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We consider the effect on the minds of the spectators as the worst part of the transaction. There is something dreadfully brutalising in the shouts of incitement and triumph which generally accompany a feat of pugilism. Neither boys nor men ought ever to witness pain without sympathy. It is almost needless to say, that, with us, fighting is anything rather than a source of festivity and amusement.

To return to our story.–A day-scholar, whose father’s grounds adjoin ours, was discovered by the Magistrate to have witnessed a battle from a tree which he had climbed for that purpose. The Magistrate fined him. He appealed, and the question of his liability was argued at some length before the Committee.

The ground which the appellant took was, that no day-scholar could be amenable to the laws of the school, except during the hours of business, or while on the premises of the school, and that the alleged offence was committed out of school hours, and on his father’s land.

Public opinion ran in his favour. The plea that he was on his father’s land seemed to have great weight with his schoolfellows. To fine a boy under such circumstances appeared to them like an attempt to invade the paternal sanctuary, and the motion for quashing conviction of the Magistrate, at first received the support of several members of the Committee.

The attending Teacher saw that it would be necessary to call the attention of the Committee to general principles, and proposed as an amendment to the general motion, the following resolution, ‘That it is desirable that the laws should be obeyed at all times, and in all places.’ In support of this amendment he argued, that as the laws had the happiness of the school in view, a breach of those laws must certainly be in some degree destructive of the general good. That to allow this in certain individuals would be injurious to the great body, but still more so to the individuals themselves; and that what was wrong in the schoolroom or on the playground at eleven in the morning, could not be right in the fields at six in the afternoon. In conclusion he said, ‘Whether or not we have the power to fine a person for a breach of our laws when he is at a distance from the schools, is a question which it is not our present business to determine; but I firmly believe that our laws are calculated to promote in the highest degree our welfare, and I wish the advantages to be derived from obeying them to be as widely diffused as possible.’

The amendment was carried unanimously.

Having determined ‘that it was desirable that the laws should be obeyed at all times and in all places,’ it was necessary in the next place to ascertain whether it was not a part of our law that such should be the case.

With this view an amendment was proposed which declared, that such was the intention of the law, and in support of it cases were cited in which day-boys had been punished for offences committed at a distance from the school. It was also insisted, that in no single instance had the laws made an exception in favour of the day-boys. They universally begin by saying, that, if ‘any one,’ or ‘any pupil,’ or ‘any boy,’ shall commit such and such an offence, etc., and not ‘any boarder,’ or ‘any day-boy then at school.’

The second amendment was also carried without opposition.

The question was now confined within very narrow limits. The Committee had declared that it was ‘desirable that the laws should be obeyed at all times and in all places;’ and also, that by law no exception was made in favour of day-scholars. It only remained therefore for the Committee to consider, whether the police of the school had the power to enforce the laws.

It was argued that in this case they had been enforced, for that the fine had actually been paid, and that unless the Committee interfered to prevent it, they would continue to operate as they had done, for the welfare of the school at large, and for the ultimate advantage even of the individuals who might at first appear to be injured.