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THE CHINA ‘MAIL, ;
MONDAY, JULY 24, 1961.
The Story of London's Magistrates
WHO are the remarkablo men who preside over Lon- don's magistrates' courts?
WHAT kind of men are they....and how do they see their duties?
TODAY the China Mail prosents the first in a fivo-\- part series that will answor these questions.
THE
story begins in
London's most famous magistrates'
Street.
court Bow
Silence in Court!
Hateful the noise
this lenient man
hears every day
"STAND, please!" The usher holds open the heavy door beneath the Royal Arms and between the shelves of bound Law Journal Re ports.
The magistrate enters quickly, bows to the court and takes his seat on the rostrum which dominates the scene like the bridge of a ship. The dispensation of justice at Bow Street is about to begin,
The courtroom, little bigger than a tennis court, is curiously impersonal. There is nothing in the atmosphere to recall but the wrought-iron railings of the dock have hell Klaus Fuchs, Dandy Kim, George Dawson, Lord Haw-Haw and those in the Lonsdale
spy саме,
There is less sense of flavoney than in Number Nine cell, a few paces beyond the jaller's door, John tell you, where, they Amery, Hume, Ennell Duone and those called with a certain star pride "our proprietorial prisoners" have sat tur laurs on the scrubbed wooden bed.
in Here in the courtrouin, sple of the battle of lawyers and
the rows of pulice and staring spectators at the back, the focus of attention is on the man in the high-backed chair on the rostrum.
AUTHORITY
Those who know Mr Kenneth Borraclough at the Oxford and Cambridge Club or on the con- Muters train from Fleet might not immediately recognise the magistrate. The humurinas set of the wide mouth and the geniality have been replaced by a crisp authority. The half-moon spec-
un
By Tom
Pocock
113
occasional
Barraclough Perhaps when
on a orders a medical report
with wild woman shoplifter
hair and fluttertag hands grey
Thank you. and she replies, Your Majesty."
there is eve of those whose that and bold
have not yet laken stißed anigger, hangovers hold. There is the youth his Brst spree, trying to look a man of the world. There is the whiskery tramp with 21 previous drunk in convictions, found
is Drury Lane. There
the youngish woman who says in un
nimost inaudible volce: can't help your worship. I'm an alcoholic."
Barraclough is brisk. do it ngals. Pay 10s,"
Or when the mountainous
puilce constable in the wilnes bux recounts that when he had told the accused a pathetic young homosexual biling his "Don't nails is the dock-that he was under arrest for importuning, "the accused said 'You're a nice boy yourself","
"How old are you, Mr Smith? Forty? You should know better at your age. Pay 10s."
tacles give the eyen a penetrating ALTERNATIVE
rather than Plekwickian glance. The arrival of Mr Barraclough now switches on the, machinery of the law through which, in the three courtrooms at Bow Street. as many as 300 cases may pass In one day.
One familiar scene nt Bow Street has disappeared. At this hour, between 30 and 10 prosti- tutes would be crowding the spacious waiting run specially built for them as they queued to plead guilty before Mr Bar- raclough or one of the other three magistrates-and be fled the routine £2.
But since the Street Offences Act the prostitutes waiting room' lins been empty and the magistrate is rarely faced with more than one a day, sometimes only one a week.
GROTESQUE
First-os If in some grotempie. the carulvul parude - come drunks. They have spent the night in the cells and ranny lesk as if they have slept in their clothes for more than one sight. shume. dock they Into the sometimes
minute Ե every the frey faces and clammy hands of fearful tong- overs. There is the flushed face
There are
WHERE stands
WH
Mr
John Osborne now? His new play "Luther,"
given its
world
pre-
171
Not all can pay 10s. There are those whose entire capital, found in their pockets on arrest, The is two or three pennies.
one alternative punishment Is day in Custody-hat for many the magistrate orders a medical He report or an interview with the probation officer.
has
Barraclough himse!! kened magistrate's mind to Inlo electronic computer which is fed each factor In the Lane: the gravity of the crime; the letter, of the law; the history of the accused and the likely effect of punishment on him.
single The most Important component in the. mechanism, the Burraclough has sald, is mugistrate's own experience.
