ALLAN R TREMAN ^^3iAO^, iHEir TORX I Cornell university Library ! KD 358.P29 1899 Curiosities of law andSers ' The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924017019120 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEES. "^ CUEIOSITIES LAW AND LAWYERS BY CEOAKE JAMES NEW EDITION, GREATLY ENLARGED NEW YORK FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY 1899 PREFACE. On lately retiring, after half a century's prac- tice of the Law, my companions, in Grand Divan assembled, bound me over to complete for their use a Eepertory of G-ood Things relating to our common profession, which I had long been preparing, and of which they had read and heard snatches. " These presents " contain this fond memorial of departed joys. There are many favourite sayings, standard illustrations, golden sentences, exploits of legal heroes, jests, ex- planations of curious and memorable doctrines and incidents, which make up the "natural history " of the Lawyer Tribe. I have with great care selected and assorted these, and trust they wiU be found to amuse, if not edify, Lawyers, as well as their numerous Clients. 0. J. CONTENTS. PAOSS CHAPTEK I. Abottt Lawyers Generally 1, 500 CHAPTER II. About Judges .... .... 16, 514 CHAPTER III. About the Law, Legal Authors, and Courts . . 72, 545 CHAPTER IV. About Advocates, Pleaders, Conveyancers, akd At- TOENIES 108, 656 CHAPTER V. About Counsel, the Attorney-General, Circuits, and Inns op Court . 158, 566 CHAPTEK VI. About the Church, Bishops, and Clergy . . . 226, 604 CHAPTER VII. About Government, the Sovereign, Parliament, and Public Rights . . .... 241, 615 VIU CONTENTS. TAHES CHAPTEK vni. About Punishments, Peisonbes, and Justices of the Peace 294, 636 CHAPTER IX. About Bbceeations of Judges and Lawyers . . 842, 667 CHAPTER X. About Chancblloes and the Gebat Seal , . . 373, 696 CHAPTER XI. About Nice Points op Law, and Things not Genkkallt Known 415, 730 CHAPTER xn. About Witnesses and Jurymen ..... 447, 746 CHAPTER XIII. About the Dead and Theie Wills ..... 491, 762 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. CHAPTER I. ABOUT LAWYERS GENERALLY. HOW LAWYERS GET TO HEAVEN. There is a pleasant story of a lawyer, who, being refused entrance into heaven by St. Peter, contrived to throw his hat inside the door; and then, beirg permitted by the kind saint to go, in and fetch it, tooK advantage of his being fixed to his post as doorkeeper to refuse to come back again. THE lawyer's pilgrim's PROGRESS. Adolphus, the criminal lawyer, says that the judges in 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). The judges, he says, acknowledged there was much sad truth in this jingle. THE lawyer's patron SAINT. St. Evona, or Ives, of Brittany, a famous lawyer in 1300, was lamenting that his profession had not a patron saint to look up to. The physicians had St. Luke; the champions had St. George; the artists each had one; but the lawyers had none. Thinking that the Pope ought to bestow a saint, he went to Rome, and requested his Holiness to give the lawyers of Brittany a patron. The Pope, rather puzzled, proposed to St. Evona that he should go round 2 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYERS. the church of St. John de Lateran blindfold, and after he had said so many Ave Marias, the first saint he laid hold ol should be his patron; and this solution of the diffi- culty the good old lawyer willingly undertook. When he had finished his Ave Marias, he stopped short, and laid his hands on the first image he came to, and cried out with joy, "This is our saint — this be our patron." But when the bandage was taken from his eyes, what was his astonishment to find, that, though he had stopped at St. Michael's altar, he had all the while laid hold, not of St. Michael, but of the figure under St. Michael's feet — the devil ! This St. Evona of Brittany, it is said in Carr's account of the Netherlands, 1684, was so dejected at the choice of a patron saint, that in a few months he died, and coming to heaven's gates knocked hard. Whereupon St. Peter asked who it was that knocked so boldly. He replied that he was St. Evona the advocate. "Away, away ! " said St. Peter ; " here is but one advocate in heaven ; here is no room for you lawyers." " Oh, but," said St. Evona, " I am that honest lawyer who never took fees on both sides, nor pleaded in a bad cause ; nor did I ever set my neighbours together by the ears, nor lived by the sins of the people." " Well, then," said St. Peter, " come in ! " He became the patron saint himself. This story puts one in mind of Ben Jonson going through a church in Surrey, and seeing poor people weeping over a grave, whereupon he asked one of the women why they wept. " Oh," said she, " we have lost our precious lawyer. Justice Eandall. He kept us all in peace, and always was so good as to keep us from going to law — the best man that ever lived." " Well," said Ben Jonson, " I will send you an epitaph to write upon his tomb," which was — God works wonders now and then : Here lies a lawyer — an honest man. WHY LAWYERS TAKE UP BAD CASES. One of the most famous French advocates, Langlois, was asked by the President of the Parliament of Paris' LAWYERS GENEEALLT. 