Law and Laughter Part 4

"Mr. F----, if you establish the latter part of your proposition, your client will be acquitted to a certainty."

And to the same authority we are indebted for a judge's gentle but sarcastic reproof of a prosing counsel. In an action for false imprisonment, heard before Mr. Justice Wightman, Ribton was addressing the jury at great length, repeating himself constantly, and never giving the slightest sign of winding up. When he had been pounding away for several hours, the good old judge interposed, and said: "Mr. Ribton, you've said that before."--"Have I, my lord?" said Ribton; "I'm very sorry. I quite forgot it."--"Don't apologise, Mr. Ribton," was the answer. "I forgive you; for it was a very long time ago."

A very old story is told of a highwayman who sent for a solicitor and inquired what steps were necessary to be taken to have his trial deferred. The solicitor answered that he would require to get a doctor's affidavit of his illness. This was accordingly done in the following manner: "The deponent verily believes that if the said ---- is obliged to take his trial at the ensuing sessions, he will be in imminent danger of his life."--"I verily believe so too," replied the judge, and the trial proceeded immediately.

Some judges profess ignorance of slang terms used in evidence, and seek explanation from counsel. Lord Coleridge in the following story had his inquiry not only answered but ill.u.s.trated. A witness was describing an animated conversation between the pursuer and defendant in a case and said: "Then the defendant turned and said, 'If 'e didn't 'owld 'is noise 'ed knock 'im off 'is peark.'"--"Peark? Mr. Shee, what is meant by peark?" asked the Lord Chief Justice. "Oh, peark, my lord, is any position when a man elevates himself above his fellows--for instance, a bench, my lord."

Another story ill.u.s.trating this alleged ignorance of every-day terms used by the ma.s.ses comes from the Scottish Court of Session. In this instance the explanation was volunteered by the witness who used the term. One of the counsel in the case was Mr. (now Lord) Dewar, who was cross-examining the witness on a certain incident, and drew from him the statement that he (the witness) had just had a "nip." "A nip," said the judge; "what is a nip?"--"Only a small Dewar, my lord," explained the witness.

Lord Russell of Killowen, himself a Lord Chief Justice, tells some amusing stories of Lord Coleridge in his interesting reminiscences of that great judge in the _North American Review_. When at the Bar he was counsel in a remarkable case--Saurin against Starr. The pursuer, an Irish lady, sued the Superior of a religious order at Hull for expulsion without reasonable cause. Mr. Coleridge cross-examined a Mrs. Kennedy, one of the superintendents of the convent, who had mentioned in her evidence, among other peccadilloes of the pursuer, that she had been found in the pantry eating strawberries, when she should have been attending some cla.s.s duties.

Mr. Coleridge: "Eating strawberries, really!"

Mrs. Kennedy: "Yes, sir, she was eating strawberries."

Mr. Coleridge: "How shocking!"

Mrs. Kennedy: "It was forbidden, sir."

Mr. Coleridge: "And did you, Mrs. Kennedy, really consider there was any great harm in that?"

Mrs. Kennedy: "No, sir, not in itself, any more than there was harm in eating an apple; but you know, sir, the mischief that came from that."

When as Lord Chief Justice, Lord Coleridge visited the United States, he was continually pestered by interviewers, and one of them failing to draw him, began to disparage the old country in its physical features and its men. Lord Coleridge bore it all in good part; finally the interviewer said, "I am told, my lord, you think a great deal of your great fire of London. Well, I guess, that the conflagration we had in the little village of Chicago made your great fire look very small." To which his lordship blandly responded: "Sir, I have every reason to believe that the great fire of London was quite as great as the people of that time desired."

There are few of Lord Bowen's witticisms from the Bench in circulation, but his after-dinner stories are worth recording, and perhaps one of the best is that given in _Anecdotes of the Bench and Bar_, as told by himself in the following words: "One of the ancient rabbinical writers was engaged in compiling a history of the minor prophets, and in due course it became his duty to record the history of the prophet Daniel.

In speaking of the most striking incident in the great man's career--I refer to his critical position in the den of lions--he made a remark which has always seemed to me replete with judgment and observation. He said that the prophet, notwithstanding the trying circ.u.mstances in which he was placed, had one consolation which has sometimes been forgotten.

He had the consolation of knowing that when the dreadful banquet was over, at any rate it was not he who would be called upon to return thanks."

