Serjeant Wilkins, on one occasion, on defending a prisoner, said: "Drink has upon some an elevating, upon others a depressing, effect; indeed, there is a report, as we all know, that an eminent judge, when at the Bar, was obliged to resort to heavy drinking in the morning, to reduce himself to the level of the judges." Lord Denman, the judge, who had no love for Wilkins, bridled up instantly. His voice trembled with indignation as he uttered the words: "Where is the report, sir? Where is it?" There was a death-like silence. Wilkins calmly turned round to the judge and said: "It was burnt, my lord, in the Temple fire." The effect of this was considerable, and it was a long time before order could be restored, but Lord Denman was one of the first to acknowledge the wit of the answer.

Difference of manner or temperament sometimes gives point to the collisions which occasionally occur in Court between rival counsel. Serjeant Wilkins, who had an inflated style of oratory, was once opposed in a case to Serjeant Thomas, whose manner of delivery was lighter and more lively. On the conclusion of a heavy bombardment of ponderous Johnsonian sentences from the former, Thomas rose, and, with his eyes fixed on his opponent, prefaced his address to the jury with the words, delivered with much solemnity of manner and intonation: "And now the hurly-burly's done."

* * * * *

Dunning was defending a gentleman in an action brought from crim. con. with the plaintiff's wife. The chief witness for the plaintiff was the lady's maid, a clever, self-composed person, who spoke confidently as to seeing the defendant in bed with her mistress. Dunning, on rising to cross-examine her, first made her take off her bonnet, that they might have a good view of her face, but this did not discompose her, as she knew she was good-looking. He then arranged his brief, solemnly drew up his shirt sleeves, and then began: "Are you sure it was not your master you saw in bed with your mistress?"—"Perfectly sure."—"What, do you pretend to say you can be certain when the head only appeared from the bedclothes, and that enveloped in a nightcap?"—"Quite certain."—"You have often found occasion, then, to see your master in his nightcap?"—"Yes—very frequently."—"Now, young woman, I ask you, on your solemn oath, does not your master occasionally go to bed with you?"—"Oh, that trial does not come on to-day, Mr. Slabberchops!" replied the witness. A loud shout of laughter followed, and Lord Mansfield leaned back to enjoy it, and then gravely leaned forward and asked if Mr. Dunning had any more questions to put to the witness. No answer was given, and none were put. The same counsel, when at the height of his large practice at the Bar, was asked how he got through all his work. He replied: "I do one-third of it; another third does itself; and I don't do the remaining third."

A witness under severe cross-examination by Serjeant Dunning was repeatedly asked if he did not live close to the Court. On admitting that he did, the further question was put, "And pray, sir, for what reason did you take up your residence in that place?"—"To avoid the rascally impertinence of dunning," came the ready answer.

A barrister's name once gave a witness the opportunity to score in the course of a severe cross-examination. Missing was the leader of his Circuit and was defending his client charged with stealing a donkey. The prosecutor had left the donkey tied up to a gate, and when he returned it was gone. "Do you mean to say," said counsel, "the donkey was stolen from the gate?"—"I mean to say, sir," said the witness, giving the judge and then the jury a sly look, at the same time pointing to the counsel, "the ass was missing."

* * * * *

Mr. Clarke, a leader of the Midland Circuit, was a very worthy lawyer of the old school. A client long refusing to agree to refer to arbitration a cause which judge, jury, and counsel wished to get rid of, he at last said to him, "You d—d infernal fool, if you do not immediately follow his lordship's recommendation, I shall be obliged to use strong language to you." Once, in a council of the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn, the same gentleman very conscientiously opposed their calling a Jew to the Bar. Some tried to point out the hardship to be imposed upon the young gentleman, who had been allowed to keep his terms, and whose prospects in life would thus be suddenly blasted. "Hardship!" said the zealous churchman, "no hardship at all! Let him become a Christian, and be d—d to him!"

It is sometimes imagined by laymen that verdicts may be obtained by the trickery of counsel. Doubtless counsel may try to throw dust in the eyes of jurors, but they are not very successful. Lord Campbell tells a story of Clarke, who by such tactics brought a case to a satisfactory compromise. The attorney, coming to him privately, said, "Sir, don't you think we have got very good terms? But you rather went beyond my instructions."—"You fool!" retorted Clarke; "how do you suppose you could have got such terms if I had stuck to your instructions."



In the biography of John Adolphus, a famous criminal lawyer, we are told that the judges of his time were much impressed with the following table of degrees. "The three degrees of comparison in a lawyer's progress are: getting on; getting on-er (honour); getting on-est (honest)." He declared the judges acknowledged much truth in the degrees. The third degree in Mr. Adolphus' table reminds us of the story of the farmer who was met by the head of a firm of solicitors, who inquired the name of a plant the farmer was carrying. "It's a plant," replied the latter, "that will not grow in a lawyer's garden; it is called honesty."

One night, walking through St. Giles's by way of a short cut towards home, an Irish woman came up to Mr. Adolphus. "Why, Misther Adolphus! and who'd a' thought of seeing you in the Holy Ground?"—"And how came you to know who I am?" said Adolphus. "Lord bless and save ye, sir! not know ye? Why, I'd know ye if ye was boiled up in a soup!"

Mr. Montagu Chambers was counsel for a widow who had been put in a lunatic asylum, and sued the two medical men who signed the certificate of her insanity. The plaintiff's case was to prove that she was not addicted to drinking, and that there was no pretence for treating hers as a case of delirium tremens. Dr. Tunstal, the last of plaintiff's witnesses, described one case in which he had cured a patient of delirium tremens in a single night, and he added, "It was a case of gradual drinking, sipping all day from morning till night." These words were scarcely uttered when Mr. Chambers rose in triumph, and said, "My lord, that is my case."

* * * * *

On the Northern Circuit a century ago, there was a famous barrister who was familiarly known among his brother advocates as Jack Lee. He was engaged in examining one Mary Pritchard, of Barnsley, and began his examination with, "Well, Mary, if I may credit what I hear, I may venture to address you by the name of Black Moll."—"Faith you may, mister lawyer, for I am always called so by the blackguards." On another occasion he was retained for the plaintiff in an action for breach of promise of marriage. When the consultation took place, he inquired whether the lady for whose injury he was to seek redress was good-looking. "Very handsome indeed, sir," was the assurance of her attorney. "Then, sir," replied Lee, "I beg you will request her to be in Court, and in a place where she can be seen." The attorney promised compliance, and the lady, in accordance with Lee's wishes, took her seat in a conspicuous place, where the jury could see her. Lee, in addressing the jury, did not fail to insist with great warmth on the "abominable cruelty" which had been exercised towards "the highly attractive and modest girl who trusted her cause to their discernment"; and did not sit down until he had succeeded in working upon their feelings with great and, as he thought, successful effect. The counsel on the other side, however, speedily broke the spell with which Lee had enchanted the jury, by observing that "his learned friend, in describing the graces and beauty of the plaintiff, ought in common fairness not to have concealed from the jury the fact that the lady had a wooden leg!" The Court was convulsed with laughter at this discovery, while Lee, who was ignorant of this circumstance, looked aghast; and the jury, ashamed of the influence that mere eloquence had had upon them, returned a verdict for the defendant.

Justice Willes, the son of Chief Justice Willes, had an offensive habit of interrupting counsel. On one occasion an old practitioner was so irritated by this practice that he retorted sharply by saying, "Your lordship doubtless shows greater acuteness even than your father, the Chief Justice, for he used to understand me after I had done, but your lordship understands me even before I have begun."

Of Whigham, a later leader on the Northern Circuit, an amusing story used to be told. He was defending a prisoner, and opened an alibi in his address to the jury, undertaking to prove it by calling the person who had been in bed with his client at the time in question, and deprecating their evil opinion of a woman whose moral character was clearly open to grave reproach, but who was still entitled to be believed upon her oath. Then he called "Jessie Crabtree." The name was, as usual, repeated by the crier, and there came pushing his way sturdily through the crowd a big Lancashire lad in his rough dress, who had been the prisoner's veritable bedfellow—Whigham's brief not having explained to him that the Christian name of his witness was, in this case, a male one.

Colman, in his Random Records, tells the following anecdote of the witty barrister, Mr. Jekyll. One day observing a squirrel in Colman's chambers, in the usual round cage, performing the same operation as a man in a tread-mill, and looking at it for a minute, exclaimed, "Oh! poor devil, he's going the Home Circuit."

Jekyll was asked why he no longer spoke to a lawyer named Peat; to which he replied, "I choose to give up his acquaintance—I have common of turbary, and have a right to cut peat!" An impromptu of his on a learned serjeant who was holding the Court of Common Pleas with his glittering eye, is well known:

"Behold the serjeant full of fire, Long shall his hearers rue it, His purple garments came from Tyre, His arguments go to it."

Mr. H. L. Adam, in his volume The Story of Crime, tells an amusing story of a prisoner whose counsel had successfully obtained his acquittal on a charge of brutal assault. A policeman came across a man one night lying unconscious on the pavement, and near by him was an ordinary "bowler" hat. That was the only clue to the perpetrator of the deed. The police had their suspicions of a certain individual, whom they proceeded to interrogate. In addition to being unable to give a satisfactory account of his movements on the night of the assault, it was found that the "bowler" hat in question fitted him like a glove. He was accordingly arrested and charged with the crime, the hat being the chief evidence against him. Counsel for the defence, however, dwelt so impressively on the risk of accepting such evidence that the jury brought in a verdict of "not proven," and the prisoner was discharged. Before leaving the dock he turned to the judge, and pointing to the hat in Court, said, "My lord, may I 'ave my 'at."

