figure. We have been working this 
 Act for years, and I am dividing the periods 
 because the war came in. When the war broke 
 out, after we had been working for some years 
 in connection with the Probation Act, we found 
 that in spite of the fears that had been expressed 
 
The Probation Officers 255 
 
 in regard to the number that were being bound 
 over, that the crime in London triable in con- 
 nection with the Sessions had sunk 40 per cent, 
 from what it had been years before. Is not 
 that an answer, and a complete answer, to the 
 fears expressed ? Since that time the war came 
 and knocked the bottom out of everything. No 
 doubt there is a change again. People point 
 to the fact that there was only one-third of 
 the number triable at the Sessions. Of course, 
 since the war is over if we are ever going to get 
 back to normal conditions since that time there 
 has been an increase in crime, but it has never 
 reached beyond the level to which it was brought 
 in 1914, and that was 40 per cent, below what 
 it was before the Probation Act came into opera- 
 tion. I wanted just to get these few facts before 
 you. I rejoice in the work in which you are 
 engaged. I think it is the most glorious work in 
 which any man or woman can be engaged to be 
 allowed to save, if possible, and to help and redeem 
 those unfortunate people who have gone astray." 
 
 Sometimes prisoners have strange fancies. 
 A man long past his prime stood in the dock 
 for an offence under the Prevention of Crimes Act. 
 Nature had surely built him for another destiny. 
 He stood well over six feet and his face showed 
 
256 The Loom of the Law 
 
 lines of strength and capacity, though there 
 were many lines of suffering. His career of 
 crime was a long and terrible one, going back 
 for nearly thirty years. Prisoner pleaded guilty 
 and was sentenced to twelve months' hard 
 labour. He had the right to go for trial before 
 a judge and jury, but as the choice had not 
 been offered him he was brought back so that he 
 could so elect. When he was asked whether 
 he wanted to be tried by a judge and jury or 
 to be tried summarily, he shook his head wearily 
 and said : " It makes no difference." But 
 he went on : "I would like to make one request. 
 Could you possibly shorten the sentence by 
 just a week or two ? For when I come out it 
 will be winter again and I should like to see the 
 sun." He was speaking as though he was talking 
 in his sleep and was asking a favour that was 
 already refused. But who could refuse such a 
 request ? There was no promise of reform and 
 he gave no pledges to piety. He only wanted 
 to be free with the sun for a little time before the 
 cold and darkness of the winter time. And he 
 saw the sun in the dying days of the summer 
 before the leaves began to fall. 
 
 Imprisonment is imposed as a punishment 
 and as a deterrent. It is not a thing of joy, 
 and it carries the stigma of a great shame. The 
 
The Probation Officers 257 
 
 traditions and associations of the older prison 
 system linger in the memory of the public, and, 
 in the minds of some, the prison system is a 
 scientific brutalization of the unfortunate. Those 
 interested in the work and leisure of prisoners 
 might read the Report of the Commissioners of 
 Prisons and the Directors of Convict Prisons. 
 The report is published annually and sold at 
 a shilling. 
 
 " The list of lectures bear testimony not only 
 to the instructive nature of the subjects selected 
 but to the high qualifications of the ladies 
 and gentlemen who deliver them. This great 
 amount of voluntary work which goes on year 
 by year, in all prisons and Borstal institutions is, 
 perhaps, but little known and insufficiently 
 appreciated by the general public. . . . 
 
 " There were at Pentonville prison the at- 
 tendances of various bands, orchestras, choirs, 
 soloists, etc., on numerous occasions ; a special 
 lecture, twice weekly, for the juvenile-adults, 
 at the conclusion of which they were permitted 
 to ask questions ; and the organization of debates 
 amongst prisoners. The chaplain at Penton- 
 ville states : c These debates have more than 
 fulfilled their original expectations, and com- 
 pensate to some extent for the long hours the 
 
 17 
 
258 The Loom of the Law 
 
 men are compelled to spend in their cells. Far 
 from being subversive of discipline I am em- 
 phatically convinced that they are productive 
 of the opposite result. Amongst the subjects 
 are : " State Education," " The War and Class 
 Distinction," " Professionalism in Sport," " Trade 
 Unions," "Prohibition," "Gambling," "Will 
 and Fate." 5 " 
 
 It is humane, but prison is the abode of many 
 sorrows and many regrets. 
 
 They take up the burden of life again 
 Saying only " It might have been." 
 God pity them and pity us all 
 Who vainly the dreams of youth recall, 
 For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
 The saddest are these : *' // might have been" 
 
 But each must bear his own burden. All 
 that society can do is to ease the load a little, 
 and smooth a little the roughness of the road. 
 For of only One can it be truly written : 
 
 He to His heart with large embrace has taken 
 the universal sorrow of mankind. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE POLICE 
 
 T T is on record, and the internal evidence 
 seems to corroborate the story, that an 
 Irish Guardsman met a Scots Guardsman in a 
 West-End tavern. They forgathered. The 
 Irish Guardsman uttered an Irish formula : 
 " What'll ye have ? " And the Scots Guards- 
 man replied in a Scottish formula : " A double 
 scotch." And so it was. In the course of the 
 consumption the Scotsman talked politics. 
 A little time elapsed and there were empty 
 glasses and silence. The Irishman, being of 
 an impatient temperament, repeated the Irish 
 formula, and the Scotsman, being of an obliging 
 disposition, repeated the Scottish formula. This 
 repetition restored vivacity and loquacity and the 
 Scotsman discussed theology : " I often wonder 
 what I was in my condition of pre-existence. 
 The question has bothered me and I keep on 
 wondering." The glasses were empty again and 
 
 the Irishman was obviously deep in thought. 
 
 259 17* 
 
260 The Loom of the Law 
 
 He pushed aside the empty glasses. This was 
 what the politicians call " a gesture," but the 
 gesture was ignored. The Irishman looked as 
 though he had made a discovery and turning 
 to the Scotsman he said : " And have ye niver 
 been able to find out what ye were ? " " Na ! " 
 said the Scotsman, " an 5 I wad like to ken." 
 " Well, me son, I can tell ye what ye were. Ye 
 were a b sponge ! ' : " Aye ? " said the Scots- 
 man ; and after a long pause : " Aye ! What'll 
 ye have ? ' : " Two doubles," said the Irishman. 
 " It'll save me squeezing ye a second time." 
 
 If the Irishman's deductions were accurate 
 that a present temperament has a definite rela- 
 tion to pre-existence, by the same deductions 
 I must, in a previous existence, have been in 
 frequent collision with the police. Unlike the 
 Scotsman, I have learnt to modify my qualities. 
 
 For some extraordinary reason I have always 
 had a dread of the police. The cause must be 
 pre-natal, perhaps pre-existing. From my earli- 
 est schooldays I have tried to give the police 
 a wide berth. If one boarded a tram-car I 
 thought he might want me, and if one walked 
 behind me in the street I was sure there was a 
 mistaken identity. Perhaps the police, inci- 
 dentally, are responsible for the virtuous and law- 
 
The Police 261 
 
 abiding life that I have lived. The achievement 
 may be virtuous, but the incentive was not the 
 pursuit of virtue it was dread of the police. 
 
 When it was my privilege to sit as deputy 
 chairman at the County of London Sessions, two 
 episodes happened that give further illustration. 
 The first time I went I asked an imposing sergeant 
 in the lobby of the court where the judge's room 
 was. The sergeant looked right over my head 
 and appeared neither to hear nor to be interested 
 in my inquiry. I repeated with my tempera- 
 mental politeness the inquiry. This time the 
 sergeant heard something that amazed him 
 to the point of incredulity. He wanted reas- 
 surance of the absurdity. " What do you say ? " 
 I repeated my inquiry this time all the horrors 
 that haunted a well-spent youth swept across 
 me" Where is the judge's room, please ? " 
 The sergeant expanded and grew and enlarged ; 
 then he asked me in a sentence that bristled with 
 notes of interrogation : " And what do you 
 want with the judge's room ? " I smothered 
 the sob of emotion that had gathered in my 
 throat and it was almost regretfully that I 
 replied : " Well, sergeant, I happen to be 
 sitting as the judge." I believe that sergeant 
 was Elijah. He was taken from my view in an 
 instant. 
 
262 The Loom of the Law 
 
 A friend of mine called to see me at the Sessions. 
 He is a West-End doctor with many qualifica- 
 tions for a bishopric. He is, for example, the 
 husband of one wife and circumspect in his walk 
 and conversation. The doctor was shown into 
 the judge's room to await such time as I was free. 
 When I arrived I found him in a state of nervous 
 exhaustion. I inquired if he were ill. He 
 breathed more freely, but he replied : " I can't 
 explain it. With all these police about it's 
 horrible, it's hell ! " 
 
 Perhaps this is one aspect of what we call 
 civilization. It is an expression of the reign of 
 Law. The police stand for the ordered strength 
 of the community and express the penalty of 
 licence or lawlessness. The policeman is only 
 John Citizen plus something. The tunic and 
 the helmet are expressions of that something, 
 but they are not it. Charles Chaplin, Esq., can 
 make the tunic look ridiculous, but at the corner 
 of the street you will stop your car at the signal 
 of an outstretched arm. A baby in his pram 
 can hold up six currents of traffic at the Bank if 
 he has a constable at his side. Street-disputes 
 are settled or postponed, drunken men breathing 
 threats are quietened, disorderly crowds are 
 dispersed with a word. All this is the triumph 
 of the reign of ordered law, and it is so because it 
 
The Police 263 
 
 carries with it the consent and co-operation of 
 the community. It could only be achieved by an 
 impartial administration of the Law and by 
 public faith in the Metropolitan police. From 
 time to time allegations are made that impugn 
 the impartiality or fairness of the police, and 
 charges are made of positive misbehaviour. 
 These are always serious and demand the 
 most scrupulous investigation. Anything that 
 weakens the public confidence in its police is a 
 national calamity. In the interests of the police 
 as a body it is of the utmost importance that 
 men who have not the temperament or the 
 character suitable for the work should be relieved 
 of their duty. Patience, good-humour, long- 
 suffering, knowledge of men and of the world, 
 absence of officiousness are essential. An officer 
 with " swelled head " is a public danger. One's 
 opinions are based, naturally, on his experiences, 
 and, if the experiences are varied enough, upon 
 them a judgment may reasonably be formed. 
 
 My experiences of the Metropolitan police go 
 back to the autumn of 1898, and I have 
 watched their operations over an area from Hamp- 
 ton to Hampstead and from Ealing to Seven 
 Kings. I have seen them in street disturbances 
 dispersing unlawful assemblies, and on duty in 
 the music-halls. I have watched them by day 
 
264 The Loom of the Law 
 
 and by night from Hyde Park Corner to Mile-end 
 Waste. London accepts as a statement of fact 
 the world's tribute that the Metropolitan police 
 force is the finest in the world. Such a force 
 must at times find in its ranks men who are un- 
 worthy of its traditions and ideals. But even 
 the Church finds recruits from amongst the un- 
 desirables and the unworthy. And because of 
 this the utmost care is needed to examine alle- 
 gations against police officers. I think most 
 Metropolitan police magistrates do not regard 
 lightly charges made against the police. The 
 police are put on their defence at once. Nothing 
 could be more demoralizing for the police and 
 the public alike than a belief that the police were 
 immune from inquiry or punishment. It is a 
 fundamental doctrine that the police exist for 
 the public, that they are public servants, that 
 they exist to maintain the public peace. It is a 
 rule in many courts that if a prisoner alleges that 
 he has been ill-used or wrongly-arrested, a remand 
 is ordered so that the defendant may be legally 
 represented. 
 