The following story cannot be cla.s.sed a witticism from the Bench, but the judge clearly gave the opening for the lady's smart retort.

Mrs. Weldon, a well-known lady litigant in the Courts a generation ago, was on one occasion endeavouring in the Court of Appeal to upset a judgment of Vice-Chancellor Bacon, and one ground of complaint was that the judge was too old to understand her case. Thereupon Lord Esher said: "The last time you were here you complained that your case had been tried by my brother Bowen, and you said he was only a bit of a boy, and could not do you justice. Now you come here and say that my brother Bacon was too old. What age do you want the judge to be?"--"Your age,"

promptly replied Mrs. Weldon, fixing her bright eyes on the handsome countenance of the Master of the Rolls.

On Charles Phillips, who became a judge of the Insolvent Court, noticing a witness kiss his thumb instead of the Testament, after rebuking him said, "You may think to _desave_ G.o.d, sir, but you won't desave me."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIR HENRY HAWKINS, LORD BRAMPTON.]

That racy and turf-attending judge, Lord Brampton, better known as Sir Henry Hawkins, tells many good stories of himself in his _Reminiscences_, but it is the unconscious humorist of Marylebone Police Court who records this _bon mot_ of Sir Henry.

An old woman in the witness-box had been rattling on in the most voluble manner, until it was impossible to make head or tail of her evidence.

Mr. Justice Hawkins, thinking he would try his hand, began with a soothing question, but the old woman would not have it at any price. She replied testily, "It's no use you bothering me. I have told you all I know."--"That may be," replied his lordship, "but the question rather is, do you know all you have told us?"

When Sir Henry (then Mr.) Hawkins was prosecuting counsel in the Tichborne trial, over which Lord Chief Justice c.o.c.kburn presided, an amusing incident is recorded by Mr. Plowden. The antecedents of a man who had given sensational evidence for the claimant were being inquired into, and in answer to Sir Henry the witness under examination said he knew the man to be married, but his wife pa.s.sed under another name.

"What name?" asked Mr. Hawkins. "Mrs. Hawkins," replied the witness.

"What was her maiden name?" added Mr. Hawkins. "c.o.c.kburn." Such a coincident of names naturally caused hearty and prolonged laughter.

In the course of this celebrated trial another amusing incident occurred which Sir Henry used to tell against himself. One morning as the claimant came into Court, a lady dressed in deep mourning presented Orton with a tract. After a few minutes he wrote something on it, and had it pa.s.sed on to the prosecuting counsel. The tract was boldly headed in black type, "Sinner--Repent," and the claimant had written upon it, "Surely this must have been meant for Hawkins."

Not long after he had ascended the Bench Mr. Justice Hawkins was hearing a case in which a man was being tried for murder. The counsel for the prosecution observed the prisoner say something earnestly to the policeman seated by his side in the dock, and asked that the constable should be made to disclose what had pa.s.sed. "Yes," said his lordship, "I think you may demand that. Constable, inform the Court what pa.s.sed between you and the prisoner."--"I--I would rather not, your lordship. I was--."--"Never mind what you would rather not do. Inform the Court what the prisoner said."--"He asked me, your lordship, who that h.o.a.ry heathen with the sheepskin was, as he had often seen him at the race-course."--"That will do," said his lordship. "Proceed with the case."

An action for damages against a fire insurance company, brought by some Jews, was heard before Chief Justice c.o.c.kburn, which clearly was a fraudulent claim. The plaintiffs claimed for loss of ready-made clothes in the fire. Hawkins, who appeared for the defendant company, elicited the fact that ready-made clothes in this firm had all bra.s.s b.u.t.tons as a rule; and, further, that after sifting the debris of the fire no b.u.t.tons had been found. The trial was not concluded on that day, but on the following morning hundreds of b.u.t.tons partially burnt were brought into Court by the Jew plaintiffs. c.o.c.kburn was not long in appreciating this mode of furnishing evidence after its necessity had been pointed out, and he asked: "How do you account for these b.u.t.tons, Mr. Hawkins? You said none were found."--"Up to last night none had been found," replied Hawkins. "But," said the Chief Justice--"but these b.u.t.tons have evidently been burnt in the fire. How do they come here?"--"_On their own shanks_," was Hawkins' smart and ready reply. Verdict for defendants.