* * * * *

Some amusing scenes have occurred in suits brought by tailors and dressmakers to recover the price of garments for which their customers have declined to pay on the ground of misfit. Serjeant Ballantine, in his Experiences of a Barrister, relates the case of a tailor in which the defendant was the famous Sir Edwin Landseer. It was tried in the Exchequer Court, before Baron Martin. "The coat was produced," says the serjeant, "and the judge suggested that Sir Edwin should try it on; he made a wry face, but consented, and took off his own upper garment. He then put an arm into one of the sleeves of that in dispute, and made an apparently ineffectual endeavour to reach the other, following it round amidst roars of laughter from all parts of the Court. It was a common jury, and I was told that there was a tailor upon it, upon which I suggested that there was a gentleman of the same profession as the plaintiff in Court who might assist Sir Edwin. This was acceded to, and out hopped a little Hebrew slop-seller from the Minories, to whom the defendant submitted his body. With difficulty he got into the coat, and then stood as if spitted, his back one mass of wrinkles. The tableau was truly amusing; the indignant plaintiff looking at the performance with mingled horror and disgust; Sir Edwin, as if he were choking; whilst the juryman, with the air of a connoisseur, was examining him and the coat with profound gravity. At last the judge, when able to stifle his laughter, addressing the little Hebrew, said, 'Well, Mr. Moses, what do you say?'—'Oh,' cried he, holding up a pair of hands not over clean, and very different from those encased in lavender gloves which graced the plaintiff, 'it ish poshitively shocking, my lord; I should have been ashamed to turn out such a thing from my establishment.' The rest of the jury accepted his view, and Sir Edwin, apparently relieved from suffocation, entered his own coat with a look of relief, which again convulsed the Court, bowed, and departed."

* * * * *

Financial prosecutions are as a rule very dreary, and any little joke perpetrated by counsel during the course of them is a relief. One was being heard, in which Mr. Muir was counsel, and to many of his statements the junior counsel for the prosecution shook his head vehemently, although he said nothing. This continual dumb contradiction at length got on the customary patience of Mr. Muir, who blurted out: "I do not know why my friend keeps shaking his head, whether it is that he has palsy, or that there's nothing in it!"

Mr. Baldwin was the counsel employed to oppose a person justifying bail in the Court of King's Bench. After some common questions, a waggish counsel sitting near suggested that the witness should be asked as to his having been a prisoner in Gloucester gaol. Mr. Baldwin thereon boldly asked: "When, sir, were you last in Gloucester gaol?" The witness, a respectable tradesman, with astonishment declared that he never was in a gaol in his life. Mr. Baldwin being foiled after putting the question in various ways, turned round to his friendly prompter, and asked for what the man had been imprisoned. He was told that it was for suicide. Thereupon Mr. Baldwin, with great gravity and solemnity addressed the witness: "Now, sir, I ask you upon your oath, and remember that I shall have your words taken down, were you not imprisoned in Gloucester gaol for suicide?"

A young lawyer who had just "taken the coif," once said to Samuel Warren, the author of Ten Thousand a Year: "Hah! Warren, I never could manage to get quite through that novel of yours. What did you do with Oily Gammon?"—"Oh," replied Warren, "I made a serjeant of him, and of course he never was heard of afterwards."



* * * * *

Warner Sleigh, a great thieves' counsel, was not debarred by etiquette from taking instructions direct from his clients. One day, following a rap on the door of his chambers in Middle Temple Lane, a thick-set man, with cropped poll of unmistakably Newgate cut, slunk into the room, when the following colloquy took place.

"Mornin', sir," said the man, touching his forelock. "Morning," replied counsel. "What do you want?"—"Well, sir, I'm sorry to say, sir, our little Ben, sir, has 'ad a misfortin'; fust offence, sir, only a 'wipe'—"—"Well, well!" interrupted counsel. "Get on."—"So, sir, we thought as you've 'ad all the family business we'd like you to defend 'im, sir."—"All right," said counsel; "see my clerk—."—"Yessir," continued the thief; "but I thought I'd like to make sure you'd attend yourself, sir; we're anxious, 'cos it's little Ben, our youngest kid."—"Oh! that will be all right. Give Simmons the fee."—"Well, sir," continued the man, shifting about uneasily, "I was going to arst you, sir, to take a little less. You see, sir (wheedlingly), it's little Ben—his first misfortin'."—"No, no," said the counsel impatiently. "Clear out!"—"But, sir, you've 'ad all our business. Well, sir, if you won't, you won't, so I'll pay you now, sir." And as he doled out the guineas: "I may as well tell you, sir, you wouldn't 'a' got the 'couties' if I 'adn't 'ad a little bit o' luck on the way."

The gravity of the Court of Appeal was once seriously disturbed by Edward Bullen reading to them the following paragraph from a pleading in an action for seduction: "The defendant denies that he is the father of the said twins, or of either of them." This he apologetically explained was due to an accident in his pupil-room, but everyone recognised the style of the master-hand.

* * * * *

Serjeant Adams, who acted as assistant judge at the sessions, had a very pleasant wit, and knew how to deal with any counsel who took to "high-falutin." On one occasion, after an altercation with the judge, the counsel for the prisoner in his address to the jury reminded them that "they were the great palladium of British Liberty—that it was their province to deal with the facts, the judge with the law—that they formed one of the great institutions of their country, and that they came in with William the Conqueror." Adams at the end of his summing up said: "Gentlemen, you will want to retire to consider your verdict, and as it seems you came in with the Conqueror you can now go out with the beadle."

There was always a mystery how Edwin James, who at the Bar was earning an income of at least L10,000 a year, was continually in monetary difficulties. Like Sir Thomas Lawrence, he must have had some private drain on his resources which was never disclosed. Among others who suffered was the landlord of his chambers, whose rent was very much in arrear. In the end the landlord hit upon a plan to discover which would be the best method of recovering his rent, and one day asked James to advise him on a legal matter in which he was interested, and thereupon drew up a statement of his grievance against his own tenant. The paper was duly returned to the landlord next day with the following sentence subjoined: "In my opinion this is a case which admits of only one remedy—patience. Edwin James."

In a case before Lord Campbell, James took a line with a witness which his lordship considered quite inadmissible, and stopped him. When summing up to the jury Lord Campbell thought to soften his interruption by saying: "You will have observed, gentlemen, that I felt it my duty to stop Mr. Edwin James in a certain line which he sought to adopt in the cross-examination of one of the witnesses; but at the same time I had no intention to cast any reflection on the learned counsel who I am sure is known to you all as a most able—" but before his lordship could proceed any further James interposed, and in a contemptuous voice exclaimed: "My lord, I have borne your lordship's censure, spare me your lordship's praise."

* * * * *

Mr. W. G. Thorpe, F.S.A., in his entertaining volume of Middle Temple Table Talk, relates a curious story of a judge taking an extremely personal interest in a case which was brought before him. A milk company had sold off a lot of old stock to a cake-maker, and the cake-maker had declined to pay because the milk had turned out to be poisonous. As the case went on the judge became more and more exercised. "What do they do with this stuff?" he asked, pointing to a mass of horrible mixture. "Oh, my lord, they make cakes of it; it doesn't taste in the cakes."—"Where do they sell these cakes?" was the judge's next question, and the reply was, "They are used for certain railway stations, school-treats, and excursions." Then the defendant specified one of the places. "Bless me!" said the judge, turning an olive-green, "I had some there myself," and with a shudder he retired to his private room, returning in a few minutes wiping his mouth.

There is another story of a counsel defending a woman on a charge of causing the death of her husband by administering a poisoned cake to him. "I'll eat some of the cake myself," he said in Court, and took a bite. Just at this moment a telegram was brought to him to say that his wife was seriously ill, and he obtained permission to leave in order to answer the message. He returned, finished his speech, and obtained the acquittal of his client. It transpired afterwards that the telegram business was arranged in order that counsel could obtain an emetic after swallowing the cake.

* * * * *

Mr. Montagu Williams tells a story, in his interesting Leaves of a Life, of two members of the Bar, one of whom had made a large fortune by his practice, but worked too hard to enjoy his gains, while the other, who only made a decent living, liked to enjoy life. They met on one occasion at the end of a long vacation, and the rich man asked his less fortunate brother what he had been doing. "I have been on the Continent," the other replied, "and I enjoyed my holiday very much. What have you been doing?"—"I have been working," said the rich Q.C., "and have not been out of town; I had lots of work to do."—"What is the use of it?" queried the other; "you can't carry the money with you when you die; and if you could, it would soon melt."

From the same work we take the following story of Serjeant Ballantine. On one occasion he was acting in a case with a Jewish solicitor, and it happened that one of the hostile witnesses also belonged to the same race. Just as the serjeant was about to examine him, the solicitor whispered in Ballantine's ear: "Ask him as your first question, if he isn't a Jew."—"Why, but you're a Jew yourself," said the serjeant in some surprise. "Never mind, never mind," replied the little solicitor eagerly. "Please do—just to prejudice the jury."

* * * * *



No collection of the wit and humour of the Bar would be complete without some specimens of Sir Frank Lockwood's racy sayings. From Mr. Augustine Birrell's Life of Lockwood we quote the following:

"A tale is attached to Lockwood's first brief. It was on a petition to the Master of the Rolls for payment out of Court of a sum of money; and Lockwood appeared for an official liquidator of a company whose consent had to be obtained before the Court would part with the fund. Lockwood was instructed to consent, and his reward was to be three guineas on the brief and one guinea for consultation. The petition came on in due course before Lord Romilly, and was made plain to him by counsel for the petitioner, and still a little plainer by counsel for the principal respondent.

"Then up rose Lockwood, an imposing figure, and indicated his appearance in the case.

"'What brings you here?' said Lord Romilly, meaning, I presume, 'Why need I listen to you?'

"Lockwood looking puzzled, Lord Romilly added a little testily, 'What do you come here for?'

"The answer was immediate, unexpected, and, accompanied as it was by a dramatic glance at the outside of his brief, as if to refresh his memory, triumphant, 'Three and one, my lord!'"

"The following letter is to Mrs. Atkinson:

1 HARE COURT, TEMPLE, E.C., LONDON. September 18, '72.

MY DEAR LOO,—I trust it is well with yourself, John, and the childer.... It is an off-day. We are resting on our legal oars after a prolonged and determined struggle yesterday. Know! that near our native hamlet is the level of Hatfield Chase, whereon are numerous drains. Our drain (speaking from the Corporation of Hatfield Chase point of view) we have stopped, for our own purposes. Consequently, the adjacent lands have been flooded, are flooded, and will continue to be flooded. The landed gentry wish us to remove our dam, saying that if we don't they won't be worth a d—n. We answer that we don't care a d—n.