 The term " Police Court " is an unhappy and 
 inaccurate description of the courts that ad- 
 minister summary jurisdiction in the Metropolis. 
 In no sense are they affiliated with the police and 
 in no way does any executive power intervene or 
 
The Police 265 
 
 interfere. The function of the Metropolitan 
 magistrate is to hold the scales of justice fairly 
 between offenders and the police. 
 
 At one of the courts the licensee of a public- 
 house was summoned for insulting words and 
 behaviour. The circumstances were not serious. 
 In a moment of irritability and temper he had 
 become abusive and insulting. In the morning 
 the seriousness of the offence became obvious, in 
 view of the renewal of his licence. In his eager- 
 ness to find some justification for his behaviour 
 he alleged provocation by the police officer who 
 laid the charge. A remand was at once ordered 
 and the defendant was advised to get legal as- 
 sistance. At the adjourned hearing the defen- 
 dant was represented by one of the most skilful 
 of London advocates and he at once withdrew the 
 allegations, apologized for his client having made 
 them and explained that they were the desperate 
 mitigation for an offence that might jeopardize 
 his licence. 
 
 A case came before Thames court recently. 
 A prisoner alleged ill-treatment at the police 
 station. Of all offences I can conceive of none 
 more serious than this, and a remand was ordered. 
 The accused refused it. He wanted the matter 
 settled, but that was impossible. The case was 
 
266 The Loom of the Law 
 
 allowed to stand back in order that all police 
 officers who were on duty at or near the charge- 
 room should attend the court. The case was 
 called and the police witnesses gave their evi- 
 dence. The prisoner was invited to cross- 
 examine each witness, but he asked no questions. 
 At the end he was asked what he had to say. 
 His only reply was : " Well, somebody must have 
 hit me ! ' The fact was he was arrested in a 
 street-fight. It afterwards transpired that every 
 time he was arrested the prisoner made the same 
 allegations of ill-usage. 
 
 Sometimes summonses are applied for against 
 the police for alleged assaults. Invariably such 
 summonses are granted. It is vital that both 
 the public and police should realize that if the 
 law protects the police against the public it also 
 protects the public against the police. Not 
 seldom there is " a catch " in the proceedings and 
 on inquiry one finds there is either an antecedent 
 history or something pending. The summons 
 may be revenge or a colourable pretext. 
 
 Constables make mistakes, and maybe a ser- 
 geant, too. It is lamentable when it happens, 
 but to err is human. The experience usually 
 tempers the judgment of the too keen. 
 
 A young constable charged a woman with an 
 
The Police 267 
 
 alleged street offence. As the woman made for 
 the dock her bearing and demeanour, coupled 
 with the nature of the charge, suggested that it 
 was a case that needed care, but that is the 
 magistrate's job. The facts were detailed and 
 most of them were not in dispute. It was the 
 inference that was wrong. When the facts were 
 reset by the prisoner, the police officer accepted 
 them as possibly true. The prisoner was dis- 
 charged, and the officer had learnt a lesson. 
 
 There is much consideration shown by the 
 police to the poor and the unfortunate. I am 
 speaking of East London that I know the best. 
 The police are humane, and many a time one has 
 seen the trace of a tear on the face of a jailer 
 when there was the story of a tragedy. More 
 than once in these pages the unfortunate have 
 found in the police their best friend. Here and 
 there one strikes an " officious " officer, and it 
 is as well to swallow one's pride and pass on. 
 If you want his number take it quietly. The 
 less scene you make the better. " Insulting 
 words and behaviour " is a very elastic phrase, 
 and in a busy morning at the police court it 
 might happen that the magistrate will be as 
 indifferent to your egotism as was the constable. 
 The pavement on a busy night is not the place to 
 
268 The Loom of the Law 
 
 argue technical points of law. The man behind 
 you in the queue may have pushed in front of 
 you ... if the police officer fails to appreciate 
 the abstract justice of the case, leave it at that. 
 An outburst means trouble for the righteously 
 indignant. Even a policeman may get out of 
 the wrong side of his bed at times and unless you 
 happen to be on the Bench it is as well to avoid 
 him if you can. There are legitimate ways of 
 lodging a complaint. The officer's number is 
 visible and he can be reported to the Commis- 
 sioner of Police or the Home Office. I have no 
 doubt that officers do make mistakes. I recall 
 one incident that I witnessed a few years ago in 
 the West-End. 
 
 I was in company with a legal friend and we 
 saw the beginning of a street-fight. A big man 
 followed a little man out of a public house and 
 handled him very roughly. The little fellow 
 endured an enormous amount of provocation 
 and in the end he lost his temper. The police 
 arrived on the scene and arrested the smaller 
 man. They effected the arrest with wholly im- 
 proper roughness. To a temper already tested 
 beyond endurance the police added new fuel, and 
 at last the little fellow kicked the police con- 
 stables. They took him to the station with 
 considerable ill-usage. My first impulse was to 
 
The Police 269 
 
 intervene. That would have been madness. 
 My second impulse was to follow to the station 
 and report what I had seen. I was persuaded to 
 take no such action, as it would lead to trouble 
 and perhaps a charge. Such appears to be the 
 general view, and, if it is true, it is lamentable. 
 I can imagine no more dangerous belief than that 
 police evidence is more credible than the evidence 
 of a reputable citizen. I hope such belief is not 
 founded on a general experience. Not a few 
 persons allege as a matter of course that they are 
 roughly used and it is not a difficult matter to 
 produce evidence of a kind in corroboration. On 
 the contrary, I think it is the duty of decent 
 citizens to report cases where the police abuse 
 their undoubtedly great powers ; for a police 
 officer who arrests without cause or ill-uses an 
 arrested person is unfit for the responsible posi- 
 tion to which he has been appointed. But 
 withal, the behaviour of the Metropolitan police 
 and the good-nature of the London people have 
 made the Metropolis the envy and the wonder of 
 the world. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE LOOM AND THE PRESS 
 
 T F the pen is mightier than the sword then it 
 is, equally, mightier than the police, and 
 for the same reason. The Press can legitimately 
 claim to be a minister of justice. It pronounces 
 judgments that matter and gives decisions that 
 are obeyed by those who deem themselves 
 greater than the man in the street. It gives 
 pronouncements of public opinion that influence 
 the making of statutes and the administration of 
 the Law. Law courts no more ignore those 
 pronouncements than do Parliament and Parlia- 
 mentarians. The Press, too, plays a considerable 
 part in the prevention and detection of crime. 
 It hampers fugitives from justice and facilitates 
 arrests. It flings broadcast over continents the 
 fact that a crime has been committed, the cir- 
 cumstances of its commission and detailed de- 
 scriptions of the person suspected. And in 
 crimes of mystery, newspapers, by their enormous 
 sweep, gather up little links in the chain of cir- 
 
 270 
 
The Loom and the Press 271 
 
 cumstances, until evidence of so complete a 
 character is woven that a reasonable jury is con- 
 vinced and a prisoner is convicted. People, by 
 the help of the Press, see the significance of some 
 word, some deed, some action that by itself is 
 innocuous, but in relation to other circumstances 
 is eloquent and conclusive. It is suggested 
 sometimes that the Press is responsible for in- 
 citement to offences. Certain types of offenders, 
 it is alleged, attempt to commit the offences of 
 which they have read. Perhaps the contrary 
 is nearer the truth. The Press acts as a warning 
 and a deterrent and demonstrates the folly of the 
 doctrine of the " odd chance." Evil-doers may 
 have a long run but they are at last overtaken by 
 the Law. No man can visualize the happenings 
 in a criminal court without dismay. And the 
 Press carries the message to every hamlet, that in 
 violating the Law a man or woman sets out upon 
 a road that leads to shame and sorrow. It 
 epitomizes day by day the words of Solomon : 
 
 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and getteth understanding. 
 For the merchandize of it is better than the merchandize of silver and 
 the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies and 
 all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared with her. 
 Length of days is her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour. 
 Her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace. She is 
 a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her ; and happy is everyone 
 that retaineth her. 
 
 The Press parades the reckless and the regard- 
 
272 The Loom of the Law 
 
 less, the thoughtless fool and the gilded fraud, 
 members of Parliament who become felons and 
 city magnates who become fugitives an end- 
 less procession of rascality, misfortune and folly, 
 so that the wayfaring man, though a fool, may 
 not err therein. The police courts have their 
 reporters and the doings of the day are carefully 
 recorded. I have never been able to understand 
 the doctrine of Relativity held by a section of the 
 Press. Perhaps it is Einstein's. There are 
 charges of defrauding the community by pen- 
 sions or doles, defrauding the rate-payers by 
 fraudulent misrepresentations, burglary, mali- 
 cious woundings, stealing, deserting wives and 
 children. But here is a case concerning cami- 
 soles and the magistrate wants to know what a 
 camisole is, or there is a case of shop-lifting and 
 the magistrate confesses to the lure of silk 
 stockings. Out of all the medley of offences 
 fraud, burglary, wounding, desertion the 
 relatively important is the magistrate's quest 
 of the camisole or the lure of the silk stock- 
 ings. 
 
 Reports of this kind do not give an accurate 
 expression of either the tone or the temper of a 
 police court. In a long list of cases there may 
 be one in which some trivial thing is done or 
 some trivial word is spoken some touch of 
 
The Loom and the Press 273 
 
 humour or familiarity. The strenuous, serious 
 work is taken for granted. The quip, the jest, 
 the thoughtless word is paraded before a wonder- 
 ing world. It is often the prisoners themselves 
 who give the joyous touch to the proceedings 
 an explanation that is gloriously irrelevant, a 
 justification that is an aggravation, a seriousness 
 that is out of all proportion to the triviality of 
 the offence. In dealing with applications, family 
 disputes, neighbourly assaults or marital dif- 
 ferences, the less the " heavy judicial " is affected 
 the better the results are likely to be. A little 
 of the vernacular, a little of the homely and the 
 human, a little sarcasm or a little jest and the 
 note that makes for harmony may be struck. 
 It is out of the intensity of a serious effort to 
 effect beneficent results that a word may be 
 spoken or a thing done that torn from its context 
 and setting becomes an artificial witticism. 
 Nothing could be more harmful to a wise and 
 humane fulfilment of the magisterial office than 
 a self-conscious analysis of each word spoken. 
 The Metropolitan magistrates and stipendiaries 
 are the only " judges " who sit without wigs and 
 gowns. Several of these have sat as recorders 
 of Boroughs and chairmen of Counties' Quarter 
 Sessions in wigs and silken gowns, but on " pro- 
 motion " to the Metropolitan bench they sit in 
 
 18 
 
274 The Loom of the Law 
 
 broadcloth or serge or tweed. In the human 
 and the homely they exercise their judicial 
 functions. 
 
 These words are written in no complaining 
 spirit of the Press. On the contrary, the Press 
 has done much to maintain that human charac- 
 teristic of the Metropolitan police courts. News- 
 papers visualize the happenings at the courts 
 and the eyes of tens of thousands see those hap- 
 penings and sometimes these intervene. Letters 
 of thanks are written for some courtesy or con- 
 sideration shown, offers of help in some cases of 
 sorrow or need, expressions of disapproval or 
 rebuke at some seeming inconsideration, letters 
 of abuse to express dissent. Advice to the dis- 
 tracted brings letters of inquiry from those who 
 are distressed by the same problems, and men 
 and women in the far parts of England lay bare 
 the heart-aches and sorrows that spoil life for 
 them. 
 
