The word'justice'is given two different meanings in the text.
What is the distinction between them?
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
benn proved beyond doubt.Justice is part of the complex machinery
of 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 qiute independent of human interference.
At such time,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 circumstance has enabled justice
to act of its own accord.
When a thief was caught on the premises of a large jewellery store one morning,
the shop assistants must have found it impossible to resist the temptation to say
'it serves him right'.The shop was and old converted house with many large,disused
fireplaces and tall ,narrow chimneys.Toward 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
managers 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 counld not
jbe certain which one it was.They located the right chimney by tapping at the walls
and litening for the man's cries.After chipping through a wall which was eighteen
inches thick,tey 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 and been done even
before the man was handed over to the police.