This interesting case has been simmering in the law-courts since 1820. The landed gentry got a verdict in their favour at the last Lincoln Assizes, but find themselves little the better, as we have appealed, and our dam still reigns triumphant. Yesterday an application was made to the judge to order our dam to be removed. In the absence of Mellor, I donned my forensic armour and did battle for the Corporation. After two hours' hard fighting, we adjourned for a week; in the meantime the floods may rise, and the winds blow. The farmers yelled with rage when they heard that the dam had got a week's respite. I rather fancy that they will yell louder on Tuesday, as I hope to win another bloodless victory. It is a pretty wanton sport, the cream of the joke being that the dam is no good to us or to anybody else, and we have no real objection to urge against its removal, excepting that such a measure would be informal, and contrary to the law as laid down some hundred years ago by an old gentleman who never heard of a steam-engine, and who would have fainted at the sight of a telegraph post. As we have the most money on our side, I trust we shall win in the end. None of this useful substance, however, comes my way, as it is Mellor's work. But I hope to reap some advantage from it, both as to experience and introduction. I make no apology for troubling you with this long narration. I wish it to sink into your mind, and into that of your good husband. Let it be a warning to you and yours. And never by any chance become involved in any difficulties which will bring you into a court of law of higher jurisdiction than a police court. An occasional 'drunk and disorderly' will do you no harm, and only cost you 5s. Beyond a little indulgence of this kind—beware! In all probability I shall be in the North in a few weeks. Sessions commence next month. I will write to the Mum this week.—With best love to all, I am, Your affectionate brother,

FRANK LOCKWOOD."

"Mr. Mellor vouches for the following story, which, as it illustrates Lockwood's humour and had gone the round of the newspapers, I will tell. It is the ancient custom of the new Lord Mayor of London, attended by the Recorder and Sheriffs, to come into the law-courts and be introduced to the Lord Chief Justice or, if he is not there, to the senior judge to be found on the premises, and, after a little lecture from the Bench, to return good for evil by inviting the judges to dinner, only to receive the somewhat chilling answer, 'Some of their lordships will attend.' On this occasion the ceremony was over, and the Lord Mayor and his retinue was retiring from the Court, when his lordship's eye rested on Lockwood, who in a new wig was one of the throng by the door. 'Ah, my young friend!' said the Lord Mayor in a pompous way (for in those days there was no London County Council to teach Lord Mayors humility); 'picking up a little law, I suppose?' Lockwood had his answer ready. With a profound bow, he replied: 'I shall be delighted to accept your lordship's hospitality. I think I heard your lordship name seven as the hour.' The Lord Mayor hurried out of Court, and even the policeman (and to the police Lord Mayors are almost divine) shook with laughter."

Counsel sometimes find their position so weak that their only hope of damaging the other side lies in ridiculing their witnesses. Serjeant Parry on one occasion was defending a client against a claim for breach of promise of marriage made a few hours after a chance meeting in Regent Street. According to the lady's story the introduction had been effected through the gentleman offering to protect her from a dog. In course of cross-examination Parry said: "You say you were alarmed at two dogs fighting, madam?"—"No, no, it was a single dog," was the reply. "What you mean, madam," retorted Parry, "is that there was only one dog; but whether it was a single dog or a married dog you are not in a position to say." With this correction it need not be wondered that the lady had little more to say.

A learned counsellor in the midst of an affecting appeal in Court on a slander case delivered himself of the following flight of genius. "Slander, gentlemen, like a boa constrictor of gigantic size and immeasurable proportions, wraps the coil of its unwieldy body about its unfortunate victim, and, heedless of the shrieks of agony that come from the utmost depths of its victim's soul, loud and reverberating as the night thunder that rolls in the heavens, it finally breaks its unlucky neck upon the iron wheel of public opinion; forcing him first to desperation, then to madness, and finally crushing him in the hideous jaws of mortal death."

Talking of his early days at the Bar, Mr. Thomas Edward Crispe, in Reminiscences of a K.C., relates how on one occasion he was opposed by a somewhat eccentric counsel named Wharton, known in his day as the "Poet of Pump Court." The case was really a simple one, but Wharton made so much of it that when the luncheon half-hour came the judge, Mr. Justice Archibald, with some emphasis, addressing Mr. Wharton, said: "We will now adjourn, and, Mr. Wharton, I hope you will take the opportunity of conferring with your friend Mr. Crispe and settling the matter out of Court."

But Wharton would not agree to this, and when at last he had to address the jury, he, in the course of his speech, made the following remarks, for every word of which Mr. Crispe vouches:

"Gentlemen, I think it only courteous to the learned judge to refer to the advice his lordship gave me to settle the matter out of Court. That reminds me of a case, tried in a country court, in an action for detention of a donkey. The plaintiff was a costermonger and the defendant a costermonger; they conducted the case in person. At one o'clock the judge said: 'Now, my men, I'm going to have my lunch, and before I come back I hope you'll settle your dispute out of Court.' When he returned the plaintiff came in with a black eye and the defendant with a bleeding nose, and the defendant said: 'Well, your honour, we've taken your honour's advice; Jim's given me a good hiding, and I've given him back his donkey.'"

Mr. F. E. Smith, M.P., tells a story of a County Court case he was once engaged in, in which the plaintiff's son, a lad of eight years, was to appear as a witness.

When the youngster entered the box he wore boots several sizes too large, a hat that almost hid his face, long trousers rolled up so that the baggy knees were at his ankles, and, to complete the picture, a swallow-tail coat that had to be held to keep it from sweeping the floor. This ludicrous picture was too much for the Court; but the judge, between his spasms of laughter, managed to ask the boy his reason for appearing in such garb.

With wondering look the lad fished in an inner pocket and hauled the summons from it, pointing out a sentence with solemn mien as he did so: "To appear in his father's suit" it read.

* * * * *

There have been few readier men in retort than the late Mr. Francis Oswald, the author of Oswald on Contempt of Court. After a stiff breeze in a Chancery Court, the judge snapped out, "Well, I can't teach you manners, Mr. Oswald."—"That is so, m'lud, that is so," replied the imperturbable one. On another occasion, an irascible judge observed, "If you say another word, Mr. Oswald, I'll commit you."—"That raises another point—as to your lordship's power to commit counsel engaged in arguing before you," was the cool answer.

The author of Pie Powder in his entertaining volume, tells us that he was once dining with a barrister who had just taken silk. In the course of after-dinner talk, the new K.C. invited his friend to tell him what he considered was his (the K.C.'s) chief fault in style. After some considerable hesitation his friend admitted that he thought the K.C. erred occasionally in being too long. This apparently somewhat annoyed the K.C., and his friend feeling he had perhaps spoken too freely, thought he would smooth matters by inviting similar criticism of himself from the K.C., who at once replied, "My dear boy, I don't think really you have any fault. Except, you know, you are so d—d offensive."

A judge and a facetious lawyer conversing on the subject of the transmigration of souls, the judge said, "If you and I were turned into a horse and an ass, which of them would you prefer to be?"—"The ass, to be sure," replied the lawyer.—"Why?"—"Because," replied the lawyer, "I have heard of an ass being a judge, but of a horse, never."

* * * * *



In some cases counsel receive answers to questions which they had no business to put, and these, if not quite to their liking, are what they justly deserve. The following story of George Clarke, a celebrated negro minstrel, is a case in point. On one occasion, when being examined as a witness, he was severely interrogated by a lawyer. "You are in the minstrel business, I believe?" inquired the lawyer. "Yes, sir," was the reply. "Is not that rather a low calling?"—"I don't know but what it is, sir," replied the minstrel; "but it is so much better than my father's that I am rather proud of it." The lawyer fell into the trap. "What was your father's calling?" he inquired. "He was a lawyer," replied Clarke, in a tone that sent the whole Court into a roar of laughter as the discomfited lawyer sat down.

At the Durham Assizes an action was tried which turned out to have been brought by one neighbour against another for a trifling matter. The plaintiff was a deaf old lady, and after a pause the judge suggested that the counsel should get his client to compromise it, and to ask her what she would take to settle it. Very loudly counsel shouted out to his client: "His lordship wants to know what you will take?" She at once replied: "I thank his lordship kindly, and if it's no ill convenience to him, I'll take a little warm ale."

A tailor sent his bill to a lawyer, and a message to ask for payment. The lawyer bid the messenger tell his master that he was not running away, and was very busy at the time. The messenger returned and said he must have the money. The lawyer testily answered, "Did you tell your master that I was not running away?"—"Yes, I did, sir; but he bade me tell you that he was."

A well-known barrister at the criminal Bar, who prided himself upon his skill in cross-examining a witness, had an odd-looking witness upon whom to operate. "You say, sir, that the prisoner is a thief?"—"Yes, sir—'cause why, she confessed it."—"And you also swear she did some repairs for you subsequent to the confession?"—"I do, sir."—"Then," giving a knowing look at the Court, "we are to understand that you employ dishonest people to work for you, even after their rascalities are known?"—"Of course! How else could I get assistance from a lawyer?"—"Stand down!" shouted the man of law.

* * * * *

At Worcester Assizes, a cause was tried as to the soundness of a horse, and a clergyman had been a witness, who gave a very confused account of the transaction, and the matters he spoke to. A blustering counsel on the other side, after many attempts to get at the facts, said: "Pray, sir, do you know the difference between a horse and a cow?"—"I acknowledge my ignorance," replied the clergyman. "I hardly know the difference between a horse and a cow, or between a bully and a bull. Only a bull, I am told, has horns, and a bully," bowing respectfully to the counsel, "luckily for me, has none."

"In Court one day," says Mr. W. Andrews in The Lawyer, "I heard the following sharp encounter between a witness and an exceedingly irascible old-fashioned solicitor who, among other things, hated the modern custom of growing a beard or moustache. He himself grew side-whiskers in the most approved style of half a century ago. "Speak up, witness," he shouted, "and don't stand mumbling there. If you would shave off that unsightly moustache we might be better able to hear what was coming out of your lips." "And if you, sir," said the witness quietly, "would shave off those side-whiskers you would enable my words to reach your ears.""

"My friend," said an irritable lawyer, "you are an ass."—"Do you mean, sir," asked the witness, "that I am your friend because I am an ass, or an ass because I am your friend?"

* * * * *

Counsel sometimes comes to grief in dealing with experts. "Do you," asked one of a scientist, "know of a substance called Sulphonylic Diazotised Sesqui Oxide of Aldehyde?" and he looked round triumphantly. "Certainly," came the reply. "It is analogous in diatomic composition of Para Sulpho Benzine Azode Methyl Aniline in conjunction with Phehekatoline." Counsel said he would pursue the matter no further.