 The world is a place of laughter and of tears. 
 There is much kindness and charity within the 
 radius of it and there is much of cruelty and 
 exploitation. Sometimes the avenue of cruelty 
 leads to the place of charity and the avenue of 
 sorrow to the place of joy. There was related in 
 a London magazine the story of the soldier's 
 little son that is told at page 115 of this book. 
 
The Loom and the Press 275 
 
 It led to a correspondence of which the following 
 is a brief extract : 
 
 " Hotel, 
 
 " Kensington W. 
 
 " 2nd March, 1921. 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 1C After reading the story I should like 
 to help the little fellow of seven who was charged 
 with wandering about midnight in the by-streets 
 of East London. If you could give me the name 
 and address of the Home he was sent to, I should 
 be much obliged. I am a widow with no children 
 and I think I could help the little man. 
 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 
 Some correspondence and an interview fol- 
 lowed, and there was offered the chance of adop- 
 tion. There was offered the chance of public 
 school and university education and equipment 
 for any profession. Legal difficulties intervened 
 and complete adoption was found impossible, 
 but the little lad and his little sister have found 
 a friend who will provide an opportunity of 
 their filling any position to which they might 
 aspire. 
 
 There was told, too, by the press, the story of 
 
 18* 
 
276 The Loom of the Law 
 
 the old convict which is recorded at page 255 
 and it brought this letter : 
 
 " 1st April, 1921. 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 "It is impossible to read such a story 
 without emotion. If you will put me in touch 
 with some Society and it with our brother who 
 longed to see the sun, I will do what I can to help 
 him to a new country where I trust it will shine 
 for him as for other free men who live there. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 Arrangements were made and the old convict 
 is on the eve of a new life : 
 
 " Colony Headquarters, 
 
 "5th July, 1922. 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I have to thank you for yours of the 
 3rd inst. giving me the name and address of the 
 gentleman interested in H. 
 
 I have to-day had a further interview with H. 
 (in Pentonville prison) and you will be pleased to 
 know that he is quite in agreement with our 
 suggested way of help, and he assures me he will 
 make a very earnest effort to retrieve the past. 
 
The Loom and the Press 277 
 
 I hope to be able to write you in due course that 
 success has attended our efforts. 
 
 " Yours faithfully, 
 
 " Secretary." 
 
 And through the instrumentality of the Press 
 the old convict will find a place ready for him 
 when he can take up the threads of his ravelled 
 life and, if he so chooses, weave a new and a more 
 glorious one. 
 
 Here is another letter that deserves to be re- 
 corded because it is a tribute to a prominent 
 business man who dares to have faith and to be 
 generous. At page 9 I refer to the lad who 
 missed his chance. A few days ago I received 
 this letter from him : 
 
 " DEAR SIR, 
 
 " I think that perhaps you will be in- 
 terested to know that I have at last got what I 
 consider a good situation. I am working at the 
 
 above town for Messrs . Mr. is fully 
 
 aware of the reasons of my leaving and is 
 
 quite prepared to give me a chance. After all, 
 it is as well he knows, as complications might 
 have arisen later on. Anyhow, my chance has 
 come and I surely will make the most of it. Let 
 
278 The Loom of the Law 
 
 me thank you for having endeavoured through 
 
 Mr. to get me a job. Though your efforts 
 
 were unsuccessful, believe me I am sincerely 
 obliged to you. With the happiest of recol- 
 lections, 
 
 " I remain, 
 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 
 There must be a blessedness in such offers and 
 risks as those indicated by the above letters and 
 there may be a responsiveness to them that can 
 never be achieved by mere State intervention. 
 Borstal, Reformatories, Industrial schools were 
 all conceived to eliminate the prison taint and to 
 give training, discipline and education to delin- 
 quents. But it is the personal interest, the 
 personal sacrifice and concern that gives the touch 
 that matters in social redemption. That the 
 State can never hope to give. 
 
 No man could be a cynic who is associated 
 with the London police courts, for amidst all 
 the apparent luxury and thoughtlessness and 
 gaiety of the modern world there are depths of 
 sympathy for the unfortunate, and anxiety to 
 help the needy. The Press, too, is the eye of the 
 public watching that the interests of the prisoners 
 are safeguarded, that they are treated with the 
 
The Loom and the Press 279 
 
 consideration that is their due, that the great 
 principles of English Jurisprudence are regarded 
 and respected and that justice is done to all with- 
 out fear and without favour. 
 
 The Press has been less watchful over the 
 newer methods of legislation. Felonies can be 
 and have been created by Government depart- 
 ments under general powers conferred by Acts 
 of Parliament. And a recent case decided that 
 one of the Ministries had levied taxes upon the 
 public that were illegal. Perhaps the doctrines 
 of self-determination will result ultimately in 
 this that the laws that jeopardize the lives and 
 liberties of the English people will, as in the olden 
 times, be passed by the King, Lords and Commons 
 of England in Parliament assembled. Every 
 student of the Constitutional Law looks back 
 with envy on the days when legislation by De- 
 partmental chiefs or Departmental underlings 
 would have led to something akin to civil war. 
 It may happen that in giving to other peoples 
 what is conceived to be liberty, we may find 
 again liberty for ourselves. The minor tyrannies, 
 and there are many, that harass the community 
 are a resultant of our new policy in legislation. 
 The Press can be the bulwark of freedom. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE END 
 
 then, is the loom of the Law, and its 
 threads are human souls. Into the tex- 
 ture of its weavings are threads of many colours 
 white and gold, black and crimson and grey. 
 It is a fabric of joy and sorrow, of laughter and 
 tears, and across it breaks at times the sunshine 
 of children's faces and sometimes the shadows of 
 women's broken hearts. The loom has been 
 built piece by piece throughout long generations. 
 It is a vast, complex machine of infinite parts 
 and it bears the impress of manifold limitations. 
 It is called upon to do dreadful things. In the 
 sorting of its threads it probes into the deepest 
 depths of the human soul. It dissects the 
 emotions ; it lays bare the human heart and cuts 
 it bit by bit. It weaves the threads of love and 
 hate, of lust and greed, and its beams are often 
 stained with the crimson of human blood. The 
 loom kills men, and it breaks the hearts of women 
 
 and makes orphans of unborn children. Every 
 
 280 
 
The End 281 
 
 living soul is within the reach of its machinery, 
 and you and I may be of its weaving on the 
 morrow. There is no emotion that does not 
 thrill in its atmosphere expectancy, faith, dis- 
 trust, despair, anguish that is unutterable. Men 
 are struck dumb with dismay and women blind 
 with grief. As we watch it day by day, the 
 problems of life grow into a vast, blinding, be- 
 wildering perplexity. Who knows his destiny ? 
 A frailty, a hidden vice, a secret sin, the weakness 
 of a moment- 
 Then come the mists and the blinding rain, 
 And life is never the same again. 
 
 It is coeval with the race. It is hoary with 
 the years and fresh as the new day. 
 
 Therefore the Lord sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the 
 ground from whence he was taken. So He drove out the man ; and He 
 placed at the East of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming 
 sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. 
 
 Thus it was written in the book of Genesis and 
 in the cloistered calm of old cathedral cities there 
 are uttered at times these dreadful words : 
 
 " The sentence of the Court upon you is that 
 you be taken from hence to the place from which 
 you came : and from thence to a place of lawful 
 execution and that you be there hanged by the 
 neck until you be dead : and that your body be 
 afterwards buried within the precincts of the 
 
282 The Loom of the Law 
 
 prison in which you shall have been last confined 
 after this your conviction. And may the Lord 
 have mercy on your Soul." 
 
 And so it is from Eden to Gloucester jail. 
 
 It is no function of mine to end the chapters 
 of this book with a homily on virtue, but he was 
 truly a student of life and life's perplexities and 
 tragedies who uttered to his generation and to 
 ours this injunction : 
 
 Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. 
 
 Perhaps, in the arrangement of things, it may 
 be that those frail men and women who parade 
 day by day the grey docks of the criminal courts 
 fulfil some purpose that one day will be made 
 manifest. Perhaps their via crucis is their via 
 lucis . . . Perhaps. Of them we only can say 
 that, so it seems, " the way of the transgressor 
 is hard." 
 
 It may be, too, that one day the alleged dis- 
 covery of St. Paul will be demonstrated afresh : 
 
 My strength is made perfect in weakness. 
 
 It almost seems that nothing less can meet the 
 needs of a frail and bewildered humanity. 
 
NOTE : Permission was graciously given by His 
 Majesty's Stationery Office to print this Report as an 
 Appendix to " The Loom of the Law." 
 
 DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON THE TRAIN- 
 ING, APPOINTMENT AND PAYMENT OF 
 PROBATION OFFICERS 
 
 REPORT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE 
 
 ON THE 
 TRAINING, APPOINTMENT AND PAYMENT OF PROBATION 
 
 OFFICERS 
 Appointed by 
 
 His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the 
 Home Department 
 
 DEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE ON THE TRAIN- 
 ING, APPOINTMENT AND PAYMENT OF 
 PROBATION OFFICERS 
 
 MINUTE OF APPOINTMENT 
 I hereby appoint 
 
 Sir John Baird, Bt., C.M.G., D.S.O., M.P., 
 
 T. W. Fry, Esq., O.B.E., 
 
 S. W. Harris, Esq., C.B., C.V.O., 
 
 Oliver W. Hind, Esq., and 
 
 Miss A. Ivimy, 
 
 to inquire into the existing methods of training, appoint 
 ing and paying Probation Officers, and to consider 
 
284 The Loom of the Law 
 
 whether any, and if so what, alterations are desirable 
 in order to secure at all Courts a sufficient number of 
 Probation Officers, having suitable training and qualifi- 
 cations ; and also to consider whether any changes are 
 required in the present system of remuneration. 
 
 And I appoint Sir John Baird to be Chairman and 
 Mr. H. Houston, of the Home Office, to be Secretary of 
 the Committee. 
 
 EDWARD SHORTT. 
 
 Whitehall, 
 
 22nd November, 1920. 
 
 The cost of this inquiry, including the preparation, 
 printing and publishing of the Report, is estimated at 
 270 Is. 
 
 REPORT 
 
 To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDWARD SHORTT, K.C., 
 M.P., His MAJESTY'S SECRETARY OF STATE FOR 
 THE HOME DEPARTMENT 
 
 SIR, 
 
 We have the honour to report that in pursuance of 
 your appointment of the 22nd November, 1920, we have 
 inquired into the existing methods of training, appoint- 
 ing, and paying Probation Officers, and we have con- 
 sidered whether any alterations are desirable in order 
 to secure in all Courts a sufficient number of Probation 
 Officers having suitable training and qualifications ; 
 we have also considered whether any changes are 
 required in the present system of remuneration. 
 
 Procedure oj Committee. 
 
 We have held 16 meetings, and have heard evidence 
 from 49 witnesses. These witnesses, whose names are 
 
Appendix 285 
 
 printed at the end of our report, included Police Magis- 
 trates, Borough and County Justices, representatives 
 of Borough Councils, County Councils and Standing 
 Joint Committees, a number of Probation Officers, 
 both men and women, from different parts of the 
 country, and representatives of Societies or other 
 persons specially interested in the subject. 
 
 From these witnesses, to whom we wish to take this 
 opportunity of expressing our sincere thanks, we 
 obtained much valuable information, and we regret 
 that on the ground of economy it is not possible to 
 print the verbatim report. For this reason we have 
 not thought it desirable to quote the opinions expressed 
 by individual witnesses, but in arriving at our con- 
 clusions we have weighed carefully the evidence laid 
 before us, and we have been considerably influenced 
 by the views of those who have had practical experience 
 in the working of the probation system in this country. 
 We have studied the report of the Departmental Com- 
 mittee on the Probation of Offenders Act, 1907, who 
 issued their report in December, 1909 (Cd. 5001), the 
 report of a Departmental Committee on the Remunera- 
 tion of Probation Officers in the Metropolitan Police 
 Court District (1913), and the various circulars issued 
 by the Home Office from time to time on the subject 
 of probation. 
 
 We have also obtained information as to the working 
 of the probation system in other countries, mainly in 
 America, where the subject has received great atten- 
 tion and an elaborate administrative machinery has 
 been established. 
 
 Value of Probation. 
 
 Before discussing the questions immediately referred 
 to us, we should like to say a few words on the great 
 value of probation as a means of reformation and the 
 
286 The Loom of the Law 
 
 prevention of crime. The system has long passed 
 the experimental stage and has, we venture to think, 
 taken a prominent and permanent place in our judicial 
 system, as in that of other countries. The underlying 
 idea is the value of the influence which a man or woman 
 of strong personality may exercise over one of weaker 
 or immature character, who, owing to lack of discipline, 
 bad associations or other circumstances, has been led 
 to commit offences, and is liable to fall into or persist 
 in criminal habits. Experience has proved beyond 
 doubt that the ordinary methods available to judicial 
 authorities for dealing with offenders, such as fine 
 and imprisonment, too often fail either as reformative 
 or preventive agencies. On the other hand, probation, 
 when applied in suitable cases, has frequently proved 
 successful in producing a real change in the moral 
 attitude of persons brought before the Courts, restoring 
 their self-respect, and enabling them to take their 
 places as decent and law-abiding citizens. 
 
 The figures which have been produced to us, showing 
 the percentage of successful and unsuccessful cases, 
 are most encouraging, and afford the strongest possible 
 argument for the value of the system. 
 
 It does not follow that probation is a universal 
 remedy for the prevention of crime. There are some 
 offences which are too serious to admit of release on 
 probation, and there are offenders who, owing to long 
 association with crime or other circumstances, are 
 unfit to benefit from an application of the system. 
 Indeed, positive harm may be done by releasing on 
 probation an offender to whom its application is entirely 
 unsuitable. Whether a particular offender can with 
 advantage be put under a probation order must depend 
 on the circumstances of each case, and the decision 
 must be left to the judicial authorities. There seems, 
 however, good reason to believe that the great benefits 
 which may be derived from the use of the machinery 
 
Appendix 287 
 
 provided by the Probation of Offenders Act are not 
 always sufficiently known or appreciated by Courts 
 in this country. It appears to us that every magistrate 
 ought not only to be familiar with the procedure, but 
 also to have constantly before his mind the possibility 
 of using it ; and the organisation of Probation Officers 
 should be such as to admit of every Court exercising its 
 duties under the Probation of Offenders Act to the 
 fullest possible extent. 
 
 We wish to draw special attention to the importance 
 which was emphasised strongly in the evidence of 
 using the probation system at the earliest possible stage 
 in an offender's career. Too often, both in the case of 
 juveniles and adults, probation is only applied when 
 other methods have failed, with the result that the 
 Probation Officer starts his work with much diminished 
 chances of success. 
 
 On the other hand, where an offender has been 
 placed on probation without success, there may be a 
 danger in repeating the process for second and sub- 
 sequent offences. As regards juvenile delinquents, 
 the Departmental Committee on Reformatory and 
 Industrial Schools, who reported in 1913 (Cd. 6838), 
 drew attention to the fact that the work of Reformatory 
 and Industrial Schools had been rendered more difficult 
 by an unwise use of the Probation Act, as boys and 
 girls who have been put on probation not only for their 
 first but also for second, third, or even fourth offences 
 before they are committed to a school " become 
 habituated to an undisciplined life, their characters 
 have become formed and their reformation is more 
 difficult." For these reasons the Committee deprecated 
 the use of probation after the first period, except for 
 special reasons. We agree that where a juvenile 
 offender has failed to take advantage of an adequate 
 period of probation, or when the home associations are 
 bad, immediate committal to a Reformatory or 
 
288 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Industrial School offers, as a rule, a better chance 
 of a permanent cure. 
 
 The marked decrease in the prison population, and 
 in the number of committals to Reformatory and Indus- 
 trial Schools which has taken place during the last 
 few years, may be attributed partly to the increasing 
 use of probation. It is hardly necessary for us to 
 point out that probation is extremely economical com- 
 pared with the cost of keeping persons in prison, or 
 of maintaining boys and girls in Reformatory or Indus- 
 trial Schools. We do not advocate the use of probation 
 merely because it is inexpensive, but we wish to lay 
 great stress on the considerable saving to public funds 
 which is likely to follow from the use of probation in 
 all suitable cases. 
 
 Law. 
 
 The law on the subject of probation is contained in 
 the Probation of Offenders Act, 1907, as amended by 
 the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914. The 
 magistrates whom we consulted agreed that it was, 
 generally speaking, sufficient for its purpose. Some 
 suggestions were made to us for minor alterations in the 
 law, but this matter is outside the scope of our inquiry. 
 
 Extent to which Probation is Used. 
 
 A useful estimate of the extent to which probation 
 has been used in England and Wales in recent years 
 can be obtained from the Tables which are printed at 
 the end of the report. 
 
 It will be seen that in 1908, the year after the prin- 
 cipal Act came into force, 8,023 persons were placed 
 under probation. The number rose to over 11,000 
 in 1912 and 1913, and over 12,000 in 1916 and 1917. 
 The year 1919, which is the last year for which figures 
 are available, shows a drop in the numbers to 9,655. 
 
Appendix 289 
 
 The great majority of probation orders are made by 
 Courts of Summary Jurisdiction. For instance, of the 
 9,655 orders made in 1919, those made by Courts of 
 Summary Jurisdiction amounted to 9,068. A very 
 small number were made by Courts of Assize (7), and 
 a comparatively small number by Quarter Sessions 
 (580). Of these 580 the majority (465) were made by 
 the London Sessions. 
 
 The total number of persons brought before the 
 Courts in 1919 amounted to 546,588, and the number 
 placed under probation, 9,655, represents a percentage 
 of 1.77. 
 
 Taking London alone, the number of persons brought 
 before the Police Courts in 1919 amounted to 138,910, 
 and of these 3,148 were placed under probation, repre- 
 senting a percentage of 2.27. 
 
 Probation is particularly applicable in the treatment 
 of juvenile delinquents, and it is satisfactory to find 
 that a much higher proportion of children are released 
 on probation than of adults. In 1919 the number of 
 juveniles (i.e., persons under 16) dealt with in Juvenile 
 Courts amounted to 40,473. Of these, 4,188 were 
 placed under probation, representing a percentage of 
 10.35. 
 
 There appears to be a marked difference in the 
 practice of different Courts. One witness furnished us 
 with Tables which have been verified and are printed 
 at the end of our report, comparing the practice of 
 16 towns selected merely because their police returns 
 enabled a satisfactory comparison to be made. Taking 
 all these towns together, 2.36 per cent, of the cases tried, 
 both juvenile and adult, were placed on probation, but 
 the figures for each town vary from .74 per cent, in 
 the case of N. to 5.75 per cent, in the case of E. On the 
 other hand, Baking juvenile cases only, the average 
 number of cases placed on probation was 13.82 per 
 cent., and the figures for each town vary from 1.45 
 
 19 
 
290 The Loom of the Law 
 
 per cent, in the case of N. to 43.61 per cent, in the case 
 of G. 
 
 The use of the Act by magistrates must depend on the 
 presence of Probation Officers to whose care offenders 
 can be released. It is disappointing to find that fourteen 
 years after the principal Act was passed, out of 1,034 
 Courts of Summary Jurisdiction in England and Wales, 
 no less than 215 have taken no steps to appoint a Pro- 
 bation Officer. Many of these Courts are in country 
 districts, and it was suggested to us by one of the 
 witnesses that probation is unnecessary in country 
 villages, where public opinion makes the influence of a 
 Probation Officer unnecessary. This view was not 
 shared by other witnesses, and we are unable to accept 
 it. There are many villages where the work of a 
 Probation Officer is as much needed as in the towns 
 and large cities. The organisation of probation work 
 is no doubt more difficult in some country districts, 
 especially in remote villages, but we believe the problem 
 is by no means incapable of solution. 
 
 The conclusion to which we have come after considera- 
 tion of these figures and the representations made to 
 us is that many Courts including Courts of Quarter 
 Sessions could with great advantage use probation 
 procedure much more freely than they do at present, 
 and that every Court should have the services of a 
 Probation Officer at its disposal, so that probation orders 
 can be made when the circumstances render such a 
 course desirable. 
 
 Probation Officers. Appointing Authority. 
 
 Under Section 3 of the Probation of Offenders Act, 
 1907, Probation Officers are appointed by the Justices 
 of each Petty Sessional Division, except in London, 
 where the appointments are made by the Home Secre- 
 tary. They may be paid out of local rates such 
 
Appendix 291 
 
 remuneration and expenses as may be fixed by the 
 Borough Council in boroughs and by the County Council 
 in counties.* 
 
 In the Metropolitan Police District the remuneration 
 is paid out of the Metropolitan Police Fund. 
 
 A far-reaching proposal has been made by the Howard 
 League of Penal Reform, and was put before us in evi- 
 dence that all Probation Officers should be appointed 
 and paid by the State. We found little support for this 
 proposal among other witnesses, and it appears to us 
 open to strong objection. Experience has shown that 
 one of the elements in the successful working of probation 
 lies in close co-operation between the Court and the 
 Probation Officers. This co-operation is far more likely 
 to be secured when the Justices have a direct voice in 
 the selection and control of their officers. Further, the 
 Probation Officer has hitherto owed much of his success 
 to the relationship he has been able to establish with 
 the probationer, who looks upon him as a friend, not 
 as an official. To turn Probation Officers into a new 
 class of Civil Servant would, we believe, tend to destroy 
 this valuable influence. Nearly all the witnesses were 
 of an opinion that the appointment of Probation Officers 
 should continue to be made locally, and we are in agree- 
 ment with this view. 
 
 No difficulty arises in towns where there is enough 
 work to justify the appointment of one or more full-time 
 Probation Officers. In small towns and country dis- 
 tricts where probation orders may be few in number, 
 it is often arranged for one man to act as Probation 
 Officer for several Petty Sessional Divisions. In the 
 latter case there is something to be said for placing the 
 power of appointment in the hands of the County 
 
 * There is some doubt whether the County Council or the Standing 
 Joint Committee is the Authority indicated in the Act. The Home 
 Secretary, in a circular letter dated 31st January, 1908, advised local 
 authorities that the remuneration should be proposed by the Standing 
 Joint Committee and confirmed by the County Council. 
 
292 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Council and the Standing Joint Committee, but on the 
 whole we are of opinion that, for the present at any rate, 
 the legal responsibility should rest with the Justices of 
 the Petty Sessional Court, though it may be desirable, 
 as we show later, for the probation service to be or- 
 ganised on a County basis by agreement between the 
 various Courts. 
 
 Some trouble may arise from the fact that the ap- 
 pointing authority is different from the paying authority, 
 and a few cases were brought to our notice where the 
 Borough or County Councils were disinclined to pay 
 remuneration which the Justices considered adequate. 
 It was suggested that there might be an appeal to the 
 Home Office, as in the case of the salaries of clerks to the 
 Justices, but we think that the difficulties which have 
 arisen in a few cases do not justify any amendment of 
 the law, and they could probably be removed by co- 
 operation between the two authorities. 
 
 Under the Rules made on the 27th November, 1907, 
 by the Secretary of State under Section 7 of the Pro- 
 bation of Offenders Act, 1907, the appointment of 
 Probation Officers is renewed annually. It was sug- 
 gested to us that Probation Officers would feel greater 
 security of tenure if the requirement as to annual 
 appointment were dispensed with, subject always to 
 the power to terminate the appointment at a month's 
 notice. We agree that it is unnecessary to insist on a 
 rule which tends to become a mere formality, and we 
 think that the Rules should be amended accordingly. 
 It would, however, be desirable that every appointment 
 should be reviewed annually for a period of two years 
 before it is confirmed by the Court. 
 
 Nature of Existing Appointments. 
 
 The current register of Probation Officers issued by 
 the Home Office contains the names of 784 men and 
 
Appendix 293 
 
 women employed in this work throughout the country. 
 From returns supplied to the Home Office we have been 
 able to obtain fairly complete information as to the 
 source from which the Probation Officers are drawn. 
 The largest number are the agents of religious and 
 social organisations, the most important of which is 
 the Church of England Temperance Society. Other 
 bodies which may be mentioned are the Discharged 
 Prisoners' Aid Society, the Catholic Aid Society, the 
 British Women's Temperance Association, the Church 
 Army, and the Salvation Army. The work of some of 
 these bodies in helping offenders notably the Police 
 Court Mission of the Church of England Temperance 
 Society has been carried on for many years, and was 
 in existence when the Probation of Offenders Act, 
 1907, was passed. When, therefore, the demand for 
 Probation Officers arose it was natural that the duties 
 should be largely undertaken by the agents of the 
 various Societies which were already experienced in 
 this class of work. 
 
 These agents, though appointed Probation Officers 
 by the different Courts, remain under the control of, 
 and are paid by, the Societies to which they belong, 
 though some part of the salary, varying considerably 
 in amount, is paid by the local authorities in respect of 
 probation work. 
 
 It may be mentioned here that in addition to probation 
 work, properly so-called, these agents frequently per- 
 form duties of an analogous character which are 
 conveniently included under the description of " mis- 
 sionary work." The missionary work of the Police 
 Courts is of the greatest value to magistrates when they 
 need inquiries to be made as to the circumstances of 
 the persons who come before them, and when a helping 
 hand can be given, or a word in due season can be 
 spoken. Frequently the missionaries are employed in 
 arranging disputes or differences, especially between 
 
294 The Loom of the Law 
 
 husbands and wives. All the witnesses, including 
 magistrates whom we consulted, were unanimous in 
 attaching great importance to the missionary work of 
 the Courts, and expressed the opinion that it is essential 
 to the proper administration of justice. We agree 
 with this view, and we are strongly of opinion that in 
 appointing and fixing the remuneration of Probation 
 Officers, Courts and local authorities should not dis- 
 criminate too narrowly between probation work and 
 missionary work. 
 
 Many of the agents of voluntary Societies are employed 
 wholly on probation and missionary work in the Courts. 
 This is especially the case in London and some other 
 large cities. Some Courts, instead of availing them- 
 selves of the services of Societies, have appointed full- 
 time officers of their own, and there appears to be a 
 growing tendency to adopt this plan in large centres. 
 In London the women officers who deal with juvenile 
 offenders are appointed directly by the Home Secretary, 
 and give their whole time to the work, and there are also 
 one or two Probation Officers for adult cases in the direct 
 employment of the Home Office. 
 
 Apart from these two classes, the returns disclose a 
 considerable number of persons of varied interests and 
 qualifications who are employed on probation work, 
 such as attendance officers, police officers, collecting 
 officers, rescue workers, officers of the National Society 
 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Poor Law and 
 other local officers, keepers of places of detention, and 
 a number of persons engaged in various occupations 
 which are but remotely connected with probation work. 
 Many of these persons do not appear to be properly 
 qualified to act as Probation Officers, and their employ- 
 ment is detrimental to the success of the system. We 
 deprecate especially the continued employment of 
 police officers in this work, as although instances have 
 been given to us where such officers have done admirable 
 
Appendix 295 
 
 work of this kind, association between probation and 
 the ordinary duties of the police is, as a general rule, 
 undesirable. 
 
 In districts where there is a sufficient number of pro- 
 bationers it is very desirable that the Probation Officer 
 should be employed only on this work, and similar 
 missionary duties. The care of probationers is neces- 
 sarily of an absorbing character, and demands the fullest 
 attention and energy of the officers employed. If they 
 have other duties not connected with probation or similar 
 social work, the interests of the probationers are bound 
 to suffer. 
 
 When a particular Court has not sufficient probation 
 and missionary work to justify the appointment of a 
 full-time officer, it can often be arranged that two or 
 more Courts should share the services of the same 
 officer. This method is now frequently adopted with 
 successful results, especially in country districts. 
 
 The question whether it is better for Courts to appoint 
 their own officers or to employ the agents of Societies 
 is one on which opinions differ. Some witnesses pre- 
 ferred the former system, because the Probation Officer 
 is entirely under the control of the Court which employs 
 him, and he does not serve two masters. Others thought 
 that an officer so appointed may be looked upon by 
 persons coming under his care as an official of the Court 
 rather than a friend, and may thereby lose some of the 
 influence which he would otherwise possess. It was 
 also suggested that under this system it is more difficult 
 to secure the appointment of officers possessing those 
 religious convictions which are generally admitted to be 
 essential to success in probation work. 
 
 Those who represent the Societies engaged in this work 
 point with much force to the valuable work which 
 they have accomplished hitherto, and to the loss which 
 would ensue to the community if any step is taken which 
 would jeopardise its continuance. They urge that their 
 
296 The Loom of the Law 
 
 agents are men and women who undertake this work 
 owing to religious conviction, and, not being officials of 
 the Court, they exercise a much wider and more bene- 
 ficial influence than would otherwise be the case. 
 Further, they are able to command a considerable 
 amount of financial support from voluntary subscrip- 
 tions, which tends to relieve public funds. For instance, 
 the funds administered by the Police Court Mission of 
 the Church of England Temperance Society amounted 
 to about 31,000 last year, and the Staffordshire Police 
 Court Mission raised about 4,000 for the County of 
 Staffordshire. Similar funds are raised by other 
 Missions and Societies. 
 
 We have had before us Probation Officers of both 
 classes, and have considered the views expressed by 
 them. We have been much impressed by the valuable 
 work now being done by the various Societies, especially 
 by the Church of England Temperance Society, and by 
 the high character and qualifications of many of their 
 missionaries. While we think there is room for im- 
 provement in their organisation, we should feel reluctant 
 to make any recommendation which would have the 
 effect of putting any check on the development of their 
 work. It must be remembered that in this country 
 much of the best social work has been accomplished by 
 voluntary organisations, and probation offers a field 
 in which private enterprise may be looked upon to 
 yield good results. 
 
 After full consideration of both methods of appointing 
 Probation Officers we do not think it desirable to re- 
 commend a uniform system. In some cases it may 
 be found that the work of providing Probation Officers 
 can best be organised by Societies, as in the Metropolitan 
 area, and this system seems particularly appropriate 
 in counties. In other cases, especially in the larger 
 provincial towns, the Justices may prefer to appoint 
 their own Probation Officers. When this system is 
 
Appendix 297 
 
 adopted proper arrangements must be made for the 
 selection and supervision of the officers, and for the 
 performance of the missionary duties of the Court. 
 Some fund will also have to be provided from which 
 the Probation Officers can obtain assistance for helping 
 their probationers in finding employment, providing 
 outfits, etc. 
 
 Of existing Probation Officers about two-thirds are 
 men and one-third women. It is hardly necessary 
 to point out that as a general rule a woman probationer 
 should be under the care of a woman officer. This may 
 not always be possible, especially in small towns and 
 country districts, but no probation system can be 
 regarded as wholly satisfactory which does not make 
 such a provision. 
 
 The Act also contemplates the appointment, where 
 circumstances permit, of special officers for children 
 under 16. In London this requirement has been met 
 by the appointment of specially qualified women, 
 who devote their attention entirely to children. Some 
 Courts elsewhere have special officers for children, but 
 it is the exception rather than the rule, and enough 
 consideration does not appear to have been given hitherto 
 to the needs of children. 
 
 The importance of a good probation system for 
 children is even greater than for adults, because good 
 influences can more easily be brought to bear on the 
 receptive minds of children before character and habits 
 are formed. If children who have fallen into mischief 
 can by a judicious application of the probation system 
 be saved from a life of dishonesty and crime, and 
 eventually from prison, the benefit to the community 
 is incalculable, apart from the saving of money. We 
 think that whenever possible children put on probation 
 should be under the supervision of Probation Officers 
 especially women who have a knowledge of and 
 sympathy with children, and that specially qualified 
 
298 The Loom of the Law 
 
 children's officers should be attached to every Juvenile 
 Court. When the number of children does not justify 
 the appointment of a full-time officer, it will usually 
 be possible either to secure the service of someone 
 who is willing to give part of his or her time to the work, 
 or to select a Probation Officer with suitable quali- 
 fications who devotes the remainder of his or her time 
 to the supervision of adults. 
 
 Voluntary Assistance. 
 
 It may be convenient to discuss here the position of 
 voluntary assistance in probation work. Such assistance 
 may take two forms : (1) Men and women may be em- 
 ployed without remuneration as Probation Officers, 
 either for the whole or part of their time. (2) Paid 
 Probation Officers may obtain help from individuals 
 and from societies, clubs, etc., in the work of supervising 
 a probationer. 
 
 It appears from the evidence which we received on 
 this subject that there is a sharp division of opinion 
 among those experienced in probation as to the value 
 and extent of the services which can be given by an 
 unpaid Probation Officer. Many witnesses to whose 
 opinion weight must be attached share the view, which 
 appears to be widely held in America, that probation 
 must be organised on a professional basis, and that 
 volunteer officers cannot be relied on to accept and, 
 indeed, cannot properly be asked to accept the legal 
 responsibility imposed on them by a Probation Order. 
 Those who hold this view point out that voluntary work 
 of this kind is apt to be spasmodic, and men and women 
 whose main interests lie elsewhere will not be able to 
 maintain the keenness and devote the attention which 
 the work requires. 
 
 On the other hand it must be borne in mind that a 
 great deal of excellent work has been done hitherto 
 
Appendix 299 
 
 by unpaid Probation Officers, and in not a few cases 
 men and women have been found who have been willing 
 to give their whole time to probation work without 
 receiving any remuneration. Many persons well quali- 
 fied to express an opinion believe that there is still 
 wider scope for employing volunteers. One of the 
 London magistrates holds this view strongly, and has 
 given practical effect to it in organising probation at 
 his Court. He stated in his evidence that the experiment 
 which he inaugurated during the war of handing over 
 the majority of his probationers to the care of volunteers 
 gave excellent results. The employment of unpaid 
 officers where men and women with suitable qualifica- 
 tions are available can, of course, be advocated on the 
 ground of economy, but it may also be the means of 
 obtaining the assistance of men and women with special 
 qualifications who cannot give their whole time to the 
 work, and who will bring to it new ideas and freshness 
 of mind which may prove helpful to the regular officers. 
 Further, unpaid officers may in some cases be able 
 to exercise greater influence because they are not 
 connected directly with the Court, and by their disin- 
 terested motives may establish special bonds of sympathy 
 with the probationers. 
 