1125 himself
been magistrale since inetropolitan
1954 Arst. at West London. Now follow the unlicensed where he sent Guenther Podcla streci traders who have been for trial. He, too, sent the selling clockwork toys, balloons, Lonsdale group Ers the Old almanacs and Junk Jewellery
Bailey. from suitcasen on the pavement
He was called to the Bar in and are charged with obstruct-
1920, when he was 22, and 'since ing the footway. This is
apart from his war service trade and they have been in the which he ended as a colonel on dock before and will be
Montgainery's staff-built up a again. Mr Barraclough's vulce jarge criminal practice. betrays his irritation as each
Br solemnly apologises und nises never again to abstract pedestrians.
their
MORE VARIED
us a
LENIENT
Kenneth
Barraclough
His mood changes as cách nam charge is called.
free, but with Barrocknight's rebuke smurting in the ears.
This happenct to a 29-year-old unemployed baker's lunder. He was accused of "the Inrceny of one half-pint battle of milk, valued at 41"
Barraclough spent a lot of. time talking to this man. Ile wanted to know all about him. He was married, had three child- ren and lved in a counell flat for which he pait a weekly rent of £20s. lid. In work, he earned £12 a week. Now he was draw- ing 18 3s. National Assistance. He had gone to the West End to look for casual night work. That was when he had seen the milk bottle.
NO CRIMINAL
Obviously the man was not a criminal, but he had earned the humiliation of a minor punish- guia re- ment. Instead he primand so swift and effective
NEXT
E.R. Guest
of
West London
that as he hurried out of the It dock mumbling his honks seemed unlikely that he would again yield so easily & tempta
tion,
There are tines when prisuner la disappointed in his trust in Barraclough's reputed lenlency.
The police officer who had arrested him told Barraclough that had he not freely confessed his crimes he might never have The thief pleaded been caught. guilty to each charge in a loud and righteous voice.
Then he said: "I know it may seem easy to say you're sorry after the event, your worship. But la this case I am deeply and sincerely sorry aml-1 will not de it again."
KENYATTA: Why I say free him-and end this farce
Nairobi.
IFLEW up to Maralal to see Jomo Kenyatta, and drove 12 miles to his
little white-painted, tin-roofed hat.'
,
The small room in which he received me was a surprise. It might easily have been the secretary's room in some suburban golf club, with its desk and central table and easy chairs,
His literature was singu- larly varied, ranging from American paperbacks to the the works of Doctor Buch- men and Gandhi to, ironi- [cally enough, Sir Philip Mit- chell's Afterthoughts on Africa.
Governor
Sir Phillo was Kenya 1044-52,
of
of
Kenyatta looked a pleture health, occasionally killing a fly with horse's tall tied by a silver chain to his wrist,
no 。
He talked to me for an hour, baut
politicion, not a | journalist none of whom he wal 1 e without everything being off the record.
No doubt
There is doubt that top of his Many years in him.
nol the slightest he is still at the powers and has of political activity
His
eyon
are
by LORD LAMBTON, M.P.
Moya, who has told me he would serve.
that cupital you will get a decline of confidence and further aconomie withdrawals,
It depends on what happens stage whether Kenya
at this
has the chance of a peaceful future or follows the Congo.
"The right course would be for the Government to say: •We Rive you internat self- Lovernment, but will retain reserved powers until you settle certain issues which, unsettled, could ruin the country,"
how
These are: of the Somalis in the Northern Province, a situation which, mis- handled, could lend to on Ethiopian-Somatis war:
(2) The future of the conslal strip with its large population of Arabs
(1) The posillon
(3) The rights of the Masal
(4) The problems of land
He is a singularly dominating tribe. As I left him he titles. personality. shouted mexmeric.
after me: "Give my regards to
friends my
in I will."
Soft talk got him nowhere.
You
can't just say you're England." "Certainly
said. sorry," said Barraclough, "and go gally sailing on through life.
As to the general situation in Mr You have betrayed your em- Kenya, I believe that
irusi.
You have Macleod has made a tragic mis- ployer's
Your
children's take in his policy of heste. jeopardised future. I am remanding you for a medical report, but I warn you that the chances of your remain-lessly followed, allowing nothing ing out of prison are extremely to stop him, he has now reached a point of progress from which there is no return.
remote."
The magistrate's mood changes an each new charge is called by the Jaller. It is a if, as the dock empties, he silps the gears of the computer into neutral.
Unfashionable
To meet this I think that the Government should guarantee the Interest, un say, a £10 million and fund, which the Kenya Government bould ralse and use in buying and selling land and in resettlement.
