Being a part of the ruling power, having delegated to them the “mastery” over the people, they should receive their authority or appointment from, and be dependent upon, the supreme authority or head magistrate, or “Master” of the City or State, and his constituted advisers, the council or senate, and removable only for cause. Being thus appointed by him who represents the sovereignty of the people, and by his position and responsibility to the people for his acts, we might reasonably expect to find men appointed, capable of discharging the duties, and worthy of the sacred trust of a magistrate. Again, as to the second point, the magistrate should not in any way be dependent upon, profited by, or have any portion of the “_fees_” of his office, but should be appointed for a certain precinct, ward, or district, and receive a certain _fixed_ compensation or salary from the public treasury. All “fees” or charges, being the penalty for breaking or infringing the laws, should be collected and paid over to the public treasurer by the magistrate, leaving him free to act uninfluenced by them, as the impartial agent of the law, as between the ruling power or sovereignty of the people and the accused, and enable him to act as a peacemaker, or reconciler of difficulties. Under the influence of the “fees” to be derived from “committing” the person accused, is there not danger that self-interest may sometimes induce the magistrate to commit unnecessarily, or otherwise encourage bad feelings between the accuser and the accused, when a more independent position might lead the magistrate to secure a reconciliation and settlement of the difficulty?
All persons thus appointed and acting, should have power to act not only as committing magistrates of persons after examination, to be tried by a higher court or magistrate for heinous offences, but they should be authorized and required to try all trivial or minor cases, summarily, and to decide upon the same, and pronounce sentence accordingly, without appeal except in specified cases. A system similar to this prevails in other cities, or did at least in New Orleans before the rebellion, where Recorders or criminal magistrates acted or presided over certain defined districts; justices of the peace acting in civil cases only, one being entirely separated from the other, and the same person not allowed to act in both positions. The system was found to work to advantage there, though the incumbents of the position, contrary to what we deem wise, were elected by the people. As adjuncts to such a system, a Work-house for mature offenders and vagrants, and a House of Industry (or Refuge) for juvenile ones, to which the magistrate could sentence them, would be needed to relieve our County Prison of the _surfeit_ of cases now sent there, and to relieve the public, by the fruits of their labor, from their cost of maintenance; and so situated as to lead as far as possible to their reformation, and to the formation of habits of industry, regularity, and temperance. Such institutions could, as elsewhere, be made to pay a profit to the city, instead of as now maintaining the victims of the magistrate at heavy cost, in idleness and amidst evil associations. The workings of the present system prevailing in our city, are forcibly presented by the Reports of the Inspectors of the County Prison, and those of the prison agent of the same,[2] from the latter of which we select only the following, which are but a sample daily occurring: