I want, then, in this chapter to select two sentences--one given by a judge, the other by a magistrate: the judge erring, in my opinion, on the side of severity; the magistrate erring, in my judgment, on the side of leniency.
Neither of these sentences seems to have attracted public attention, though both are of recent date.
Let me quote from a letter received on June 4, 1907:
"I hope you will excuse me writing to you about my son, who is a young man not twenty-three years of age.
"He is a carpenter and joiner, and has a good little business of his own, with a shop and yard.
"On January 4, 1906, there was a burglary at the house next to mine, and in a fortnight after my son was arrested on suspicion. The people--very old friends of ours--being awake, heard voices, but did not recognize one of the voices as that of my son.
"At the trial there was no evidence produced to prove that my son was in the house. My wife and myself are prepared to say that he went to bed at ten o'clock, and that we called him at seven o'clock next morning.
"The jury brought my son in guilty, and the judge gave him _fourteen years' penal servitude_. The whole court was shocked; no one could understand it. I cannot understand it, for I have read many instances of real old criminals, after committing robberies, being sentenced to a few months or a year or so. But fourteen years for a young man! Oh, sir, my family have lived in this old town for nearly three hundred years, and no member of it had ever been in a prisoner's dock till now. I have written to the Home Secretary, and his answer was that he could not at present interfere. I pray to Heaven that you will be kind enough to write to him and beg of him to pardon my son. I am sending to you a paper with a full account of the trial.
I have that paper now before me--the _Coventry Times_, dated Wednesday, December 12, 1906. The trial took place on the previous Friday at Warwick Assizes. Taylor was charged with breaking and entering, and feloniously stealing twenty-four farthings, one gold locket, one metal chain, and ten spoons; to make assurance doubly sure, he also was charged with receiving the same property. Taylor had been in custody since January 23, 1906. On December 7 of the same year he received his extraordinary sentence, after being detained in prison nearly eleven months. Everything seems extraordinary about this case--the long delay before trial, the severe sentence, the trumpery character of the articles stolen. I express no opinion about the prisoner's guilt. Some of the articles were found in his possession, and it was proved that he had been spending farthings. That the people whose house had been entered did not suspect the prisoner was clear, as they sent for him next morning to repair the door that had been broken. But, at any rate, the jury believed Taylor guilty, for, without leaving the box, they gave their verdict to that effect.