Police Court: Sept. 01, 1880

You may have heard that criminal trials have been delayed due to a lack of sheriff's officers. Some lawyers say they are not surprised, given the state of the province’s criminal justice system. But it should not come as a surprise because it’s been in disarray for centuries.

Here is a letter to the editor in the Evening Telegram, under the Police Court column, dated Sept. 01, 1880.

To the Editor, Evening Telegram

Sir,

The conditions of the Police Court just now is one that calls for immediate public rectification. Although we are paying a thousand a year to two political Magistrates, and are supposed to have a daily sitting of the Police Court, there was no sitting today, in consequence of one Magistrate being in Ireland, trying the quality of the new potatoes, and the other (our well-known “old woman”) being

out shooting the picturesque partridges on his native heather. There can be no objection to the absence of Justice Prowse for a day’s shooting, provided proper arrangements are made to have his place supplied: but it is a little too ridiculous that the Thousand Pound Magistrates’ Bench should be left vacant for even a single day when business is to be transacted. They say the goddess is blind of one eye sometimes, but it is scarcely fair play to a long suffering public that both optics should be closed up together and that the

temple of Justice should be closed with the ticket over the door – “Jedge gone a-huntin’”

Yours,

Junior Barrister

Now, the Judge must have been a grand shot because on the front page of the same Evening Telegram, there is a small story that says:

Judge Prowse must be a ‘crack’ sportsman. We are informed that his worship bagged “ten brace” yesterday in the neighbourhood of Spout Cove.

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