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Justice, by John Galsworthy.
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Calder, a new junior clerk in the How law office, has changed a cheque from nine pounds to ninety pounds, expecting it to be blamed on the clerk he'd replaced, who's migrated to Australia. He's caught squarely because the cheque book was in pocket of How junior who was out of town, and the change from nine to ninety pounds was recorded on the stub as well, so the person who migrated coukdnt hsve done it.
But the day he was caught was the night he expected to get out of town with Ruth Honeywell and her children, trying to save her from her abusive husband who's threatened to slit her throat.
Galsworthy has a defence lawyer pleading, apart from circumstances, a weak character for the poòr young man; which makes one wonder. Would they portray him as a weak character in the rough West if, under same circumstances, he stole the money, to help the woman he loved so she could flee with him and escape the murderous husband? Or would he be seen as a hero, even, to be helped further by a stronger hero?
Perhaps Galsworthy said it in a nutshell through the defence lawyer who says:-
" ... Gentlemen, Justice is a machine that, when some one has once given it the starting push, rolls on of itself. Is this young man to be ground to pieces under this machine for an act which at the worst was one of weakness? Is he to become a member of the luckless crews that man those dark, ill-starred ships called prisons? ... "
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June 05, 2021 - June 07, 2021.
Purchased June 14, 2013.
Kindle Edition, 97 pages
Published May 17th 2012
(first published 1910)
Original Title Justice
ASIN:- B0084B3U6I
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