An action was brought by the owner of a donkey which was forced against a wall by a waggon and killed. The driver of the donkey was the chief witness, and was much bullied by Mr. Raine, the defendant's counsel, so that he lost his head and was reprimanded by the judge for not giving direct answers, and looking the jury in the face. Mr. Raine had a powerful cast in his eye, which probably heightened the poor fellow's confusion; and he continued to deal very severely with the witness, reminding him again and again of the judge's caution, saying: "Hold up your head, man: look up, I say. Can't you hold up your head, fellow? Can't you look as I do?" The witness, with much simplicity, at once answered, "I can't, you squint." On re-examination, Serjeant Cockle for the plaintiff, seeing gleams of the witness's recovery from his confusion, asked him to describe the position of the waggon and the donkey. After much pressing, at last he said, "Well, my lord judge, I'll tell you as how it happened." Turning to Cockle, he said, "You'll suppose ye are the wall."—"Aye, aye, just so, go on. I am the wall, very good."—"Yes, sir, you are the wall." Then changing his position a little, he said, "I am the waggon."—"Yes, very good; now proceed, you are the waggon," said the judge. The witness then looked to the judge, and hesitating at first, but with a low bow and a look of sudden despair, said, "And your lordship's the ass!"

Serjeant Cockle, who had a rough, blustering manner, once got from a witness more than he gave. In a trial of a right of fishery, he asked the witness: "Dost thou love fish?"—"Aye," replied the witness, with a grin, "but I donna like cockle sauce with it." The learned serjeant was not pleased with the roar of laughter which followed the remark.

* * * * *

Mr. H. L. Adam in The Story of Crime says he remembers a very amusing incident in one of our police courts. A prisoner had engaged a solicitor to defend him, and while the latter was speaking on his behalf he suddenly broke in with, "Why, he dunno wot the devil he's talking abaht!" Thereupon the magistrate informed him that if he was dissatisfied with his advocate's capabilities, he could, if he chose, defend himself. This he elected to do, and in the end was acquitted, the magistrate remarking that had the case been left to counsel he would unquestionably have been convicted.

In cross-examining a witness, says Judge Parry in What the Judge Saw, who had described the effects of an accident, was confronted by counsel with his statement, and asked, "But hadn't you told the doctor that your thigh was numb and had no feeling?"—"What's the good o' telling him anything," replied the witness. "That's where doctor made a mistake. I told 'im I was numb i' front, and what does he do but go and stick a pin into my back-side. 'E's no doctor."

From the same source is the following story. Another man was testifying to an accident that had occurred to him at the works where he was employed. It was sought to prove that his testimony was false because he had a holiday that day, and this poser was put to him: "Do you mean to tell the Court that you came to work when you might have been enjoying a holiday?"—"Certainly."—"Why did you do that?" The reply was too obviously truthful. "What should I do? I have nowhere to go. I'm teetotal now."

A Jew had been condemned to be hanged, and was brought to the gallows along with a fellow prisoner; but on the road, before reaching the place of execution, a reprieve arrived for the Jew. When informed of this, it was expected that he would instantly leave the cart in which he was conveyed, but he remained and saw his fellow prisoner hanged. Being asked why he did not at once go about his business, he said, "He was waiting to see if he could bargain with Mr. Ketch for the other gentleman's clothes!"

* * * * *

A sign-painter presented his bill to a lawyer for payment. After examining it the lawyer said, "Do you expect any painter will go to heaven if they make such charges as these?"—"I never heard of but one that went," said the painter, "and he behaved so badly that they determined to turn him out, but there being no lawyer present to draw up the Writ of Ejectment, he remained."

This must be the lawyer who, being refused entrance to heaven by St. Peter, contrived to throw his hat inside the door; and then, being permitted to go and fetch it, took advantage of the Saint being fixed to his post as doorkeeper and refused to come back again.

A solicitor who was known to occasionally exceed the limit at lunch betrayed so much unsteadiness that the magistrate quickly observed, "I think, Mr. ——, you are not quite well, perhaps you had a little too much wine at lunch."—"Quite a mistake, your worship," hiccoughed Mr. ——. "It was brandy and water."

The son-in-law of a Chancery barrister having succeeded to the lucrative practice of the latter, came one morning in breathless haste to inform him that he had succeeded in bringing nearly to its termination a cause which had been pending in the Court for several years. Instead of obtaining the expected congratulations of the retired veteran of the law, his intelligence was received with indignation. "It was by this suit," exclaimed he, "that my father was enabled to provide for me, and to portion your wife, and with the exercise of common prudence it would have furnished you with the means of providing handsomely for your children and grandchildren."



CHAPTER THREE

THE JUDGES OF IRELAND

"So slow is justice in its ways Beset by more than customary clogs, Going to law in these expensive days Is much the same as going to the dogs."

WILLOCK: Legal Facetiae.



CHAPTER THREE

THE JUDGES OF IRELAND

In the days of Queen Anne corruption was rife among Irish judges, as it was also among members of the Scottish Bench at an earlier period, and it was not uncommon to find the former concurring in Privy Council reports issued contrary to evidence. Within the area of the Munster Circuit in the early years of the eighteenth century a petition was signed and presented to Parliament by clergy, resident gentry, and others in the district, because Lord Chancellor Phipps refused to be influenced in his decision of cases coming before him, and had thereby incurred the displeasure of a certain section of the Irish Parliament. Even a Lord Chief Justice was not above taking a gift; and in this connection O'Flanagan in The Munster Circuit tells a story of Chief Justice Pyne, who was a great cattle-breeder and owner of valuable stock. One day before starting for Cork Assizes to try a case in which a Mr. Weller and a Mr. Nangle were concerned, he received a visit from the former's steward, who had been sent with a herd of twenty-five splendid heifers for his lordship. The judge was highly pleased, and returned by the steward a gracious message of thanks to his master. On the way to Cork the Chief Justice's coach was stopped by a drove of valuable shorthorns on the road. Looking out, his lordship demanded of the drover, "Whose beasts are these, my man?"—"They belong, please your honour, to a great gentleman of these parts, Judge Pyne, your honour," replied the man. "Indeed," cried the Chief Justice in much surprise, "and where are you taking them now?"—"They are grazing in my master Mr. Nangle's farm, your honour; and as the Assizes are coming on at Cork my master thought the judge might like to see that he took good care of them, so I'm taking them to Waterpark (his lordship's estate) to show to the judge." The judge felt the delicacy of Mr. Nangle's mode of giving his present, and putting a guinea in the drover's hand said, "As your master has taken such good care of my cattle, I will take care of him." When the case came on it appeared at first that the judge favoured the plaintiff, Mr. Weller, but as it proceeded he changed his views and finally decided for the defendant, Mr. Nangle. On arriving home the judge's first question was, "Are the cattle all safe?"—"Perfectly, my lord."—"Where are the beasts I received on leaving for the Cork Assizes?"—"They are where you left them, my lord."—"Where I left them—that is impossible," exclaimed the judge. "I left them on the road." The steward looked puzzled. "I'll have a look at them myself," said Chief Justice Pyne. The steward led the way, and pointed out the twenty-five fine heifers presented by Mr. Weller, the plaintiff. "But where are the shorthorns that came after I left home?"—"Bedad, the long and the short of it is, them's all the cattle on the land, except what we have bred ourselves, my lord." And so it was. Mr. Nangle, the defendant, had so arranged his gift to meet the judge on the road, but as soon as his lordship's coach was out of sight the cattle were driven back to their familiar fields. The Chief Justice had been outwitted and had no power of showing resentment.

In the manners and customs of the legal profession of Ireland in the latter part of the eighteenth century, there is also a strong similarity between the members of the Scottish Bench and their Irish brethren, in that they were heavy port drinkers; and did not hesitate to indulge in it while sitting on the Bench. It is reported of one Irish judge that he had a specially constructed metal tube like a penholder, through which he sucked his favourite liquor, from what appeared to the audience to be a metal inkstand. Another judge on being asked if, at a social gathering, he had seen a learned brother dance, "Yes," he replied, "I saw him in a reel"; while Curran referring to a third judge, who had condemned a prisoner to death, said, "He did not weep, but he had a drop in his eye."

* * * * *

Unblushing effrontery and a bronzed visage gained for John Scott (Lord Clonmel) while at the Bar the sobriquet of "Copper-faced Jack." He took the popular side in politics, which ordinarily would not have led to promotion in his profession; but his outstanding ability attracted the attention of Lord Chancellor Lifford, and through his influence Scott was offered a place under the Government. On accepting it at the hands of Lord Townshend, he said, "My lord, you have spoiled a good patriot." Some time after he met Flood, a co-patriot, and addressed him: "Well, I suppose you will be abusing me as usual." To which Flood replied: "When I began to abuse you, you were a briefless barrister; by abuse I made you counsel to the revenue, by abuse I got you a silk gown, by abuse I made you Solicitor-General, by abuse I may make you Chief Justice. No, Scott, I'll praise you."

When Lord Clonmel was Lord Chief Justice he upheld the undignified practice of demanding a shilling for administering an oath, and used to be well satisfied, provided the coin was a good one. In his time the Birmingham shilling was current, and he used the following extraordinary precautions to avoid being imposed upon by taking a bad one. "You shall true answer make to such questions as shall be demanded of you touching this affidavit, so help you God! Is this a good shilling? Are the contents of this affidavit true? Is this your name and handwriting?"

* * * * *

The family of Henn belonging to Clare have been, generation after generation, since the first of the name became Chief Baron in 1679, connected with the Irish Bench and Bar. William Henn, a descendant of the Chief Baron, was made a Judge of the King's Bench in 1767, and when on Circuit at Wexford in 1789 two young barristers contended before him with great zeal and pertinacity, each flatly contradicting the other as to the law of the case; and both at each turn of the argument again and again referred with exemplary confidence to the learned judge, as so well knowing that what was said by him (the speaker) was right. The judge said, "Well, gentlemen, can I settle this matter between you? You, sir, say positively the law is one way; and you, sir (turning to the opponent), as unequivocally say it is the other way. I wish to God, Billy Harris (leaning over and addressing the registrar who sat beneath him), I knew what the law really was!"—"My lord," replied Billy Harris, rising, and turning round with great gravity and respect, "if I possessed that knowledge, I assure your lordship that I would tell your lordship with great pleasure!"—"Then," exclaimed the judge, "we'll save the point, Billy Harris!"

Although more appropriate in the following chapter, we may here introduce a story of the younger son of the Judge Henn of the previous story. Jonathan, who was more distinguished than his elder brother—another Judge Henn—did not attain to the Bench. In early years he was indifferent whether briefs were given him or not, and indeed on one occasion he is said to have sent a message to the Attorney-General, who had called to engage him in a case, to keep "his d—d brief and to take himself to the d—l." But later he became very industrious, and his natural ability soon brought him into a large and lucrative practice. He was counsel for the Government at the trial of John Mitchell, and at its close the wags of the Court declared that "Judge Moore spoke to the evidence, but Jonathan Henn charged the jury."

