In the courtroom of honour, the judge pounded his gavel...

All of this article is worth reading, but of particular interest is the description of the first two incidents and the response of the British criminal justice system thereto. One can't help but be put in mind of the last verse of one of Bob Dylan's most affecting songs, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. Sung gently, but with a barely disguised fury, Dylan tells the true story of a 51-year-old black maid who died following an assault by a local white landowner, who was subsequently (allegedly to spare him the attentions of the black inmates at the state prison to which a longer sentence would have condemned him) sentenced to six months in county jail for manslaughter. But that those responsible for the crimes described by Dr. Dalrymple are not "nobles" by any stretch of the imagination, Dylan's words are all too applicable to these outrages.

In the courtroom of honour, the judge pounded his gavel
To show that all's equal and that the courts are on the level
And that the strings in the books ain't pulled and persuaded
And that even the nobles get properly handled,
Once that the cops have chased after and caught 'em,
And that the ladder of law has no top and no bottom;
Stared at the man who killed for no reason,
Who just happened to be feeling that way without warning,
And he spoke through his cloak most deep and distinguished
And handed out strongly, for penalty and repentance,
William Zanzinger with a ... six month sentence.

The pause before "six month sentence", articulated by Dylan as might a conjurer, does more, I think, than all the foregoing words to convey his disgust at this idea of justice. I am disgusted that it wasn't until I read Dalrymple's article that I had even heard of either of these crimes, but of course I was well aware that a drunk student in Oxford suggested a policeman's horse was gay. Admittedly I had heard it in the same context as Dalrymple now relates it: as an example of the lunacy of our justice system; nonetheless the fact that neither of these infintely more serious crimes was widely reported is all the evidence that I need of the decadence to which Dalrymple refers at the end of his article.