ng disregarded by sturdy juries who cared
less for the letter of the law than for its spirit. Mr. John Mills
Jackson, in his "View of the Political Situation of the Province of
Upper Canada," published in 1809, speaks of an instance where the people
became tumultuous, and broke the public stocks in the presence of the
Chief Justice.[52] The public distrust of the administrators of the law
does not seem to have been confined to the judges of the Superior
Courts. It extended to the rural magistrates, some of whom turned their
offices to commodity in a manner which would have excited the admiration
of Falstaff himself. "The shop-keepers," writes Mr. Jackson, "are
Justices of Peace. They have the means of extortion, and the power of
enforcing payments. They are first the criminals, then the judges; and
the court of appeal seems to be so constructed as to prevent an honest
verdict from passing into effect. The practice of the court is unjust,
oppressive, and influenced. Favourite attorneys were made deputy clerks
of the peace, so that process might be entered and writs obtained most
partially. The crown lawyer is allowed nearly seven pounds sterling for
every criminal prosecution! an inducement to listen to trifling
complaints, and prefer frivolous indictments, when, if power was
gratified and independence harassed, it was a sufficient excuse for an
inflated contingent account." The author of this scathing philippic
against petty oppression proceeds to recount a case wherein an action
was brought against a magistrate who had exerted his authority in an
illegal and oppressive manner. A verdict was obtained against him for a
hundred pounds. An application was made to the Court of King's Bench to
set the verdict aside, which was rejected; whereupon the clerk of the
court in which the judgment had been obtained was ordered by the Crown
lawyer not to issue execution. The clerk knew better than to disobey an
order from such a source, and the plaintiff accordingly took nothing by
his verdict. The unrighteous magistrate escaped the penalty of his
misdeeds, and furnished a sort of standing precedent for magisterial
iniquity. Other equally flagrant perversions of justice are recorded by
the same authority. An illegal and unjustifiable extent issued, at the
suit of the Crown, against one of the civil officers. It lasted for
years; yet the officer dared not resist oppression by applying for
justice. "When [the extent] was as imperiously t