* * * * *



Chief Justice Carleton was a most lugubrious judge, and was always complaining of something or other, but chiefly about the state of his health, so that Curran remarked that it was strange the old judge was plaintive in every case tried before him.

One day his lordship came into Court very late, looking very woeful. He apologised to the Bar for being obliged to adjourn the Court at once and dismiss the jury for that day. "Though," his lordship added, "I am aware that an important issue stands for trial. But, the fact is, gentlemen (addressing the Bar in a low tone of voice and somewhat confidentially), I have met with a domestic misfortune, which has altogether deranged my nerves. Poor Lady Carleton has, most unfortunately, miscarried, and—." "Oh, then, my lord," exclaimed Curran, "I am sure we are all quite satisfied your lordship has done right in deciding there is no issue to try to-day." His lordship smiled a ghastly smile, and, retiring, thanked the Bar for their sympathy.

* * * * *

Judge Foster was trying five prisoners for murder, and misunderstood the drift of the evidence. Four of the prisoners seem to have assisted, but a witness said as to the fifth, Denis Halligan, that it was he who gave the fatal blow: "My lord, I saw Denis Halligan (that's in the dock there) take a vacancy (Irish word for 'aim' at an unguarded part) at the poor soul that's kilt, and give him a wipe with a clehalpin (Irish word for 'bludgeon'), and lay him down as quiet as a child." They were found guilty. The judge, sentencing the first four, gave them seven years' imprisonment. But when he came to Halligan, who really killed the deceased, the judge said, "Denis Halligan, I have purposely reserved the consideration of your case to the last. Your crime is doubtless of a grievous nature, yet I cannot avoid taking into consideration the mitigating circumstances that attend it. By the evidence of the witness it clearly appears that you were the only one of the party who showed any mercy to the unfortunate deceased. You took him to a vacant seat, and wiped him with a clean napkin, and you laid him down with the gentleness one shows to a little child. In consideration of these extenuating circumstances, which reflect some credit upon you, I shall inflict upon you three weeks' imprisonment." So Denis Halligan got off by the judge mistaking a vacancy for a vacant seat, and a clehalpin for a clean napkin.

John Toler (Lord Norbury) was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland. His humour was broad, and his absolute indifference to propriety often saved the situation by converting a serious matter into a wholly ludicrous one. His Court was in constant uproar, owing to his noisy jesting, and like a noted old Scottish judge he would have his joke when the life of a human being was hanging in the balance. Even on his own deathbed he could not resist the impulse. On hearing that his friend Lord Erne was also nearing his end at the same time, he called for his valet: "James," said Lord Norbury, "run round to Lord Erne and tell him with my compliments that it will be a dead-heat between us."

The best illustration of the almost daily condition of things when Lord Norbury presided at Nisi Prius is given by himself in his reply to the answer of a witness. "What is your business?" asked the judge. "I keep a racquet-court, my lord."—"So do I, so do I," immediately exclaimed the judge. Nor did he reserve his bon mots for Court merriment. Passing the Quay on his way to the Four Courts one morning, he noticed a crowd and inquired of a bystander the cause of it. On being told that a tailor had just been rescued from attempted suicide by drowning, his lordship exclaimed, "What a fool to leave his hot goose for a cold duck." The boastful statement of a gentleman in his company that he had shot seventy hares before breakfast drew from the Chief Justice the sarcastic remark, "I suppose, sir, you fired at a wig."

A son of a peer having been accused of arson, of which offence he was generally believed guilty, but acquitted on a point of insufficiency of evidence to sustain the indictment, was tried before Lord Norbury. The young gentleman met the judge next at the Lord-Lieutenant's levee in the Castle. Instead of avoiding the Chief Justice, the scion of nobility boldly said, "I have recently married, and have come here to enable me to present my bride at the Drawing-Room."—"Quite right to mind the Scripture. Better marry than burn," retorted Lord Norbury.

A barrister once pressed him to non-suit the plaintiff in a case; but his lordship decided to let it go to a jury trial. "I do believe," said the disappointed advocate, "your lordship has not the courage to non-suit."—"You say, sir," replied the irate judge, "you don't believe I'd have the courage to non-suit. I tell you I have courage to shoot and to non-shoot, but I'll not non-suit for you." This same counsel was once horsewhipped by an army officer at Nelson's Pillar in Sackville Street, and applied for a Criminal Information against his assailant. "Certainly he shall have it," said the witty judge. "The Court is bound to give protection to any one who has bled under the gallant Nelson."

On a motion before this judge, a sheriff's officer, who had the hardihood to serve a process in Connemara, where the king's writ did not run, swore that the natives made him eat and swallow both copy and original. Norbury, affecting great disgust, exclaimed: "Jackson, Jackson, I hope it's not made returnable into this Court."

While giving a judgment on a writ of right, Lord Norbury observed that it was not sufficient for a demandant to say he "claimed by descent." "Such an answer," he continued, "would be a shrewd one for a sweep, who got into your house by coming down the chimney; and it would be an easy, as well as a sweeping, way of getting in."

His lordship was attacked by a fit of gout when on Circuit, and sent to the Solicitor-General requesting the loan of a pair of large slippers. "Take them," said the Solicitor to the servant, "with my respects, and I hope soon to be in his lordship's shoes."

At the instigation of O'Connell, Lord Norbury was finally removed from the Bench. A flagrant case of partiality was brought to Lord Brougham's notice which exasperated Lord Norbury, and he is reported to have said, "I'll resign to demand satisfaction. That Scottish Broom wants to be made acquainted with an Irish stick."

* * * * *

Two notorious highwaymen were charged before Chief Baron O'Grady with robbery, and to the surprise of all the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. "Mr. Murphy," said the judge to the gaoler, "you will greatly ease my mind by keeping these two respectable gentlemen in custody until seven o'clock. I leave for Dublin at five, and I should like to have at least two hours' start of them." There is also the story of a barrister who made an eloquent speech and got his client off, but he was very anxious to know whether the prisoner was guilty or not. "Well, sir," said the man when applied to, "to tell the truth I thought I was guilty until I heard you speak, and then I didn't see how I could be." This at once recalls an old story. "Prisoner, I understand you confess your guilt," said the judge. "No, I don't," said the prisoner. "My counsel has convinced me of my innocence."

On hearing that some spendthrift barristers, friends of his, were appointed to be Commissioners of Insolvent Debtors the Chief Baron remarked, "At all events, the insolvents can't complain of not being tried by their peers." It was the same judge who caustically observed, after a long and dull legal argument: "I agree with my brother J——, for the reasons given by my brother M——." A prisoner once was given a practical specimen of his lordship's wit, and must have been rather distressed by it. He was passing sentence upon a pickpocket, and ordering a punishment common at that time. "You will be whipped from North Gate to South Gate," said the judge. "Bad luck to you, you old blackguard," said the prisoner. "—And back again," said the Chief Baron, as if he had been interrupted in the delivery of the sentence.

A cause of much celebrity was tried at a county Assize, at which Chief Baron O'Grady presided. Bushe, then a K.C., who held a brief for the defence, was pleading the cause of his client with much eloquence, when a donkey in the courtyard outside set up a loud bray. "One at a time, brother Bushe!" called out his lordship. Peals of laughter filled the Court. The counsel bore the interruption as best he could. The judge was proceeding to sum up with his usual ability: the donkey again began to bray. "I beg your lordship's pardon," said Bushe, putting his hand to his ear; "but there is such an echo in the Court that I can't hear a word you say."

In his charges to juries, O'Grady frequently made some quaint remarks. There was a Kerry case in which a number of men were indicted for riot and assault. Several of them bore the familiar names of O'Donoghue, Moriarty, Duggan, &c., while among the jurymen these names were also found. Well knowing that consanguinity was prevalent in the district, the judge began his address to the jury with the significant remark: "Of course, gentlemen, you will acquit your own relatives." In another case of larceny of pantaloons which was clearly proved, but in which the thief got a good character for honesty, he began: "Gentlemen, the prisoner was an honest boy, but he stole the pantaloons."

"I merely wish to address your lordship on the form of the indictment, if your lordship pleases," said a young barrister to the Chief Baron. "Oh, certainly, I will hear you with mighty great pleasure, sir; but I'll be after taking the verdict of the jury first," was the sarcastic reply.

The brother of Chief Baron O'Grady once caught a boy stealing turnips from one of his fields and asked his lordship if the culprit could be prosecuted under the Timber Acts. "No," said the Chief Baron, "unless you can prove that your turnips are sticky."

* * * * *

Yelverton, first Baron Avonmore, possessed remarkable rhetorical ability and a highly cultivated mind. He rose rapidly at the Bar, until he became Chief Baron of Exchequer. He was the founder of the convivial order of St. Patrick, called "The Monks of the Screw," of which Curran, who wrote its charter song, was Prior. Avonmore was a man of warm and benevolent feelings, which he gave vent to in an equal degree in private life, in the senate, and on the Bench.

Before giving an anecdote of Lord Avonmore it may interest readers, especially English and Scottish, to quote here the charter song of this famous Irish convivial club of the eighteenth century.

THE CHARTER SONG OF THE MONKS OF THE SCREW

When St. Patrick this order establish'd, He called us the "Monks of the Screw"! Good rules he reveal'd to our Abbot, To guide us in what we should do. But first he replenish'd our fountain, With liquor the best in the sky; And he swore on the word of a saint That the fountain should never run dry.

Each year when your octaves approach, In full chapter convened let me find you, And when to the convent you come Leave your favourite temptation behind you; And be not a glass in your convent, Unless on a festival found; And this rule to enforce I ordain it, Our festival all the year round.

My brethren, be chaste till you're tempted; While sober be grave and discreet; And humble your bodies with fasting, As oft as you've nothing to eat. Yet, in honour of fasting, one lean face Among you I'll always require, If the Abbot should please he may wear it— If not, let it come to the Prior.

The last two lines hit off the appearance of the Abbot, a Mr. Doyle, and of the Prior, J. P. Curran. The former was a big burly man with a fat, jovial face, while Curran was a short and particularly spare man whose "lean face" always attracted attention.