 While, therefore, we are in favour of the employment 
 of unpaid Probation Officers where the circumstances 
 make it possible, we think that certain safeguards 
 should be adopted to prevent any weakening of the 
 close touch which ought to be maintained between the 
 magistrate on the one hand and the Probation Officer 
 and probationers on the other hand. 
 
 The volunteer should be known personally to the 
 magistrate, and as a general rule he should exercise 
 his authority under the supervision of a paid officer, 
 who should be responsible to the Court. There may be 
 cases, however, where a well-qualified volunteer is 
 willing to accept full responsibility for one or more 
 
300 The Loom of the Law 
 
 probationers. In such cases it will be desirable that 
 his name should appear in the Order, and that he should 
 be present in Court at the hearing, and subsequently 
 when the Order comes up for reconsideration. 
 
 As regards the second class of voluntary assistance 
 mentioned above, we found little difference of opinion. 
 The general view seems to be that a paid Probation 
 Officer can obtain most valuable help from all kinds 
 of social workers and agencies, and especially in the 
 case of juveniles from boys' and girls' clubs. We are 
 satisfied that a Probation Officer who is content merely 
 to visit a probationer and does not bring him into touch 
 with other influences is bound in many cases to fail. 
 While many Probation Officers are well aware of the im- 
 portance of strengthening their own efforts, we believe 
 that there is room for greater co-operation in this 
 direction. 
 
 Duties of Probation Officers. 
 
 Whatever may be the class of officer employed, and 
 the conditions of employment, it is essential to the 
 success of probation that the Probation Officer should 
 be able to devote sufficient time and attention to each 
 case, and that probation and missionary work should 
 not be interfered with by other duties. It is very 
 difficult to estimate the time occupied in supervising 
 a probationer or to fix the number of cases which one 
 officer can superintend at one time. So much depends 
 on the circumstances of each particular case and the 
 extent of an officers' district. The general opinion 
 seems to be that a Probation Officer cannot adequately 
 look after more than about 50 or 60 cases in addition 
 to missionary work, but it appears from the returns 
 made to the Home Office that some Probation Officers 
 have from 70 to 100 cases under their charge. Two 
 men are stated to have 124 and 131 cases respectively. 
 
Appendix 301 
 
 In one large borough the average number of cases for 
 each officer amounts to 100, and in one thickly populated 
 county four officers are responsible for 450 cases. With- 
 out knowing the circumstances it is not possible for us 
 to express a definite opinion whether, in cases of this 
 kind, the Probation Officer can adequately supervise 
 so many cases, but it is clear that the efficiency of 
 probation must suffer severely when the officer is over- 
 worked, and cannot give sufficient time to seeing at 
 regular intervals the probationers under his care. In- 
 stead of attempting to lay down any standard based 
 on the number of cases, which is bound to be a variable 
 one, we recommend that magistrates should pay close 
 attention to the amount of work given to the Probation 
 Officers attached to their Court, and satisfy themselves 
 that the officers are able to give sufficient time and atten- 
 tion to each case, and to see that the conditions of the 
 probation order are suitable, and are being fulfilled. 
 
 Although in small towns and country districts it 
 appears to us better to employ one man as Probation 
 Officer for several Courts rather than to employ a large 
 number of part-time officers, it is possible to err in the 
 other direction, and make an officer's district so wide 
 that he cannot cover the ground effectively. We 
 notice cases in which one man is appointed to act for 
 as many as 10 or 12 Courts, and in one County as many 
 as 21 Courts. 
 
 It is not an uncommon practice to make the Pro- 
 bation Officer also a collecting officer to the Courts. 
 While some of the Probation Officers who came before 
 us saw no objection to this practice, and even regarded 
 it as a help to their work, we are of opinion that these 
 duties are incompatible with the work of a Probation 
 Officer, and that other persons should be employed in 
 collecting. 
 
 We also think it very undesirable that officers belong- 
 ing to Societies should be employed in collecting 
 
802 The Loom of the Law 
 
 subscriptions which are largely required to pay their 
 own salaries. 
 
 As a general rule financial relief should be dissociated 
 from probation work. If a probationer needs monetary 
 assistance he should be placed in direct touch with 
 Societies and Agencies who are best able to help him. 
 But the use of voluntary funds by Probation Officers 
 in providing outfits for probationers so as to enable 
 them to obtain employment is legitimate and desirable 
 expenditure. The work of a Probation Officer may 
 be greatly reinforced if he is able from funds placed 
 at his disposal to fit a probationer for some useful 
 occupation. 
 
 Qualifications and Method oj Appointment. 
 
 As the success of the probation system depends so 
 much on the personality of the Probation Officer, it 
 follows that the greatest care should be taken to attract 
 the right men and women to this form of social service. 
 The task is not an easy one, as the power of influencing 
 others depends on qualities of character which cannot 
 readily be ascertained. Many qualities were mentioned 
 to us as desirable in a good Probation Officer sympathy, 
 tact, common sense, firmness, are but a few but there 
 was general agreement that a keen missionary spirit, 
 based on religious conviction, is essential. We were 
 impressed by the testimony borne by magistrates and 
 others to the character of many of the Probation Officers 
 now employed, and to the valuable work done by 
 them, and the opportunity which we had of meeting 
 some of these officers tended to confirm this testimony. 
 Some witnesses, however, considered that many Pro- 
 bation Officers are not sufficiently equipped in training 
 and experience, and that their outlook is narrow, par- 
 ticularly because they belong to Societies which require 
 their officers to be total abstainers or to subscribe to 
 
Appendix 308 
 
 the tenets of a particular religious communion. Some 
 of these witnesses urged the need for higher educational 
 attainments and more specialised training, such as would 
 be afforded by a course of social science at a University. 
 It must be remembered, however, that men and women 
 who go to the universities usually do so to fit themselves 
 for a professional career, and it is doubtful whether a 
 probation service organised on the lines we consider 
 desirable would provide opportunities or prospects 
 which would usually attract candidates of university 
 training. We agree, however, that so long as regard 
 is paid to the essential qualities of character and per- 
 sonality, there is much need in the probation service 
 for men and women of the higher qualifications referred 
 to, who may be willing to devote themselves to the work 
 either permanently or for some years. 
 
 Some of the societies who furnish Probation Officers 
 for instance, the Church Army and Police Court 
 Mission already undertake the training of candidates. 
 It might be arranged for such Societies to give selected 
 candidates opportunities for higher education and 
 wider experience of different forms of social work, and 
 that such candidates should receive a salary for a year 
 or two while they are fitting themselves for the work 
 of a Probation Officer. The course of training should 
 conclude with experience of police-court work under the 
 supervision of a competent Probation Officer. The 
 value of the latter form of training was emphasised by 
 several witnesses. 
 
 It was suggested that Probation Officers might be 
 appointed after examination, which is the system 
 adopted in America, but while we attach importance 
 to educational qualifications, we consider that personal 
 qualities are paramount, and these can best be ascer- 
 tained by careful selection. We suggest that in London 
 candidates might be selected by a small committee, 
 including representatives of the Home Office and of 
 
804 The Loom of the Law 
 
 the magistrates, and that elsewhere the Justices should 
 appoint two or three members of their own body, who 
 might be entrusted not only with the duty of selecting 
 officers, but also with the supervision of probation 
 work generally. 
 
 Remuneration. 
 
 The Returns made to the Home Office contain a 
 good deal of information as to the remuneration of 
 Probation Officers, but they are not complete, and as 
 the majority of Probation Officers are engaged in other 
 work, and are only paid small sums for the probation 
 work they undertake, it is not always easy to ascertain 
 what proportion payment made for probation work 
 bears to an officer's total income. 
 
 As the position in London is clearer, it may be as 
 well to take London first. 
 
 Nearly all the Probation Officers for adults are mis- 
 sionaries attached to the Police Court Mission of the 
 Church of England Temperance Society, who are 
 employed wholly on probation and missionary work 
 at the Courts. The present salary was fixed in 1919 
 at 200 a year, rising to 250 for men, and 120 rising 
 to 150 for women. Of these amounts the Home Office 
 contributes two-thirds and the Society one-third. Last 
 year, in view of the continued high cost of living, a 
 special sum of 15 was given to each man, and 7 105. 
 to each woman. 
 
 The women appointed by the Home Office to take 
 juvenile cases are normally paid a salary of 120 a 
 year, rising to 150, though some of them were in 
 receipt of a maximum of 200 before the new salary 
 was settled. In addition they receive war bonus on 
 the same scale as that given to Civil Servants, with the 
 result that the children's officers are actually receiving 
 
Appendix 305 
 
 
 considerably higher salaries than the ordinary Probation 
 Officers, a position which cannot be justified. 
 
 The travelling and other incidental expenses of all 
 Probation Officers are paid. In the case of the Proba- 
 tion Officers employed by the Police Court Mission, 
 the expenditure is borne by the Society. 
 
 In addition to the regular officers in London other 
 persons are sometimes named in Probation Orders. 
 About 40 persons were so named in 1919 for 300 cases, 
 and the remuneration was by fees, except in cases 
 where services were given voluntarily. The scale of 
 fees given in London is now 125. 6d. for a case lasting 
 three months, 205. for six months, 255. for nine months, 
 305. for twelve months, with an additional 55. for any 
 remaining period of three months. 
 
 As regards England and Wales outside London, one 
 or two counties and a few of the larger towns pay regular 
 salaries on a full-time basis. But in most cases the 
 officer is either paid a small lump sum, varying from 
 about 5 to 20, for probation work, and the rest of 
 his salary is obtained from other sources, or he is paid 
 by fees. The system of paying by fees is still main- 
 tained in over 400 Courts, including one or two of the 
 larger cities. 
 
 Apart from London and a few places outside, we 
 cannot resist the conclusion that the system of paying 
 Probation Officers is at present far from satisfactory. 
 The sums paid by many Local Authorities toward the 
 cost of probation work are very small, and in view of 
 the value of the work we are of opinion that they ought 
 to be increased. We wish to say at once that we do 
 not think the work of a Probation Officer can be looked 
 upon in any sense as a profession in which persons can 
 expect to earn large salaries. This view was confirmed 
 by the Probation Officers themselves. The representa- 
 tions made to us on this subject were generally very 
 moderate, and some of the officers even deprecated the 
 
 20 
 
306 The Loom of the Law 
 
 granting of large salaries on the ground that it might 
 attract to the work persons who did not enter upon it 
 from a love of the work, but for the prospect of a well- 
 paid career. The general view seemed to be that a 
 Probation Officer should be assured of such a salary as 
 will enable him to maintain an adequate standard of 
 life, and save him from financial anxiety and embar- 
 rassment, which must prove a severe check to the 
 usefulness of his services. 
 
 It is, of course, for Local Authorities themselves to 
 determine what remuneration they will pay to the 
 Probation Officers they employ, and we cannot suggest 
 any fixed standard, as so much depends on the circum- 
 stances of the work and the cost of living in the district 
 where the officers are employed. On consideration of 
 all the circumstances and having regard specially to the 
 conditions of living in London and the larger cities, 
 we think that a male Probation Officer engaged wholly 
 on probation and missionary work, who is appointed at 
 the age of 30, should receive not less than 200 a year, 
 and that he should be able to look forward to reaching 
 a salary of 350 at the age of 45. Women Probation 
 Officers might begin at a salary of 150, and rise to a 
 maximum of 250. Travelling and other incidental 
 expenses should be paid in addition. 
 
