Letter to D.O.P. Okenden; With an Inquiry Into the Merits of His Poor Law Report as Assistant Commissioner (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos or missing text. Not indexed. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1839. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... magistrates; and who did, either designedly, or incidentally in the course of inquiry before Mr. Okeden, prefer a formal complaint, and serious charges against the legal practice of those justices, to which it did not appear expedient to Mr. Okeden to permit those justices to have any opportunity whatever of making their defence; upon which evidence, so taken, so recorded, unexplained, exparte, and unexamined on both sides, as it undoubtedly was, and as it ought not to have been, Mr, Okeden has thought proper to affix a certain degree of censure upon the conduct of those justices, and to permit the declaration of it to be published to the whole world As a gentleman who is in the habit of frequenting the courts of justice in this county, and occasionally presiding in a criminal court himself, I would here beg leave to ask of Mr. Okeden, whether the practice of the judges of this land, or of the magistrates of this kingdom, when sitting on the bench, is, or is not, in. accordance with the practice adopted by him towards the justices'-lV the Sturminster division, on the 29th of October last, and whether it is, or is not usual to allow persons accused, first to know the nature of the charges which are about to be, or have been preferred against them; and secondly, whether it is not usual, as well as just, to allow such persons, in the face of their accusers, to enjoy the right and privilege of replying to those charges, and of cross-examining the evidence on which those charges have been preferred; and if Mr. Okeden's reply is likely to be, as it must be, in the affirmative, and in favour of their practice, I beg leave respectfully to ask him, why he departed from that principle on the day when he received from the overseers of Hasilbury and Sturminstcr New I...