Otherwise, mless we do something on these lines we are laying ourselves open to the charge of having pat every penny of the settlers' money on an outsider. And then not back- ing the horse ourselves,
There is one thing, above all. thot worries me and that is uncertainty about the strength of the tribal system. In this country, with over 40 tribes, can a system with roots thou- sands of years old dic In night?
Rumours...
Yet already, there is an omia-, rumour of Iriba). not notional, ambilium, And Mr Oginga Odinga chooses to turn his back on government that
his opposition on appeals to the past, all the seeds for another Congo are here.
In this policy, he has relent "griculture you will not have an included Mr Mboya, and based
In view of this there should
he a reassessment of the situa- tion to see what can be salvaged, Unlike Homie magistrates. For to oppose him now would Barraclough is never arrogant be as wrong and destructive as and never self-righteous. He will was Mr Gaitskell's opposition lo address a frightened woman Suez once the operation had shoplifter with stern courtesy and there is no edge of con- tempt to his vrice as he questions a broken-spirited man charged
started.
What, then. can be done?
The first thing, without doubt,
be the release
with some furtive sexual offence. should
Yet he has no patience with Kenyatta. I zy s with reluc- but at the rnoment his the flippant. One woman, re-tance, manded until the 13th of the detention is a force. For from # month said, "Oh, no-not the distance he rules the Africans. 13th. I'm superstitious."
summoning ministers like bell- powers without "Very well," replied Barys, having
responsibility and, all the time, 12A." raclough, "call it
wearing an imprisoned marlyr's
The criminat parade at Bow Street varies title with some
<TOWN.
exceptions from day to day be less of a destructive element The shoplifter
thieves.
tho
He will, therefore, undoubtedly
car freed than in detention. I have the importuners found during the last few works the fighting drunks lege the pornographers suspicious toiterers
the
the
burglars
drivers.
that this view is held by, every person to whom I have spoken, from the extreme right to the
the drunken the vialent, the extreme left cunning and the professional critoinul.
2
11
The leader
When the court's work for
Once he is free, D. Coalition the day ends and Barraclough walks along the corridor lined government should be formed. with Spy cartoons to his officele can certainly hood it if he on the first floor, he can hear wants to, but is, I believe, more Tamillar noise which is, to likely to take over the Preal- him. hateful.
dency of the Shadow Federa- This is
la the Bonnil of Vanson of Kenya, Tanganyika and driving up to the back door of trzanda. the court for the afternoon collection.
Barraclough has a reputation He lealent magistrate. seems constantly to be avoiding
sentences.
and Again prison again he will order a medical A clerk, a puffy and over-aged Now the parade becutres more
But, whoever rules in name, he a prisoner when- 33, married, with two children,
Tho varied. The public pen behind report un
had confessed to theft from his
will be the actual lender, the the dock is packed with lawyers will say-another magis-
The vons come from most probable chief Minister is enricus, unconsciously composing trate might have imposed an employers. By forging signa-
sentence would have immediate
of Blx lures and changing numerals Brixton, Pentonville, Wands-Mr Gichurn, while under him crowd which
would be the leaders of the from 1 to 4 most often-on munths or 80. delighted Hogarth or Rowland-
Wormwood Kenga African Democratic Union surprised prinuner, receipts he had taken several worth Often a
Kenya African the and the past Scrubs, found guilty, will walk out into hundred pounds over
|National Union, including Mr three years. Covent Garden, unexpectedly
لة
son,
Perhaps it is because they can- the dock nut see the faces in
and
-{London Express Servic»).
IN THE AGONY OF ALBERT FINNEY
miere, recently in the his own shell," Or "Reason fi
the Devil's whore."
Sarah-Bernhardt Then- Along with Mr Osborne's tre 13 part of the feeling for a
phrase
able echo-effect in the lines, re- Dylan Thoinas,
for the Arst the genuine Paris Theatre Festival sense of experiment with langu of 1961, marks a great age: he has a particularly notice. the author miniscent of step for whose 1955 "Look Back which is most exciting and pro- mises much if he continues to in Anger" was the first drop in the stream that has now become the tor- rent of Britain's thea trical New Wave.