On a Lent Circuit, one of the Assize towns happened to be a place, of which one of Lord Avonmore's college contemporaries held a living: at his own request, the Chief Baron's reverend friend preached the Assize sermon. The time being the month of March the weather was cold, the judge was chilled, and unhappily the sermon was long, and the preacher tedious. After the discourse was over, the preacher descended from the pulpit and approached the judge, smirking and smiling, looking fully satisfied with his own exertions, and expecting to receive the compliments and congratulations of his quondam chum. "Well, my lord," he asked, "and how did you like the sermon?"—"Oh! most wonderfully," replied Avonmore. "It was like the peace of God—it passed all understanding; and—like his mercy—I thought it would have endured for ever."

* * * * *

When Plunket was at the Bar his great friend and rival was C. K. Bushe. The former was Attorney-General at the same time as the latter was Solicitor-General, and it caused him much dissatisfaction when Plunket learned that on a change of Government Solicitor-General Bushe had not followed his example and resigned office. At the time this occurred both barristers happened to be engaged in a case at which, when it was called, Bushe only appeared. On the judge inquiring of Mr. Bushe if he knew the reason of Mr. Plunket's absence his friend jocosely remarked, "I suppose, my lord, he is Cabinet-making." This pleasantry, at his expense, was told to Plunket by a friend, when he arrived in Court, on which, turning to the judge, the ex-Attorney-General proudly said, "I assure your lordship I am not so well qualified for Cabinet-making as my learned friend. I never was either a turner or a joiner."

Two eminent Irish astronomers differed in an argument on the parallax of a lyrae—the one maintaining that it was three seconds, and the other that it was only two seconds. On being told of this discussion, and that the astronomers parted without arriving at an agreement, Plunket quietly remarked: "It must be a very serious quarrel indeed, when even the seconds cannot agree."

Once applying the common expression to accommodation bills of exchange, that they were mere kites, the judge, an English Chancellor, said "he never heard that expression applied before to any but the kites of boys."—"Oh," replied Plunket, "that's the difference between kites in England and in Ireland. In England the wind raises the kite, but in Ireland the kite raises the wind."

Everybody (says Phillips) knew how acutely Plunket felt his forced resignation of the chancellorship, and his being superseded by Lord Campbell. A violent storm arose on the day of Campbell's expected arrival, and a friend remarking to Plunket how sick of his promotion the passage must have made the new Chancellor: "Yes," said the former, ruefully, "but it won't make him throw up the seals."

* * * * *

Mr. Frankfort Moore, in his Journalist's Notebook, relates how Justice Lawson summed up in the case of a man who was charged with stealing a pig. The evidence of the theft was quite conclusive, and, in fact, was not combated; but the prisoner called the priests and neighbours to attest to his good character. "Gentlemen of the jury," said the judge, "I think that the only conclusion you can arrive at is, that the pig was stolen by the prisoner, and that he is the most amiable man in the country."



CHAPTER FOUR

THE BARRISTERS OF IRELAND

"'Men that hire out their words and anger'; that are more or less passionate according as they are paid for it, and allow their client a quantity of wrath proportionable to the fee which they receive from him."

ADDISON: The Spectator.



CHAPTER FOUR

THE BARRISTERS OF IRELAND

The Irish counsel like the occupants of the Bench were, in early times, eminent for their jolly carousing. Once, about 1687, a heavy argument coming on before Lord Chancellor Fitton, Mr. Nagle, the solicitor, retained Sir Toby Butler as counsel, who entered into a bargain that he would not drink a drop of wine while the case was at hearing. This bargain reached the ears of the Chancellor, who asked Sir Toby if it was true that such a compact had been made. The counsel said it was true, and the bargain had been rigidly kept; but on further inquiry he admitted that as he had only promised not to drink a drop of wine, he felt he must have some stimulant. So he got a basin, into which he poured two bottles of claret, and then got two hot rolls of bread, sopped them in the claret and ate them. "I see," replied the Chancellor; "in truth, Sir Toby, you deserve to be master of the rolls!"

* * * * *



One naturally turns to Curran for a selection of the witty sayings of the Irish Bar, and abundantly he supplies them, although in these days many of his jests may be considered as in somewhat doubtful taste. Phillips tells us he remembered Curran once—in an action for breach of promise of marriage, in which he was counsel for the defendant, a young clergyman—thus appealing to the jury: "Gentlemen, I entreat you not to ruin this young man by a vindictive verdict; for though he has talents, and is in the Church, he may rise!"

After his college career Curran went to London to study for the Bar. His circumstances were often straitened, and at times so much so that he had to pass the day without dinner. But under such depressing circumstances his high spirits never forsook him. One day he was sitting in St. James's Park merrily whistling a tune when a gentleman passed, who, struck by the youth's melancholy appearance while, at the same time, he whistled a lively air, asked how he "came to be sitting there whistling while other people were at dinner." Curran replied, "I would have been at dinner too, but a trifling circumstance—delay in remittances—obliges me to dine on an Irish tune." The result was that Curran was invited to dine with the stranger, and years afterwards, when he had become famous, he recalled the incident to his entertainer—Macklin, the celebrated actor—with the assurance, "You never acted better in your life."

From Phillips again we have Curran's retort upon an Irish judge, who was quite as remarkable for his good humour and raillery as for his legal researches. Curran was addressing a jury on one of the State trials in 1803 with his usual animation. The judge, whose political bias, if any judge can have one, was certainly supposed not to be favourable to the prisoner, shook his head in doubt or denial of one of the advocate's arguments. "I see, gentlemen," said Curran, "I see the motion of his lordship's head; common observers might imagine that implied a difference of opinion, but they would be mistaken; it is merely accidental. Believe me, gentlemen, if you remain here many days, you will yourselves perceive that when his lordship shakes his head, there's nothing in it!"

Curran was one day engaged in a case in which he had for a junior a remarkably tall and slender gentleman, who had been originally intended to take orders. The judge observing that the case under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law, Curran interposed with: "I refer your lordship to a high authority behind me, who was once intended for the Church, though in my opinion he was fitter for the steeple."

He was one day walking with a friend, who, hearing a person say "curosity" for "curiosity," exclaimed: "How that man murders the English language!"—"Not so bad as that," replied Curran. "He has only knocked an 'i' out."

Curran never joined the hunt, except once, not far from Dublin. His horse joined very keenly in the sport, but the horseman was inwardly hoping all the while that the dogs would not find. In the midst of his career, the hounds broke into a potato field of a wealthy land-agent, who happened to have been severely cross-examined by Curran some days before. The fellow came up patronisingly and said, "Oh sure, you are Counsellor Curran, the great lawyer. Now then, Mr. Lawyer, can you tell me by what law you are trespassing on my ground?"—"By what law, did you ask, Mr. Maloney?" replied Curran. "It must be the Lex Tally-ho-nis, to be sure."

During one of the Circuits, Curran was dining with a brother advocate at a small inn kept by a worthy woman known by the Christian name of Honoria, or, as it is generally called, Honor. The gentlemen were so pleased with their entertainment that they summoned Honor to receive their compliments and drink a glass of wine with them. She attended at once, and Curran after a brief eulogium on the dinner filled a glass, and handing it to the landlady proposed as a toast "Honor and Honesty," to which the lady with an arch smile added, "Our absent friends," drank off her amended toast and withdrew.

He happened one day to have for his companion in a stage-coach a very vulgar and revolting old woman, who seemed to have been encrusted with a prejudice against Ireland and all its inhabitants. Curran sat chafing in silence in his corner. At last, suddenly, a number of cows, with their tails and heads in the air, kept rushing up and down the road in alarming proximity to the coach windows. The old woman manifestly was but ill at ease. At last, unable to restrain her terror, she faltered out, "Oh dear; oh dear, sir! what can the cows mean?"—"Faith, my good woman," replied Curran, "as there's an Irishman in the coach, I shouldn't wonder if they were on the outlook for a bull!"

Curran was once asked what an Irish gentleman, just arrived in England, could mean by perpetually putting out his tongue. "I suppose," replied the wit, "he's trying to catch the English accent."

During the temporary separation of Lord Avonmore and Curran, Egan espoused the judge's imaginary quarrel so bitterly that a duel was the consequence. The parties met, and on the ground Egan complained that the disparity in their sizes gave his antagonist a manifest advantage. "I might as well fire at a razor's edge as at him," said Egan, "and he may hit me as easily as a turf-stack."—"I'll tell you what, Mr. Egan," replied Curran; "I wish to take no advantage of you—let my size be chalked out upon your side, and I am quite content that every shot which hits outside that mark should go for nothing." And in another duel, in which his opponent was a major who had taken offence at some remark the eminent counsel had made about him in Court, the major asked Curran to fire first. "No," replied Curran, "I am here on your invitation, so you must open the ball."

Sir Thomas Furton, who was a respectable speaker, but certainly nothing more, affected once to discuss the subject of eloquence with Curran, assuming an equality by no means palatable to the latter. Curran happening to mention, as a peculiarity of his, that he could not speak above a quarter of an hour without requiring something to moisten his lips, Sir Thomas, pursuing his comparisons, declared he had the advantage in that respect. "I spoke," said he, "the other night in the Commons for five hours on the Nabob of Oude, and never felt in the least thirsty."—"It is very remarkable, indeed," replied Curran, "for everyone agrees that was the driest speech of the session."

Lord Clare (says Mr. Hayward) had a favourite dog which was permitted to follow him to the Bench. One day, during an argument of Curran's, the Chancellor turned aside and began to fondle the dog, with the obvious view of intimating inattention or disregard. The counsel stopped; the judge looked up: "I beg your pardon," continued Curran, "I thought your lordship had been in consultation."

Curran often raised a laugh at Lord Norbury's expense. The laws, at that period, made capital punishment so general that nearly all crimes were punishable with death by the rope. It was remarked Lord Norbury never hesitated to condemn the convicted prisoner to the gallows. Dining in company with Curran, who was carving some corned beef, Lord Norbury inquired, "Is that hung beef, Mr. Curran?"—"Not yet, my lord," was the reply; "you have not tried it."

"A doldrum, Mr. Curran! What does the witness mean by saying you put him in a doldrum?" asked Lord Avonmore. "Oh, my lord, it is a very common complaint with persons of this description; it's merely a confusion of the head arising from a corruption of the heart."

Angered one day in debate, he put his hand on his heart, saying, "I am the trusty guardian of my own honour."—"Then," replied Sir Boyle Roche, "I congratulate my honourable friend in the snug little sinecure to which he has appointed himself."