 We should like to make it clear that these standards 
 are merely suggested as a guide, because it is difficult 
 in present circumstances to fix definite salaries. In 
 some cases where the cost of living is exceptionally 
 high, or where an officer possesses special qualifications, 
 or where no provision is made for a pension on retire- 
 ment, a Local Authority might reasonably decide to 
 increase the remuneration. 
 
 Where an officer is wholly in the employ of the Local 
 Authority the latter will be responsible for the whole 
 salary. Where an officer is provided by a Society, the 
 amount to be contributed by the Local Authority must 
 
Appendix 307 
 
 : 
 
 depend on the time which the officer devotes to proba- 
 tion work. The proportion of two-thirds seems to us a 
 reasonable and satisfactory arrangement in London. 
 
 There is also the case of those men and women who 
 give only a part of their time to probation or missionary 
 work, and devote the rest of their time to other forms 
 of social work or to other duties. It is more difficult 
 in these cases to fix the remuneration, and we can only 
 suggest that regard must be paid to the amount of time 
 occupied with probation cases. The remuneration of 
 part-time officers, unless the circumstances are \ ery 
 exceptional, should be a fixed annual sum. 
 
 The system of paying by fees was strongly deprecated 
 by many witnesses. It was stated that the system 
 is apt to encourage Probation Officers to undertake 
 more cases than they can properly look after. On the 
 other hand, we were informed that some Courts were 
 inclined to discharge an offender on recognisances 
 without employing a Probation Officer, in order to save 
 the fees which would thereby be incurred. We agree 
 with the criticism levelled against the fee system, and 
 we think that all regular officers, even though they are 
 employed for only part of their time on probation or 
 missionary work at the Courts, should be remunerated 
 by salary or a fixed annual sum, and not by fees. It 
 may be necessary to retain the system of payment by 
 fees for persons who are rarely employed on the work 
 of probation, but we hope that it will seldom be neces- 
 sary to have recourse to this method of payment. 
 
 Superannuation. 
 
 Strong representations were made to us that Proba- 
 tion Officers should be entitled to a pension on retire- 
 ment. It was urged with much force that they are 
 faced with considerable anxiety, because, owing to the 
 smallness of their salaries, they are unable to provide 
 
 20* 
 
808 The Loom of the Law 
 
 enough for themselves in their old age. This question 
 presents great difficulty because the probation service 
 is rightly as we think organised on local lines, and 
 Probation Officers are in the employment of a number 
 of different Local Authorities. Of existing officers 
 only a comparatively small number are in the direct 
 employment of the Local Authorities. The Probation 
 Officers point to the pension rights enjoyed by Elemen- 
 tary School Teachers, Poor Law Officers, etc., but it 
 must be remembered that there are many other classes 
 of persons employed by Local Authorities who are not 
 yet entitled to superannuation. 
 
 Further, it is open to question whether the best 
 interests of probation work are served by retaining men 
 and women in it until the age of 60 or 65, which are 
 those normally fixed in superannuation schemes. It 
 may be contended that to secure the most fruitful 
 results from the probation system, especially in the 
 case of children and young people, it is better to secure 
 the services of men and women who have not passed 
 the prime of life, and who are able later on to devote 
 their attention to other forms of social service. This 
 may be an ideal which cannot be reached, as in the 
 majority of cases it may be impossible for a Probation 
 Officer to give the best years of his life to probation work 
 and then to find other interests or other employment, 
 and there are many officers who retain their vigour 
 and usefulness up to a late age. While we recognise 
 the strength of the arguments put before us in favour 
 of a pension scheme, we feel it right to mention the 
 disadvantages, and we do not see how, under the 
 present organisation, any general scheme applicable to 
 all officers employed wholly or mainly in probation 
 work could be devised. 
 
 We understand that the Police Court Mission to 
 which many of the existing officers belong have a 
 scheme of insurance under which their missionaries 
 
Appendix 309 
 
 become entitled to an annuity of about 60 a year on 
 retirement, the missionaries contributing a proportion 
 of the premium. Some scheme such as this offers a 
 solution in the case of the agents of Societies, and we 
 think it should be considered whether the amount of 
 the pension should not be increased, and a contribution 
 made to the cost of the premium by the Local Authorities 
 concerned. 
 
 Organisation Central Authority . 
 
 We have had before us a proposal made by the 
 Howard League of Penal Reform that the administration 
 of the probation system in this country should be vested 
 in a paid Commission, assisted by a secretary, inspectors, 
 etc. It is contemplated that this Commission should 
 have a general responsibility for the treatment of 
 probationers, establish local probation authorities for 
 different areas, be responsible for the training and 
 appointment of Probation Officers, and undertake a 
 number of other duties. The promoters of this scheme 
 have no doubt been influenced by a study of the organisa- 
 tion of probation work in America, especially in New 
 York, where a Probation Commission appears to have 
 given much valuable assistance in the development of 
 the system. The proposal of the League would involve 
 the creation of a new Government Department, which 
 is not likely to be viewed with favour at the present 
 time, even if the additional expense could be justified, 
 and we do not think that a new organisation of this 
 kind is required. Indeed, as we have already indicated, 
 we believe that probation work in this country can 
 best be developed locally, with the aid of voluntary 
 organisations. 
 
 We are not, however, satisfied with the progress which 
 probation has made in this country, and it appears to us 
 that while local areas should be left to develop the work, 
 
310 The Loom of the Law 
 
 a Central Authority is needed to bring the importance of 
 the work to the knowledge of magistrates, to keep in 
 touch with and study its development both in this 
 country and abroad, and to collect and publish infor- 
 mation. This work is naturally one of the functions of 
 the Home Secretary. The Committee of 1908 recom- 
 mended that one official at the Home Office should be 
 specially charged with some duties of this kind, and the 
 recommendation has been acted upon as far as possible ; 
 but the staff of the Home Office has been so taken up 
 with other duties that there has been difficulty in pro- 
 viding satisfactorily for the development of probation 
 work. We share the opinion of the former Committee 
 that the function of a Central Authority should continue 
 to be discharged by the Home Office, and that the 
 Children's Department of the Home Office, which is now 
 concerned with probation, should be enabled to devote 
 more time to it than in the past, and that its staff should 
 be adequate for the purpose. We believe that it would 
 be very desirable that this Department should have the 
 assistance of a small Advisory Committee of, say, ten 
 or twelve members, including representatives of Magis- 
 trates, Local Authorities, Probation Officers, and other 
 persons specially experienced and interested in this work, 
 who could consider questions specially referred to it, 
 such as the best method of organisation suited to dif- 
 ferent localities, and of training and selecting Probation 
 Officers, the keeping of records, and the publication of 
 information, etc. Some of the members of the Advisory 
 Committee should be chosen from London, and could deal 
 specially with the organisation of the work in London, 
 including the selection of Probation Officers. We also 
 consider that it would be useful if the Home Office were 
 to issue an annual report giving information as to the 
 operation of the probation system throughout the 
 country, which is likely to be of use to magistrates and 
 t,o Probation Officers and to other social workers. 
 
Appendix 311 
 
 Several witnesses urged the need for some system of 
 inspection. As we have already explained, we believe 
 that Local Authorities are in the best position to develop 
 the work on their own lines, but we think that there 
 would be mutual advantage in a closer co-operation 
 between the Central Authority and the Local Authorities. 
 We suggest that the officer in the Home Office who is 
 specially charged with this work and who might act as 
 secretary to the Advisory Committee should be enabled 
 to keep in touch with the development of probation 
 work throughout the country, and could discuss with 
 Local Authorities the organisation of their schemes. 
 
 Local Organisation. 
 
 As we have indicated above, the supply of Probation 
 Officers throughout the country depends to a large 
 extent on the work of voluntary Societies. The principal 
 of them is the Church of England Temperance Society, 
 which has performed most valuable services in supplying 
 for this field of social work a number of devoted men and 
 women. A few Local Authorities have decided to 
 organise their own service, but the bulk of the work still 
 depends on the assistance of this and other Societies. So 
 long as the Societies are able and willing to provide 
 officers and can raise voluntary funds we think it would 
 be a great pity to take any step which would endanger 
 the carrying on of this valuable work. 
 
 We have, however, received a good deal of criticism 
 of the organisation of the Church of England Temper- 
 ance Society. Many witnesses deprecated the associa- 
 tion of probation work with a society formed primarily 
 to promote temperance, and thought that Probation 
 Officers should not be directly identified with temperance 
 propaganda. Some witnesses expressed the opinion 
 that while many of the Society's officers were ad- 
 mirably fitted for the work, others have not the right 
 
312 The Loom of the Law 
 
 qualifications and consequently probation work suffers. 
 They attributed this partial failure to maintain an 
 adequate standard of qualification to the narrowing of 
 the field of selection, because many men and women 
 who wish to undertake probation work are not willing 
 to subscribe to the tenets of the Church of England. 
 Further, it was pointed out that the constitution of the 
 Society is based too much on ecclesiastical lines. 
 
 We believe that there is substance in these criticisms 
 and that in order to encourage a more progressive spirit 
 in probation work and to attract better candidates to 
 the service, considerable changes are required in the 
 constitution of the Society. For instance, it appears to 
 us that the Police Court Mission should be separated 
 entirely from the temperance work of the Society, and 
 should be organised on county rather than on diocesan 
 areas. Magistrates and experienced social workers should 
 be prominently associated with the control of the central 
 organisation and local branches, and preference should 
 be given to lay rather than clerical representation on the 
 Committee. The selection of Probation Officers should 
 not be limited to members of the Church of England. 
 Probation Officers attached to the Mission should not be 
 required to take an active part in the work of organisa- 
 tion or raising funds. We understand that the respon- 
 sible authorities of the Society recognise the force of the 
 criticisms and are prepared to re-organise their probation 
 work on much broader lines. If such a policy is carried 
 into effect we believe that the Police Court Mission would 
 not only gain new vigour but it could appeal with greater 
 success for the funds which are so necessary to carry on 
 the work. 
 
 London Organisation. 
 
 We have come to the conclusion that the provision 
 made in London for the supply of Probation Officers is 
 not unsatisfactory, and that there is no reason for making 
 
Appendix 313 
 
 any fundamental change. Some of the magistrates, 
 however, were of opinion that the number of officers 
 ought to be increased in order to provide adequately for 
 the probationers under their care. The two methods of 
 appointing Probation Officers in London some being 
 directly selected and employed by the Home Office, and 
 others remaining agents of the Police Court Mission, 
 but appointed by the Home Office are not incompatible. 
 We think, however, that there is a great disadvantage 
 in having two separate branches of the Police Court 
 Mission in London, and that there should be one Police 
 Court Mission for the whole of London, and possibly 
 adjoining areas. 
 
 There appears to us to be need for more supervision 
 and control. We understand that both branches of 
 the Police Court Mission hold regular meetings of their 
 staff, but many of the magistrates who attach much 
 importance both to probation and to missionary work 
 have little knowledge of what is being done outside 
 their own Court. We have already suggested that 
 the organisation of the work in the metropolitan area 
 might be entrusted to the members of the Advisory 
 Committee who are selected from London. In this 
 way the magistrates and the Home Office could be 
 brought into closer touch with the work. 
 
 Provincial Organisations. 
 
