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recover much, if any damages at all the "Grand Jury" which may not meet for three months after is the next only resources; and I have before shown that these cases, somehow never get there.

Here is exactly where a Tribunal similar to that of a Police Court, would, if properly, and impartially conducted, be of infinite benefit, and would likewise save a considerable expense to the Commonwealth by contracting the ordinary course of some causes. This want the Bureau Court, to a certain extent, supplied and hardly any (but those perhaps who may have been mulcted can say but that it was most effective, and efficient. A Weekly Court composed of three intelligent, and unprejudiced magistrates, if duly authorized and empowered, it would seem might fulfill this need.

That the law does not provide prompter measures in a great many instances for the suppression of certain evils and immoralities, is a matter for serious regret. A Man & Woman cohabiting unlawfully together, even there she being married may have been abducted from her husband; unless the latter institutes a civil suit against the abductor - must first me indicted before any proceedings can be had against them. There stands a case at present with a Freedman & his wife. There is also another, where, a man has deserted his wife for another woman, and is about moving his effects out of the County. State, the Magistrate Mr Simoness" to whom I referred the case, says he has no authority to institute any proceedings to bind him over to support his Wife; and even the attorney for the commonwealth knows of no measures other than a civil suit that could be resorted to, to accomplish the end desires. I took occasion to send the Woman concerned in this

Transcription Notes:
3.9.2024 - "mulcted" = "extracted money from (someone) by fine or taxation"