seven
     o’clock in the evening
-LSB- * -RSB- Since the above was written the author has read in the press that in Yorkshire a single bench of magistrates out of the hundreds in England has already granted orders on the ground of `` conscientious objection , '' under which some 2000 children are exempted from the scope of the Vaccination Acts . So far as he has seen this statement has not been contradicted . At Ipswich also about 700 applications , affecting many children , have been filed . To deal with these the Bench is holding special sessions , sitting at seven o'clock in the evening . At first the magistrates refused to accept these forms , but after a while , when they found how impossible it was to dive into a man 's conscience and to decide what was or what was not `` conscientious objection , '' they received them as sufficient evidence , provided only that they were sworn before some one entitled to administer oaths . Many of the objectors did not even take the trouble to do as much as this , for within five years of the passing of the Act , in practice the vaccination laws ceased to exist . The burden of prosecution rested with Boards of Guardians , popularly elected bodies , and what board was likely to go to the trouble of working up a case and to the expense of bringing it before the court , when , to produce a complete defence , the defendant need only declare that he had a conscientious objection to the law under which the information was laid against him ?