But on one occasion he met his match in a pert, jolly, keen-eyed son of Erin, who was up as a witness in a case of dispute in the matter of a horse deal. Curran was anxious to break down the credibility of this witness, and thought to do it by making the man contradict himself—by tangling him up in a network of adroitly framed questions—but to no avail. The ostler's good common sense, and his equanimity and good nature, were not to be upset. Presently, Curran, in a towering rage, thundered forth, as no other counsel would have dared to do in the presence of the Court: "Sir, you are incorrigible! The truth is not to be got from you, for it is not in you. I see the villain in your face!"—"Faith, yer honour," replied the witness, with the utmost simplicity of truth and honesty, "my face must be moighty clane and shinin' indade, if it can reflect like that." For once in his life the great barrister was floored by a simple witness. He could not recover from that repartee, and the case went against him.

When Curran heard that there was a likelihood of trouble for the part he took in 1798, and that in all probability he would be deprived of the rank of Q.C., he remarked: "They may take away the silk, but they leave the stuff behind."

* * * * *

"Bully" Egan had a great muscular figure, as may be guessed from the story of the duel with Curran. To his bulk he added a stentorian voice, which he freely used in Nisi Prius practice to browbeat opposing counsel and witnesses, and through which he acquired his sobriquet. On one occasion his opponent was a dark-visaged barrister who had made out a good case for his client. Egan, in the course of an eloquent address, begged the jury not to be carried away by the "dark oblivion of a brow."—"What do you mean by using such balderdash?" said a friend. "It may be balderdash," replied Egan, "but depend upon it, it will do very well for that jury." On another occasion he concluded a vituperative address by describing the defendant as "a most naufrageous ruffian."—"What sort of a ruffian is that?" whispered his junior. "I have no idea," responded Egan, "but I think it sounds well."

* * * * *

H. D. Grady was a strong supporter, in the Irish Parliament, of the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, although he represented a constituency strongly opposed to it; and he did not conceal the fact that the Government had made it worth his while to support them. "What!" exclaimed one of his constituents who remonstrated with him; "do you mean to sell your country?"—"Thank God," cried this patriot, "I have a country to sell."

For his Court work this anti-Nationalist barrister had what he called his "jury-eye." When he wanted a jury to note a particular point he kept winking his right eye at them. Entering the Court one day looking very depressed, a sympathetic friend asked if he was quite well, adding, "You are not so lively as usual."—"How can I be," replied Grady, "my jury-eye is out of order."

He was examining a foreign sailor at Cork Assizes. "You are a Swede, I believe?"—"No, I am not."—"What are you then?"—"I am a Dane." Grady turned to the jury, "Gentlemen, you hear the equivocating scoundrel. Go down, sir!"

Judge Boyd who, according to O'Connell, was guilty of sipping his wine through a peculiarly made tube from a metal inkstand, to which we have already referred, one day presided at a trial where a witness was charged with being intoxicated at the time he was speaking about. Mr. Harry Grady laboured hard to show that the man had been sober. Judge Boyd at once interposed and said: "Come now, my good man, it is a very important consideration; tell the Court truly, were you drunk or were you sober upon that occasion?"—"Oh, quite sober, my Lord." Grady added, with a significant look at the inkstand, "As sober as a judge!"

* * * * *

Mr. Bethell, a barrister at the time of the Union of Ireland and Great Britain, like many of his brethren, published a pamphlet on that much-vexed subject. Mr. Lysaght, meeting him, said: "Bethell, you never told me you had published a pamphlet on the Union. The one I saw contained some of the best things I have ever seen in any of these publications."—"I am proud you think so," rejoined the other eagerly. "Pray what was the thing that pleased you so much?"—"Well," replied Lysaght, "as I passed a pastry-cook's shop this morning, I saw a girl come out with three hot mince-pies wrapped up in one of your productions!"

"Pleasant Ned Lysaght," as his familiar friends called him, meeting a Dublin banker one day offered himself as an assistant if there was a vacancy in the bank's staff. "You, my dear Lysaght," said the banker; "what position could you fill?"—"Two," was the reply. "If you made me cashier for one day, I'll become runner the next."

And it was Lysaght who made a neat pun on his host's name at a dinner party during the Munster Circuit. The gentleman, named Flatly, was in the habit of inviting members of the Bar to his house when the Court was held in Limerick. One evening the conversation turned upon matrimony, and surprise was expressed that their host still remained a bachelor. He confessed that he never had had the courage to propose to a young lady. "Depend upon it," said Lysaght, "if you ask any girl boldly she will not refuse you, Flatly."

* * * * *

O'Flanagan, author of The Lord Chancellors of Ireland, writes of Holmes, an Irish barrister: "He made us laugh very much one day in the Queen's Bench. I was waiting for some case in which I was counsel, when the crier called, 'Pluck and Diggers,' and in came James Scott, Q.C., very red and heated, and, throwing his bag on the table within the bar, he said, 'My lords, I beg to assure your lordships I feel so exhausted I am quite unable to argue this case. I have been speaking for three hours in the Court of Exchequer, and I am quite tired; and pray excuse me, my lords, I must get some refreshment.' The Chief Justice bowed, and said, 'Certainly, Mr. Scott.' So that gentleman left the Court. 'Mr. Holmes, you are in this case,' said the Chief Justice; 'we'll be happy to hear you.'—'Really, my lord, I am very tired too,' said Mr. Holmes. 'Surely,' said the Chief Justice, 'you have not been speaking for three hours in the Court of Exchequer? What has tired you?'—'Listening to Mr. Scott,' was Holmes' sarcastic reply."

* * * * *

Although rivals in their profession, C. K. Bushe had a great admiration for Plunket's abilities, and would not listen to any disparagement of them. One day while Plunket was speaking at the Bar a friend said to Bushe, "Well, if it was not for the eloquence, I'd as soon listen to ——," who was a very prosy speaker. "No doubt," replied Bushe, "just as the Connaught man said, ''Pon my conscience if it was not for the malt and the hops, I'd as soon drink ditch water as porter.'"

There is an impromptu of Bushe's upon two political agitators of the day who had declined an appeal to arms, one on account of his wife, the other from the affection in which he held his daughter:

"Two heroes of Erin, abhorrent of slaughter, Improved on the Hebrew command— One honoured his wife, and the other his daughter, That 'their' days might be long in 'the land.'"

A young barrister once tried to raise a laugh at the Mess dinner at the expense of "Jerry Keller," a barrister who was prominent in social circles of Dublin, and whose cousin, a wine merchant, held the contract for supplying wine to the Mess cellar. "I have noticed," said the junior, "that the claret bottles are growing smaller and smaller at each Assizes since your cousin became our wine merchant."—"Whist!" replied Jerry; "don't you be talking of what you know nothing about. It's quite natural the bottles should be growing smaller, because we all know they shrink in the washing."

An ingenious expedient was devised to save a prisoner charged with robbery in the Criminal Court at Dublin. The principal thing that appeared in evidence against him was a confession, alleged to have been made by him at the police office. The document, purporting to contain this self-criminating acknowledgment, was produced by the officer, and the following passage was read from it:

"Mangan said he never robbed but twice Said it was Crawford."

This, it will be observed, has no mark of the writer having any notion of punctuation, but the meaning attached to it was, that

"Mangan said he never robbed but twice. Said it was Crawford."

Mr. O'Gorman, the counsel for the prisoner, begged to look at the paper. He perused it, and rather astonished the peace officer by asserting, that so far from its proving the man's guilt, it clearly established his innocence. "This," said the learned gentleman, "is the fair and obvious reading of the sentence:

"Mangan said he never robbed; But twice said it was Crawford."

This interpretation had its effect on the jury, and the man was acquitted.

* * * * *

There were two barristers at the Irish Bar who formed a singular contrast in their stature—Ninian Mahaffy was as much above the middle size as Mr. Collis was below it. When Lord Redsdale was Lord Chancellor of Ireland these two gentlemen chanced to be retained in the same cause a short time after his lordship's elevation, and before he was personally acquainted with the Irish Bar. Mr. Collis was opening the motion, when the Lord Chancellor observed, "Mr. Collis, when a barrister addresses the Court, he must stand."—"I am standing on the bench, my lord," said Collis. "I beg a thousand pardons," said his lordship, somewhat confused. "Sit down, Mr. Mahaffy."—"I am sitting, my lord," was the reply to the confounded Chancellor.

A barrister who was present on this occasion made it the subject of the following epigram:

"Mahaffy and Collis, ill-paired in a case, Representatives true of the rattling size ace; To the heights of the law, though I hope you will rise, You will never be judges I'm sure of a(s)size."

A very able barrister, named Collins, had the reputation of occasionally involving his adversary in a legal net, and, by his superior subtlety, gaining his cause. On appearing in Court in a case with the eminent barrister, Mr. Pigot, Q.C., there arose a question as to who should be leader, Mr. Collins being the senior in standing at the Bar, Mr. Pigot being one of the Queen's Counsel. "I yield," said Mr. Collins; "my friend holds the honours."—"Faith, if he does, Stephen," observed Mr. Herrick, "'tis you have all the tricks."

* * * * *



It is told by one of O'Connell's biographers that he never prepared his addresses to judges or juries—he trusted to the inspiration of the moment. He had at command humour and pathos, invective and argument; he was quick-witted and astonishingly ready in repartee, and he brought all these into play, as he found them serviceable in influencing the bench or the jury-box.

Lord Manners, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, stopped several of the many counsels in a Chancery suit by saying he had made up his mind. He, in fact, lost his temper as each in succession rose, and he declined them in turn. At last O'Connell, one of the unheard counsel, began in his deepest and most emphatic tone: "Well then, my lord, since your lordship refuses to hear my learned friend, you will be pleased to hear ME"; and then he plunged into the case, without waiting for any expression, assent or dissent, or allowing any interruption. On he went, discussing and distinguishing, and commenting and quoting, till he secured the attention of, and evidently was making an impression on, the unwilling judge. Every few minutes O'Connell would say: "Now, my lord, my learned young friend beside me, had your lordship heard him, would have informed your lordship in a more impressive and lucid manner than I can hope to do," etcetera, until he finished a masterly address. The Lord Chancellor next morning gave judgment in favour of O'Connell's client.