 In the larger towns where the work justifies the 
 appointment of one or more full-time Probation Officers, 
 we think that the development of the work is best left 
 in the hands of the Borough or City magistrates who 
 can either appoint their own officers direct, or arrange 
 to employ the agents supplied by the Police Court 
 Mission or other Societies. We recommend that in 
 all cases the magistrates should appoint two or three 
 of their number to organise probation work, select 
 
314 
 
 The Loom of the Law 
 
 Probation Officers, and keep closely in touch with the 
 progress of their cases. 
 
 More difficulty arises in small towns and villages 
 where the number of probationers is small and organ- 
 isation is often defective. The difficulty has been suc- 
 cessfully got over in a few cases by organising probation 
 work on a county basis. The example of Staffordshire 
 is one which we commend to the consideration of other 
 counties. In Staffordshire a Police Court Mission for 
 the whole county has been organised and is independent 
 of any other Society. Its control is vested in a body 
 which includes magistrates from the various Petty 
 Sessional Divisions, and full-time officers are appointed 
 who act for several Courts, so that no Court is without 
 the service of a Probation Officer when the need arises. 
 The circumstances of some counties may not make it 
 easy to adopt an exactly similar procedure, but we 
 believe that in most cases the difficulties could be got 
 over by close co-operation between the Standing Joint 
 Committee, the County Council, and the various Borough 
 and Petty Sessional Courts. If, as we recommend, the 
 Police Court Mission is organised on a County basis, 
 this organisation would be available for the supply 
 of probation officers where separate organisations do 
 not exist. 
 
 Cost of Probation. 
 
 We have obtained from the responsible authorities 
 detailed particulars as to the money expended by them 
 for the financial year 1919-20 with the following results : 
 
 
 Salaries. 
 
 Fees. 
 
 Other 
 Expenses. 
 
 Total. 
 
 London .... 
 Counties . . . 
 Boroughs . . . 
 
 s. d. 
 6,007 1 4 
 3,991 10 9 
 9,585 3 10 
 
 s. d. 
 522 19 6 
 2,634 15 7 
 1,565 4 3 
 
 s. d. 
 428 7 9 
 1,267 1 8 
 995 1 3 
 
 s. d. 
 6,958 8 7 
 7,893 8 
 12,145 9 4 
 
 26,997 5 11 
 
Appendix 315 
 
 Having regard to the important part played by pro- 
 bation in the reformation of offenders, the cost of the 
 system to public funds, amounting to about 27,000 a 
 year, is remarkably small. When it is considered that 
 the average cost of maintaining a single boy or girl in a 
 Reformatory or Industrial School is about 70 a year, 
 and the cost of maintaining an offender in a Borstal 
 Institution, or in a prison, is considerably higher, it 
 will be realised that every offender who can be released 
 to the care of the Probation Officer means a great 
 economy to the community. 
 
 If our recommendations for increasing the remunera- 
 tion of Probation Officers, and for adding to their number, 
 are carried into effect, the total cost will be increased ; 
 but even if the amount were doubled or trebled the 
 expenditure could not be regarded as excessive when 
 the importance of the work and the saving in other 
 directions are taken into account. 
 
 Hitherto the total cost of probation has fallen upon 
 local rates. It has been represented to us that on the 
 analogy of other public services the incidence of the 
 cost is unfair and that a proportion of the expenditure 
 should be met out of the Exchequer. The usual pro- 
 portion in the case of other services is one-half. Having 
 regard to the national importance of a good probation 
 service, the direct saving to the Exchequer when pro- 
 bation is successful and to the fact that the State already 
 contributes to the cost of elementary schools, reforma- 
 tory and industrial schools, places of detention and other 
 public services, we strongly recommend that the Govern- 
 ment should undertake at any rate when the financial 
 position is clearer to pay half the cost of providing Pro- 
 bation Officers. If a Government grant on these lines 
 were agreed to, it should carry with it a certain amount 
 of supervision without direct interference with the 
 organisation of the work on local lines. When a County 
 or Borough wishes to obtain the Government grant 
 
316 The Loom of the Law 
 
 they should submit a scheme for the approval of the 
 Home Office, giving particulars of the scheme and the 
 number and qualifications of the Probation Officers 
 they propose to appoint. 
 
 Supervision of Persons released from Prison. 
 
 We have been asked to consider another question 
 which has been referred to us, though it is not directly 
 concerned with probation. The Central Discharged 
 Prisoners' Aid Society have drawn the attention of 
 the Prison Commission to the need for a period of 
 legal supervision following the discharge from prison 
 of prisoners who have received treatment under the 
 modified Borstal system. It is urged that the Borstal 
 Committee take great pains with these young offenders, 
 while they are in prison, only to find that they revert 
 to wrong-doing as soon as their control is relaxed. In 
 the case of young offenders committed to Borstal 
 Institutions, the law provides for a period of supervision 
 after release, and an offender is liable to be recalled if he 
 fails to behave himself during that period. Similarly 
 in the case of boys and girls sent to certified schools, 
 they remain under the supervision of the managers 
 until they reach the age of 18 in the case of industrial 
 schools, and 19 in the case of reformatory schools, and 
 they can be recalled to the schools when such a step 
 is needed for their protection. 
 
 It is suggested that it would greatly reinforce the 
 value of imprisonment if a similar system could be 
 adopted for all juvenile adults sent to prison, say, for 
 three months or more. For this purpose the law 
 might be amended to provide that in all such cases the 
 offenders on release should remain under the super- 
 vision of the Prison Commissioners for a period of not 
 less than six months, and that they should be liable 
 to be recalled by the Court to prison for a period not 
 
Appendix 317 
 
 exceeding three months, if there is evidence that they 
 are falling back into evil ways and associations. 
 
 During the period of supervision, the offenders should 
 be under the care of persons who are experienced in 
 after-care work, such as agents of the Discharged 
 Prisoners' Aid Societies, who are familiar with the 
 needs and circumstances of this class of offender. 
 
 Co-ordination oj after-care, etc. 
 
 We may mention here a suggestion which has been 
 made that all after-care work needs co-ordination. A 
 large number of organisations and persons throughout 
 the country are engaged in similar work, and if their 
 efforts could be co-ordinated by the formation of a 
 Central Association it would prevent overlapping and 
 tend to much greater efficiency. The work of the 
 Probation Officers, Discharged Prisoners' Aid Societies, 
 the after-care of children released from Reformatory and 
 Industrial Schools, may be instanced. 
 
 We are impressed by the argument which has been 
 put forward in favour of closer co-operation in the 
 various descriptions of after-care. We do not feel in a 
 position, and indeed it is not our duty, to make a defi- 
 nite recommendation on this subject, but we should 
 like to point out that if the probation system is better 
 organised on the lines we suggest, it will help towards 
 the promotion of a Central Organisation such as has 
 been advocated. 
 
 SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND 
 RECOMMENDATIONS. 
 
 1. Probation is of great value as a means of reforma- 
 tion and is economical. Magistrates should always 
 consider the possibility of using it, and the organisation 
 of Probation Officers should be sufficient for this purpose. 
 
818 The Loom of the Law 
 
 2. Probation should be used at an early stage in the 
 offender's career, but where it has definitely failed its 
 use should not as a rule be repeated. 
 
 3. The existing law is generally speaking adequate. 
 
 4. The extent to which probation is used varies con- 
 siderably in different places, both as regards young 
 offenders and adults. Probation could with advantage 
 be used much more freely in many Courts. Every Court 
 should have a Probation Officer at its disposal. 
 
 5. Probation Officers should continue to be appointed 
 by the Courts and paid by the local authorities as at 
 present. It is not desirable that they should be ap- 
 pointed by the State. 
 
 6. It is not necessary that the appointment of Pro- 
 bation Officers should be reviewed annually by the 
 Courts except for the first two years after appoint- 
 ment. 
 
 7. It is not desirable to separate probation work from 
 other missionary work in the Courts. 
 
 8. Many persons are now employed as Probation 
 Officers who are not properly qualified for the work. 
 
 9. Wherever possible Probation Officers should be 
 employed only on probation work and similar missionary 
 duties. Where the work at one Court does not justify 
 the appointment of a full-time officer it is desirable to 
 arrange that two or more Courts should share the 
 services of the same officer. 
 
 10. The Societies who have hitherto provided Pro- 
 bation Officers have done most valuable work, and, 
 though some Courts may prefer to appoint their own 
 officers, others can rely on the services of these Societies. 
 
 11. Women officers should be appointed as a rule to 
 supervise women probationers, and specially qualified 
 officers should be appointed to look after children. 
 
 12. Volunteer officers can often give valuable assist- 
 ance and their employment under proper supervision 
 should be encouraged. The paid Probation Officers 
 
Appendix 319 
 
 should make greater use of voluntary agencies in carry- 
 ing on their work. 
 
 13. Probation Officers should not be given too many 
 cases or too large districts. No absolute standard can 
 be fixed, but the amount of work and nature of their 
 duties should be supervised by the magistrates. 
 
 14. As the value of probation depends on the charac- 
 ter and personal qualities of the Probation Officer, 
 great care must be exercised in their selection. There 
 is need in the probation service for men and women of 
 higher education and better training, and Societies who 
 provide Probation Officers should be advised to improve 
 the education and training of their candidates. 
 
 15. The remuneration of Probation Officers is un- 
 satisfactory in many places, both as to method and 
 amount. It is suggested that full-time officers (men) 
 should receive not less than 200 at the age of 30 and 
 rise to 350 at the age of 45. Women should receive 
 150 and rise to 250. Travelling and other incidental 
 expenses should be paid. Where the officers are 
 provided by a Society the local authorities should pay 
 an adequate proportion of the salary. 
 
 The remuneration of part-time officers should be by 
 salary or fixed annual sums, and should be fixed according 
 to the average amount of work. The system of paying 
 by fees should be abandoned except for isolated cases. 
 
 16. No general superannuation scheme for Probation 
 Officers is practicable. Societies should be encouraged 
 to establish adequate schemes for their own officers to 
 which both the local authorities and the officers might 
 contribute. 
 
 17. The creation of a paid Government Commission 
 to control and develop probation work is not desirable. 
 
 18. The Home Office should continue to act as the 
 Central Authority and should be assisted by an Advisory 
 Committee having a paid secretary. 
 
 19. The supply of Probation Officers will depend 
 
320 The Loom of the Law 
 
 largely on the services of voluntary Societies, especially 
 the Police Court Mission, which should be reorganised 
 on broader lines. 
 
 20. In London there should be one Police Court 
 Mission. Better organisation and supervision is re- 
 quired, in which the members of the Advisory Committee 
 who are selected from London should assist. 
 
 21. In provincial towns the magistrates should appoint 
 a small committee of their own members to select 
 Probation Officers and generally supervise the work. 
 In counties endeavour should be made in suitable cases 
 to organise the work on County lines. 
 
 22. A Government grant should be given eventually 
 towards the cost of probation. 
 
 23. It is suggested that juvenile adults sentenced 
 to prison for three months or more might be placed 
 under supervision on their release for a period of six 
 months. 
 
 We desire to express our warmest thanks to our 
 Secretary, Mr. Houston, for his invaluable assistance 
 both during the conduct of our inquiry and in drafting 
 the report. 
 
 We have the honour to be, 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servants, 
 JOHN BAIRD. 
 S. W. HARRIS. 
 T. W. FRY. 
 OLIVER W. HIND. 
 A. IVIMY. 
 
 H. HOUSTON (Secretary). 
 30th January, 1922. 
 
 Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey. 
 
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 13Apr59VF 
 
 1959 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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