The alibi has come in for its fair share of jests. Sir Henry Hawkins relates in his _Reminiscences_ how he once found the following in his brief: "If the case is called on before 3.15, the defence is left to the ingenuity of the counsel; if after that hour, the defence is an alibi, as by then the usual alibi witnesses will have returned from Norwich, where they are at present professionally engaged."

Sitting as a vacation judge, Sir Walter Phillimore, whose views on the law of divorce are well known, protested against being called on to make absolute a number of decrees _nisi_ granted in the Divorce Division.

This fact is said to have called forth a witty p.r.o.nouncement by a late president of that Division of the Courts. "Here is my brother Phillimore, who objects to making decrees _nisi_ absolute because he believes in the sanct.i.ty of the marriage tie. By and by we may be having a Unitarian appointed to the Bench, and he will refuse to try Admiralty suits, as he would have to sit with Trinity Masters."

In sentencing a burglar recently, the judge referred to him as a "professional," to which the prisoner strongly protested from the dock.

"Here," he exclaimed, "I dunno wot you mean by callin' me a professional burglar. I've only done it once before, an' I've been nabbed both times." The judge, in the most suave manner, replied, "Oh, I did not mean to say that you had been very successful in your profession."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HON. MR JUSTICE GRANTHAM, JUDGE OF THE KING'S BENCH DIVISION.]

Mr. Justice Grantham had a keen sense of humour. On one occasion, when he was judge at the Newcastle a.s.sizes, he left the mansion-house where he was staying, at night, to post his letters. As he was wearing a cap he was not recognised by the police officer who was on duty outside, and the constable inquired of his lordship if "the old ---- had gone to bed yet." The judge replied that he thought not, and a short while after he had returned to the house he raised his bedroom window, and putting out his head called to the constable below: "Officer, the old ---- is just going to bed now."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HON. MR JUSTICE DARLING, JUDGE OF THE KING'S BENCH DIVISION.]

Hardly a case of any importance comes into Mr. Justice Darling's Court without attracting a large attendance of the public, as much from expectation of being entertained by the repartees between Bench and Bar as from interest in the proceedings before the Court. In a recent turf libel case his lordship gave a free rein to his proclivity to give an amusing turn to statements of both counsel and witnesses. At one point he intervened by remarking that other witnesses than the one under examination had said that a horse is made fit by running on the course before he is expected to win a position, and added, "That is so, not only on the race-course. You can never make a good lawyer by putting him to read in the library." To which the defendant, who conducted his own case, replied, "But I take it a barrister does try."--"You have no notion how he tries the judge," responded Mr. Justice Darling. In the same case a question arose as to whether the stewards of the Jockey Club had the power to check riding "short," as it is termed, and the Justice inquired if the stewards could say, "You must ride with a leather of a prescribed length," and got the answer, "Yes; they could say if you don't ride longer we won't give you a license."--"Which means," said the judge, "if you don't ride longer you won't ride long."

"Who made the translation from the German?" asked the same judge, regarding a doc.u.ment to which counsel had referred. "G.o.d knows; I don't," was the reply of Mr. Danckwerts. "Are you sure," responded the Justice, "that what is not known to you is known at all?"

Perhaps Mr. Justice Darling never raised heartier laughter than in an action some years ago where the issue was whether the plaintiff, who had been engaged by the defendant to sing in "potted opera" at a music-hall, was competent to fulfil his contract.

"Well, he could not sing like the archangel Gabriel," a witness had said, in reply to Mr. Duke, K. C.

"I have never heard the archangel Gabriel," commented the eminent counsel.

"That, Mr. Duke, is a pleasure to come," was his lordship's swift, if gently sarcastic, rejoinder.

If witnesses occasionally undergo severe handling in cross-examination by counsel, there are also occasions when their ready reply has rather nonplussed the judge.

A case was being tried at York before Mr. Justice Gould. When it had proceeded for upwards of two hours the judge observed that there were only eleven jurymen in the box, and inquired where the twelfth man was.

"Please you, my lord," said one of them, "he has gone away about some business, but he has left his verdict with me."

"How old are you?" asked the judge of a lady witness.

"Thirty."--"Thirty!" said the judge; "I have heard you give the same age in this Court for the last three years."--"Yes," responded the lady; "I am not one of those persons who say one thing to-day and another to-morrow."

Mr. Justice Keating one day had occasion to examine a witness who stuttered very much in giving his evidence. "I believe," said his lordship, "you are a very great rogue."--"Not so great a rogue as you, my lord--t--t--t--t--take me to be," was the reply.