Plunkett's Australian Magistrate: A Guide to the Duties of a Justice of the Peace with Numerous Forms. New Edition.
Sydney: W. A. Colman, 1847. Third edition. Hardcover. With an elegantly engraved bookseller label laid down inside rear cover, "W. A. Colman, Importer of English & Foreign Books, Periodicals, Music & c. 485 George Street, Sydney".
With the "Advertisement" in which Suttor states, "so many alterations have taken place in the law relative to the duties of Justices of the Peace in this Colony, since the Work was first published, that I have been obliged to re-write by far the greater portion of it ..." (v). The first edition was published in 1835 and the second in 1840.
John Hubert Plunket (1802 - 1869) was named Solicitor General of New South Wales beginning in 1836; one of his primary goals was to establish equality before the law for the disadvantaged. He worked to extend jury rights to emancipists and legal protections to convicts and assigned servants.
Plunkett also attempted to legally protect aboriginals; under "Aboriginal Natives" this volume states, "The Aboriginal natives of this Colony are as much under the protection of and amenable to the law as the rest of Her Majesty's subjects" (p4). Plunkett charged the perpetrators of the 1838 Myall Creek massacre with murder of unarmed Aboriginals, and in the second trial succeeded in securing a conviction.
In this volume the areas of responsibility for the Justices of the Peace are arranged alphabetically, with definitions of offences, precedents, and "forms" provided. The author notes that many "new forms of Informations, Convictions, Warrants & c. have been added; ... the Appendix contains the Rules and Regulations relating to Crown Lands, the New Jury Act, a brief summary of the Law of Landlord and Tenant ... the Tenements Act, the Act for facilitating the granting of Leases, and the Recovery of Small Debts Act ..."
8vo, vii, 596pp. Publisher's dark green cloth with black printing on brown paper label on spine. A little bumped and rubbed; the spine a little sunned and label chipped. Internally, some light scattered foxing. Good +. Item #3914
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