A great step, yen: bui in what direction? Let 11 try 10 draw up a rough balance
effect sheet of his new play's on Mr Osborne's répulation,
credit: Mr On- First item, borno'a Alt for lelking and authentic-sounding dialogue, no well displayed in "Look Back in Anger," "The Entertainer" and "Epitaph for George Dillon, has not deserted him now thin he has taken" to the trickler patie of listorical drama,
develop Its pnetle effect.
Only Dccasionally does Mr Osborne's sophistication desert hint, in such gauche and heavy- banded historical nudging 28;
hint about this chap Eras
งานร
Doesn't he crilicise the Church, or something?"
the
But these are few: on
A
GREAT STEP
FORWARD FOR OSBORNE
mind, how from the simple whole, "Luther" is written la bellef that he could interpret One, and flexible styly, lively, the Bible for himself he came Aublic, and wholly suitable to inevitably to reject the teach- Its theme.
ing of a Rome, that had grown Which brings us la the corrupt and unspiritual, until theme, and angiber credit Hem in the end Protestantiam, and in the scenual.
the division of Christianity, was
EXPERIMENT WH see
CONSCIENCE
by Bernard
Levin
Herbert's seilings,
Sain
But when all
is said, there remains A there did with Luther at the end of the struggle--the nagging voice of doubt.
URGENT
any:
A
The Refortaatlon is a big en- burn. ough nut for Mr Osborne to crack it was a good deal tou
Hau Mr Orborne seld big for the Pope of the time, after all-and his story in out-
Juction and Miss Jocelyn thing about religion, or has he merely described it? Should ine has been wisely kept-
not author who taken simple.
Mr Osborne tells the story of
There are striking recalnders theme great as this do so Luther first being a man then to face with his cons of Brecht's "Galileo," particu- because he has something he Inducted Into la religious Relonce, and back, 10 back with larly in the last seen between wanud urgently to say about 117 order: we see him last talking led, and he tells it directly and the two old allies, and In the Indeed, his language has be- with his old friend and adviser, well,
subtle debate between Luther I think so: and I think that come, if anything, more colour- looking back over the career
and the Pope's legate, who has Mr Osborné has too lillie of his Indeed, in terms of pure
about. Martin A man with a strong sword," the corrupt Church, o ex- theatre-this L
perhaps the come to plead for Christian own
Luther says his Luther, "will draw t communication, and, to the dis. Inrgest credit item much of unity before alt else,
That Mr
of Oujoma's meriaa "Laithor" in supert; certainly
Well, we can make a further: at some time, oven if it's only to ruption of Christendum. turn it againal Jumself ** Or In between we have seen how it is, helped by Mr: Tony theatre is 'all his own, and it judgment when “Luther" finds "A nàn without Christ becomes his conviction graw in bla žilchardiean'a montimental
Its London home in m pro- is a sure one.
ful, more elastic, more vigorose, that brought him to defiance of
to
weeks' time. And than we can discuss the production In greater detail.
But already I can tell you That Mr Albert Finney's per- formance as Luther is far and away the best thing he has yet done.
tearaway,
Vanished is the Zone the twentieth-century bravo. This is a fifteenth-cen- tury monk possessed of a frenzy of religious conviction. literally foaming at the mouth at one point, and determined that the iruth shall prevall-the truth according to his interpretation of the Scriptures the Heavens themselves should fall. Mr Finney writhen in a spiri- tual agony greater
than any xdily torment, and so deep is his understanding of the part and of his art that we sweat, ho ngunined, with him AJ threshes about to find the lighi.
FORWARD
A great step?. For both Tinney and Osborne, yer, In both capra It is a step forward. But Mr Oborne takes a look back moro
In sorrow than in anger, sa. he Brides.
He may not be the best of Brillas play. the postwar wrights, and "Luther" may not bo his best play.
But once again ho bas do- inonstrated his talent for doing The immexpected, and once agaiN has done it wail,
{kanam Kapenes Harples),
Although it is unfashionable le say so, it is upon this last ques- tion that the future of Kenya depends, for without an efficient
economia Kenya, and at the moment,
without the while reltier, you won't have efficiency. This brings us to the crux of the matter money.
M: Hugh
For without what Fraser-the harm of whose visit
has been grossly exaggerated -- massive injection of called a
PUSH WEELŐR
And Mr Macleod will find that he has introduced so Africa not an enlightened democrat but a child of the dark ages.
-(London Expren Service).
* You have your weight a little too far forward, Miss Penfold."
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