ssed by having a
cart for it which was entirely intended for animals of much larger
size. The magistrate solemnly reiterated his decision, and wound up by
saying that the victim had lost his case through disregard of the legal
maxim caveat emptor--let the purchaser be careful. The rascally
defendant thus gained his case, and left the court in defiant triumph.

The four preceding cases are thoroughly significant of the original
method in which thousands of cases were decided by this model
magistrate, to the great detriment, pecuniary, [101] social, and moral,
during more than ten years, of between 60,000 and 70,000 of the
population within the circle of his judicial authority. What shall we
think, therefore, of the fairness of Mr. Froude or his informants, who,
prompt and eager in imputing unworthy motives to gentlemen with
characters above reproach, have yet been so silent with regard to the
flagrant and frequent abuses of more than one of their countrymen by
whom the honour and fair fame of their nation were for years draggled
in the mire, and whose misdeeds were the theme of every tongue and
thousands of newspaper-articles in the West Indian Colonies?

MR. ARTHUR CHILD, S.J.P.

We now take San Fernando, the next most important magisterial district
after Port of Spain. At the time of Mr. Froude's visit, and for some
time before, the duties of the magistracy there were discharged by Mr.
Arthur Child, an "English barrister" who, of course, had possessed the
requisite qualification of being hopelessly briefless. For the ideal
justice which Mr. Froude would have Britons believe is meted out to the
weaker classes by their fellow-countrymen [102] in the West Indies, we
may refer the reader to the conduct of the above-named functionary on
the memorable occasion of the slaughter of the coolies under Governor
Freeling, in October, 1884. Mr. Child, as Stipendiary justice, had the
duty of reading the Riot Act to the immigrants, who were marching in
procession to the town of San Fernando, contrary, indeed, to the
Government proclamation which had forbidden it; and he it was who gave
the order to "fire," which resulted fatally to many of the unfortunate
devotees of Hosein. This mandate and its lethal consequences
anticipated by some minutes the similar but far more death-dealing
action of the Chief of Police, who was stationed at another post in the
vicinity of San Fernando. The day after the shooting down of a total