He was engaged in a will case, the allegation being that the will was a forgery. The subscribing witness swore that the will had been signed by the deceased "while life was in him"—that being an expression derived from the Irish language, which peasants who have long ceased to speak Irish still retain. The evidence was strong in favour of the will, when O'Connell was struck by the persistency of the man, who always repeated the same words, "The life was in him." O'Connell asked: "On the virtue of your oath, was he alive?"—"By the virtue of my oath, the life was in him."—"Now I call upon you in the presence of your Maker, who will one day pass sentence on you for this evidence, I solemnly ask—and answer me at your peril—was there not a live fly in the dead man's mouth when his hand was placed on the will?" The witness was taken aback at this question; he trembled, turned pale, and faltered out an abject confession that the counsellor was right; a fly had been introduced into the mouth of the dead man, to allow the witness to swear that "life was in him."

O'Connell was defending John Connor on a charge of murder. The most incriminating evidence was the finding of the murderer's hat, left behind on the road. The all-important question was as to the identity of the hat as that of the accused man. A constable was prepared to swear to it. "You found this hat?" said O'Connell. "Yes."—"You examined it?"—"Yes."—"You know it to be the prisoner's property?"—"Yes."—"When you picked it up you saw it was damaged?"—"Yes."—"And looking inside you saw the prisoner's name, J-O-H-N C-O-N-N-O-R?" (here he spelt out the name slowly). "Yes," was the answer. "There is no name inside at all, my lord," said O'Connell, and the prisoner was saved.

* * * * *

Explaining to a judge his absence from the Civil Court at the time a case was heard, in which he should have appeared as counsel, O'Connell said he could not leave a client in the Criminal Court until the verdict was given. "What was it?" inquired the judge. "Acquitted," responded O'Connell. "Then you have got off a wretch who is not fit to live," said the judge. O'Connell, knowing his lordship to be a very religious man, at once replied: "I am sure you will agree with me that a man whom you regard as not fit to live would be still more unfit to die."

* * * * *

There was a young barrister—a contemporary of O'Connell—named Parsons, who had a good deal of humour, and who hated the whole tribe of attorneys. Perhaps they had not treated him very well, but his prejudice against them was very constant and conspicuous. One day, in the Hall of the Four Courts, an attorney came up to him to beg a subscription towards burying a brother attorney who had died in distressed circumstances. Parsons took out a one-pound note and tendered it. "Oh, Mr. Parsons," said the applicant, "I do not want so much—I only ask a shilling from each contributor. I have limited myself to that, and I cannot really take more."—"Oh, take it, take it," said Parsons; "for God's sake, my good sir, take the pound, and while you are at it bury twenty of them."

There is a terseness in the following which seems to be inimitable. Lord Norbury was travelling with Parsons; they passed a gibbet. "Parsons," said Norbury, with a chuckle, "where would you be now if every one had his due?"—"Alone in my carriage," replied Parsons.

* * * * *

Here is a young Irishman's first Bar-speech. "Your lordships perceive that we stand here as our grandmothers' administrators de bonis non; and really, my lords, it does strike me that it would be a monstrous thing to say that a party can now come in, in the very teeth of an Act of Parliament, and actually turn us round, under colour of hanging us up, on the foot of a contract made behind our backs."

A learned Serjeant MacMahon was noted for his confusion of language in his efforts to be sublime. He cared less for the sense than the sound. As, for example: "Gentlemen of the jury, I smell a rat—but I'll nip it in the bud." And, "My client acted boldly. He saw the storm brewing in the distance, but he was not dismayed! He took the bull by the horns and he indicted him for perjury."

Peter Burrowes, a well-known member of the Irish Bar, was on one occasion counsel for the prosecution at an important trial for murder. Burrowes had a severe cold, and opened his speech with a box of lozenges in one hand and in the other the small pistol bullet by which the man had met his death. Between the pauses of his address he kept supplying himself with a lozenge. But at last, in the very middle of a 'high-falutin' period, he stopped. His legal chest heaved, his eyes seemed starting from his head, and in a voice tremulous with fright he exclaimed: "Oh! h-h!!! Gentlemen, gentlemen; I've swallowed the bul-let!"

An Irish counsel who was once asked by the judge for whom he was "concerned," replied: "My lord, I am retained by the defendant, and therefore I am concerned for the plaintiff."

A junior at the Bar in course of his speech began to use a simile of "the eagle soaring high above the mists of the earth, winning its daring flight against a midday sun till the contemplation becomes too dazzling for humanity, and mortal eyes gaze after it in vain." Here the orator was noticed to falter and lose the thread of his speech, and sat down after some vain attempts to regain it; the judge remarking: "The next time, sir, you bring an eagle into Court, I should recommend you to clip its wings."

Mr. Tim Healy's power of effective and stinging repartee is probably unexcelled. He is seldom at a loss for a retort, and there are not a few politicians and others who regret having been foolish enough to rouse his resentment. There is on record, however, an amusing interlude in the passing of which Tim was discomfited—crushed, and found himself unable to "rise to the occasion."

During the hearing of a case at the Recorder's Court in Dublin the Testament on which the witnesses were being sworn disappeared. After a lengthy hunt for it, counsel for the defendant noticed that Mr. Healy had taken possession of the book, and was deeply absorbed in its contents, and quite unconscious of the dismay its disappearance was causing.

"I think, sir," said the counsel, addressing the Recorder, "that Mr. Healy has the Testament." Hearing his name mentioned, Mr. Healy looked up, realised what had occurred, and, with apologies, handed it over.

"You see, sir," added the counsel, "Mr. Healy was so interested that he did not know of our loss. He took it for a new publication." For once Mr. Healy's nimble wit failed him, and forced him to submit to the humiliation of being scored off.

In the North of Ireland the peasantry pronounce the word witness "wetness." At Derry Assizes a man said he had brought his "wetness" with him to corroborate his evidence. "Bless me," said the judge, "about what age are you?"—"Forty-two my last birthday, my lord," replied the witness. "Do you mean to tell the jury," said the judge, "that at your age you still have a wet nurse?"—"Of course I have, my lord." Counsel hereupon interposed and explained.

The witness who gave the following valuable testimony, however, was probably keeping strictly to fact. "I sees Phelim on the top of the wall. 'Paddy,' he says. 'What,' says I. 'Here,' says he. 'Where?' says I. 'Hush,' says he. 'Whist,' says I. And that's all."

The wit of the Irish Bar seems to infect even the officers of the Courts and the people who enter the witness-box. It is impossible, for example, not to admire the fine irony of the usher who, when he was told to clear the Court, called out: "All ye blaggards that are not lawyers lave the building."

Irish judges have much greater difficulties to contend against, because the people with whom they have to deal have a fund of ready retort. "Sir," said an exasperated Irish judge to a witness who refused to answer the questions put to him—"sir, this is a contempt of Court."—"I know it, my lord, but I was endeavouring to concale it," was the irresistible reply.

A certain Irish attorney threatening to prosecute a printer for inserting in his paper the death of a person still living, informed him that "No person should publish a death unless informed of the fact by the party deceased."

A rather amusing story is told of a trial where one of the Irish jurymen had been "got at" and bribed to secure the jury agreeing to a verdict of "Manslaughter," however much they might want to return one upon the capital charge of "Murder." The jury were out for several hours, and it was believed that eventually the result would be that they would not agree upon a verdict at all. However, close upon midnight, they were starved into one, and it was that of "Manslaughter." Next day the particular juryman concerned received his promised reward, and in paying it, the man who had arranged it for him remarked: "I suppose you had a great deal of difficulty in getting the other jurymen to agree to a verdict of 'Manslaughter'?"—"I should just think I did," replied the man. "I had to knock it into them, for all the others—the whole eleven of them—wanted to acquit him."

An Irish lawyer addressed the Court as Gentlemen instead of Your Honours. When he had concluded, a brother lawyer pointed out his error. He immediately rose and apologised thus: "In the heat of the debate I called your honours gentlemen,—I made a mistake, your honours."



CHAPTER FIVE

THE JUDGES OF SCOTLAND

"Ye Barristers of England Your triumphs idle are, Till ye can match the names that ring Round Caledonia's Bar. Your John Doe and your Richard Roe Are but a paltry pair: Look at those who compose The flocks round Brodie's Stair, Who ruminate on Shaw and Tait And flock round Brodie's Stair.

* * * * *

"But, Barristers of England, Come to us lovingly, And any Scot who greets you not We'll send to Coventry. Put past your brief, embark for Leith, And when you've landed there, Any wight with delight Will point out Brodie's Stair Or lead you all through Fountainhall Till you enter Brodie's Stair."

OUTRAM: Legal and other Lyrics.



CHAPTER FIVE

THE JUDGES OF SCOTLAND

From the Institution of the Court of Session by James V of Scotland till well into the nineteenth century, it was the custom of Scottish judges when taking their seat on the Bench to assume a title from an estate—it might even be from a farm—already in their own or their family's possession. So we find that nearly every parish in Scotland has given birth to a judge who by this practice has made that parish or an estate in it more or less familiar to Scottish ears. Monboddo, near Fordoun, in Kincardineshire, at once recalls the judge who gave "attic suppers" in his house in St. John Street, Edinburgh, and held a theory that all infants were born with tails like monkeys; but under the modern practice of simply adding "Lord" to his surname of Burnet, we doubt if his eccentric personality would be so readily remembered. Lord Dirleton's Doubts, Lord Fountainhall's Historical Observes, carry a more imposing sound in their titles than if those one-time indispensable works of reference had been simply named Nisbet on Legal Doubts, and Lauder on Historical Observations of Memorable Events.

The selection of a title was an important matter with these old judges. When Lauder was raised to the Bench, his estate to the south-east of Edinburgh was called Woodhead; but it would never have done for a Senator of the College of Justice to be known as "Lord Woodhead," so the name of the estate was changed to Fountainhall, and as Lord Fountainhall he took his seat among "the Fifteen" as the full Bench of judges was then termed.

These old-time judges with their rugged ferocity, corruption, and occasionally brave words and deeds, in a great measure present to us now a miniature history of Scotland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. "Show me the man, and I will show you the law," one is reported to have said, meaning that the litigant with the longest purse was pretty certain to win his case in the long run. They delighted in long arguments, and highly appreciated bewilderment in pleadings; "Dinna be brief," cried one judge when an advocate modestly asked to be briefly heard in a case in which he appeared as junior counsel. But the tendency to delay cases in the old Courts stretched beyond all reasonable lengths and became a scandal to the country. It was not a question of a month or even a year. Years passed and still cases remained undecided, some even were passed on from one generation to another—a litigant by his will handing on his plea in the Court to his successor along with his estate. This protracted delay in deciding causes formed the subject of that highly amusing and characteristic skit on the Scottish judges for which Boswell was largely responsible: