The word justice is usually associated with courts of law. We might say that
justice has been done when a man's innocence or guilt has been proved beyond
doubt. Justice is part of the complex machinery of the law. Those who seek it
undertake an arduous journey and can never be sure that they will find it.
Judges, however wise or eminent, are human and can make mistakes.#
There are rare instances when justice almost ceases to be an abstract concept.
Reward or punishment are meted out quite independent of human interference. At
such times, justice acts like a living force. When we use a phrase like 'it
serves him right', we are, in part, admitting that a certain set of
circumstances has enabled justice to act of its own accord.#
When a thief was caught on the premises of large jewellery store on morning,
the shop assistants must have found it impossible to resist the temptation to
say 'it serves him right'. The shop was an old converted house with many
large, disused fireplaces and tall, narrow chimneys. Towards midday, a girl
heard a muffled cry coming from behind one of the walls. As the cry was
repeated several times, she ran to tell the manager who promptly rang up the
fire brigade. The cry had certainly come from one of the chimneys, but as
there were so many of them, the fire fighters could not be certain which one
it was. They located the right chimney by tapping at the walls and listening
for the man's cries. After chipping through a wall which was eighteen inches
thick, they found that a man had been trapped in the chimney. As it was
extremely narrow, the man was unable to move, but the fire fighters were
eventually able to free him by cutting a huge hole in the wall. The
sorry-looking, blackened figure that emerged, admitted at once that he had
tried to break into the shop during the night but had got stuck in the
chimney. He had been there for nearly ten hours. Justice had been done even
before the man was handed over to the police.&