discover the depredator, they concealed themselves [92]
in the garden late one night, and awaited the result. By that means
they succeeded in capturing the thief, a female, who, not suspecting
their presence, had entered the garden, dug out some of the provisions,
and was about to make off with her booty. In spite of desperate
resistance, she was taken to the police station and there duly charged
with larceny. Meanwhile her son, on hearing of his mother's
incarceration, hastened to find her in her cell, and, after briefly
consulting with her, he decided on entering a countercharge of assault
and battery against both her captors. Whether or not this bold
proceeding was prompted by the knowledge that the dispensing of justice
in the magistrate's court was a mere game of cross-purposes, a cynical
disregard of common sense and elementary equity, we cannot say; but the
ultimate result fully justified this abnormal hardihood of filial
championship.

On the day of the trial, the magistrate heard the evidence on both
sides, the case of larceny having been gone into first. For her
defence, the accused confined herself to simple denials of the
allegations against her, at the [93] same time entertaining the court
with a lachrymose harangue about her rough treatment at the hands of
the accusing parties. Finally, the decision of the magistrate was:
that the prisoner be discharged, and the plundered goods restored to
her; and, as to the countercharge, that the husband and wife be
imprisoned, the former for three and the latter for two months, with
hard labour! When we add that there was, at that time, no Governor or
Chief Justice accessible to the poorer and less intelligent classes, as
is now the case (Sir Henry T. Irving and Sir Joseph Needham having been
respectively superseded by Sir William Robinson and Sir John Gorrie),
one can imagine what scope there was for similar exhibitions of the
protecting energy of British rule.

As we have already said, during Mr. Froude's sojourn in Trinidad the
"sleek, happy, and contented" people, whose condition "admitted of no
improvement," were yet groaning in bitter sorrow, nay, in absolute
despair, under the crushing weight of such magisterial decisions as
those which I have just recorded. Let me add two more [94] typical
cases which occurred during Mr. Mayne's tenure of office in the island.

L. B. was a member of one of those brawling sisterhoods that frequently
disturbed the peace