The Recorder of Y told the father of a boy of 14 at Y Quarter Sessions yesterday: ‘ If I could order your boy to be birched I would. But unfortunately I can't.’

He dismissed the boy's appeal against committal to an approved school for receiving stolen cigarettes. Told that the boy had previously been warned at the age of 12 for receiving cigarettes at school, the Recorder asked the boy's father: ‘What did you do to knock the nonsense out of him when he brought these cigarettes home?’

The father: ‘I didn't hit him.’

The Recorder: ‘Why not? You are his father and you did nothing about it. How did you punish the boy?’— ‘By stopping his pocket money.’

’ Were you brought up by a father who was strict?’—‘I wasn't hit, sir.’

’ I was and I haven't been convicted for these offences,’ the Recorder retorted. In the old days he could have given the boy half a dozen with the birch, he added. That power had now been taken away from him. ‘ If I had it, I would use it, and he would be a much better boy too.’

This item of news appeared in a newspaper a few years ago, but it might well have appeared in yesterday's paper. It tells of a common enough incident: a young lad in trouble. It would scarcely be interesting to us if the report went no further than the first six lines. We learn these facts:

These are facts: but if you look at the Recorder's actual first statement as quoted in the newspaper you will see that it contains something more than fact. It contains the Recorder's opinion, his views on the value of corporal punishment in correcting juvenile crime. One word in particular indicates that in his opinion the law he has to administer is wrong.