[00:01.080]--- lesson 35 Justice was done
[00:06.080]--- Listen to the tape then answer the question below.
[00:11.480]--- The word 'justice' is given two different meanings in the text. What is the distinction between them?
[00:20.760]The word justice is usually associated with courts of law.^“
[00:25.920]We might say that justice has been done when a man's innocence or guilt has been proved beyond doubt.
[00:33.560]Justice is part of the complex machinery of the law.
[00:38.280]Those who seek it undertake an arduous journey and can never be sure that they will find it.
[00:45.320]Judges, however wise or eminent, are human and can make mistakes.
[00:51.600]There are rare instances when justice almost ceases to be an abstract concept.
[00:57.800]Reward or punishment are meted out quite independent of human interference.
[01:04.160]At such times, justice acts like a living force.
[01:08.640]When we use a phrase like 'it serves him right',
[01:12.160]we are, in part, admitting that a certain set of circumstances has enabled justice to act of its own accord.
[01:20.720]When a thief was caught on the premises of a large jewellery store one morning,
[01:25.760]the shop assistants must have found it impossible to resist the temptation to say 'it serves him right.'
[01:32.600]The shop was an old converted house with many large, disused fireplaces and tall, narrow chimneys.
[01:41.240]Towards midday, a girl heard a muffled cry coming from behind one of the walls.
[01:47.640]As the cry was repeated several times, she ran to tell the manager who promptly rang up the fire brigade.
[01:55.240]The cry had certainly come from one of the chimneys,
[01:58.880]but as there were so many of them, the fire fighters could not be certain which one it was.
[02:04.920]They located the right chimney by tapping at the walls and listening for the man's cries.
[02:11.480]After chipping through a wall which was eighteen inches thick, they found that a man had been trapped in the chimney.
[02:19.280]As it was extremely narrow, the man was unable to move,
[02:23.480]but the fire fighters were eventually able to free him by cutting a huge hole in the wall.
[02:30.000]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.
[02:40.680]He had been there for nearly ten hours.
[02:43.800]Justice had been done even before the man was handed over to the police.