The tamarind switch days

Lance Neita, Contributor

JUSTICE, AS seen through the eye of present-day Jamaica, is a much more complex process than what existed in earlier times when it was metered out and had more to do with common theft and wounding rather than the gross murder and corruption charges that are brought before the courts on a day-to-day basis.

The Rural Tribunals of Justice, as covered by The Gleaner in the earlier part of the last century, had their hands full with cases of vagrancy, slander and praedial larceny.

In those days, the magistrates were aligned with the landowner classes and treated praedial larceny, in particular, with a heavy hand. Thus, in the cases reported for the week of August 26, 1918, those instances dealing with agricultural theft were dealt with swiftly and imperiously and, most often, with a prison sentence coupled with a taste of the tamarind switch.

The case is reported of a man found guilty in the Linstead Court on August 21 for unlawful possession of a quantity of cocoas. He is ordered to receive 14 lashes.

On the previous day, in the Port Maria Court, one Balfour Brown (name changed) is ordered to receive six stripes and seven days' hard labour for stealing a quantity of dry kola.

Unsympathetic

Another gentleman is sen-tenced to nine months for stealing bananas, coconuts and coacoaheads valued at two shillings and sixpence. After the witnesses were heard, the judge is reported to have said, "I am sorry, you can't be whipped on this charge. Take nine months' hard labour."

And over in Port Antonio on August 20, a man charged with the larceny of two agricultural forks says that the complainant owed him 30 shillings and he planned to pawn one of the forks for one shilling each time until he got back his money.

The judge is most unsympa-thetic and gives him 60 days' hard labour. However, His Honour is kinder to a servant who is fined only one shilling or seven days for "working an animal unfit for work by reason of emasculation".

The case that takes the cake, however, must be the person who pleads guilty in the Port Maria Court to stealing £28 from the Pringle Bros Agency.

Defiant prisoner

Apparently, when the safe was found broken, the matter was immediately reported to a Corporal Beswick "who caught the little thief in quick time" with £21 in his possession. The accused could not tell what he had done with the seven pounds.

"If you give up the seven pounds," says a bemused His Honour, Mr George Harvey, "I will make your sentence less."

The prisoner replies defiantly, "I have the seven pounds in hand and I want the use of it and I am not going to give it up."

There are murmurs around the courthouse as onlookers shake their head in disbelief and wonder aloud, 'What manner of man is this?' Obviously, this will be a hot story to take back to the village square that evening.

Various suggestions are made to the gentle-man by the court, but he continues to shake his head defiantly and says, "No sir, I want it."

The judge, who later confesses that he has never come across a defence like this, remands the man in custody for eight days pending sentence, and the £21 is returned to the safe.

In those days, justice was surely not tempered with mercy, although humour undoubtedly had its place. The system was, in effect, lined up against the common man and the beatings carried haunting memories of slavery days when the whip was used wantonly at first to keep the cane-field labour in check, and later and quite brazenly, to keep the so-called King's peace.

Today, the balance between crime and punishment is more complex than ever and civil society has weighed in against corporal punishment not only in the courts, but in the schools.

We live in a more violent and harsher environment than in 1918, but if the bizarre sentences of that period are anything to go by, we are the better for how we treat crime and punishment in these modern times.

Comments may be sent to columns@gleaner.com or lanceneita@hotmail.com.