3 why he took upon him to plead bad causes. He an- swered, with a smile, that he did it because he had lost a great many good ones. It was said by Alexander ab Alexandro, a famous Neapolitan lawyer about 1500, that when he saw it was impossible for advocates to support their clients against the power and favour of the great, it was to no purpose to take so much pains in studying the law, for the issue of suits depended, not on the justice of the cause, but on the favour and affection of a lazy and corrupt judge, whom the laws suppose to be a good and upright man. — Bayle's Diet. Laud relates in his diary, that when he was standing one day, during dinner, near his unfortunate master, then Prince Charles, the prince, who was in cheerful spirits, talking of many things as occasion offered, said that if necessity compelled him to choose any particular pro- fession of life, he would not be a lawyer ; " for," he said, " I can neither defend a bad cause, nor yield in a good one." ROMAN AND DUTCH ADVOCATES — ON THEIR VOCATION. By the Roman laws every advocate was required to swear that he would not undertake a cause which he knew to be unjust, and that he would abandon a defence which he should discover to be supported by falsehood or iniquity. [Cicero's oration pro Milone is a striking instance of the strict observance of this rule !] This is continued in Holland at this day ; and if an advocate brings forward a cause there which appears to the Court clearly iniquitous, he is condemned in the costs of the suit ; the examples will, of course, be very rare : more than one has, however, occurred within the memory of persons who are now living. The possible inconvenience that a cause just in itself might not be able to find a defender, is obviated in that country by an easy provision: a party who can find no advocate, and is nevertheless persuaded of the validity of his cause, may apply to the Court, which has in such cases a discretionary power of 4 CUBIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWTBE3. authorizing or appointing one. — Quarterly Review, Jan. 1831. . And the same course as that last mentioned ia said to have been always followed in Scotland. A SUBTLE LAWYEB. They used to say of Wise, a lawyer of Lincoln's Inn, a very subtle and acute man in all business he undertook, that he was like a mouse among joint-stools : one may see where he moves and runs, but no man knows where to hit him. — Camden Soc. (No. 5), 35. THE devil's advocate. In the Eomish procedure relating to the canonization of saints, one prominent official who takes part in the business is called the devil's advocate. When the canoni- zation is proposed, it lies on the part of the Church to set forth all the virtues of the saint, the miracles his bones have wrought, and all the merits that can be ascribed to the deceased. And, on the other hand, the function of the devil's advocate is to find flaws in all this evidence, to slight the good deeds, to doubt the miracles, and to rake up all the evil that can be said or thought against the deceased, so as to show that there is no good ground for the canonization. Hence a devil's advocate is often an apt description of any one who makes unscrupu- lous accusations and abuses worthy characters. HE WHO IS HIS OWN LAWYER IS A FOOL. Mr. Cleave, when tried before Lord Lyndhurst in the Court of Exchequer, acted as his own counsel, and began his speech by remarking that before he sat down he feared he should give an awkward illustration of the truth of the old adage, namely, that he who acts as hu own counsel has a fool for his client. The judge at once remarked, " Oh, Mr. Cleave, don't you mind that adage : it was framed by the lawyers!' LAWTEBS OEIS'EBALLY. THE SECRET OF SUCCESS IN LAWSUITS. A veteran attorney, Mr. Selwin, who once stood as candidate for Chamberlaia of London, after retiring from business, on being asked by his niece what were the requisites for success in litigation, replied as follows : " Why, it depends on a number of circumstances : first you must have a good case ; secondly, a good attorney ; thirdly, a good counsel ; fourthly, good witnesses ; fifthly, a good jury ; sixthly, a good judge; and, lastly, good luck." FIEST BOOK FOB A LAWYER'S LIBRARY. Macklin, the actor, told a company that he at first designed his son for the law, and for this purpose entered him in the Temple, where he procured chambers and a library above what he could afford, considering the un- certainty of his income. " And what book, sir," said the veteran actor, " do you think I made him begin with ? Why, sir, I'll tell you— the Bible— the Holy Bible." "The Bible, Macklin, for a law^'er !" exclaimed his friend. "Yes, sir, the properest and most scientific book for an honest lawyer, as there you will find the foundation of aU law as well as aU morality." AN IRONICAL DEFINITION OF A LAWYER. Lord Brougham is said in an ironical way to have defined a lawyer as "a learned gentleman who rescues your estate from your enemies, and keeps it to himself." BUT FEW HONEST LAWYEES. Lord Clarendon (the second) in his diary (Jan. 1689), says, " I was at the Temple with Mr. Roger North and Sir Charles Porter, who are the only two honest lawyers I ever met with." OUB LAWYER ENGAGED ON THE OTHER SIDE. An opulent farmer applied to an attorney about commencing a lawsuit, but was told that the latter b CDEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEES. could not undertake it, being already engaged on the other side. At the same time he said he would give the client a letter of recommendation to a professional friend, which he did. The farmer is said out of curiosity to have opened the letter, and read as follows : Here are two fat wethers fallen out together ; If you'll fleece one, I'll fleece the other, And make 'em agree like brother and brother. The perusal of this letter, it is said, opened the eyes of the clients, and cured them at once. THE POETION OF A JUST LAWYEE. The following was considered gravely humorous in 1740, as " Didius," in the GentleTnan's Magazine of that date, writes to that journal: "I was in company with two or three friends some time ago, when the discourse turning upon the subject of lawyers, many severe things were said of that body of men, and the ill practices they are often guilty of But a grave gentleman replied that it was far from an equitable proceeding to condemn the whole for the faults of gome, since he personally knew several worthy men of the profession who constantly en- deavoured to compose differences, instead of promoting strife ; and repeated to us " The Portion of a Just Lawyer," as follows : " Whilst he lives, he is the delight of the court, the ornament of the bar, a pattern of inno- cency, the glory of his profession, a terror to deceit, the oracle of his country ; and when death calls him to the bar of Heaven by the de habendo corpus cum causd, he finds the judge his advocate, nonsuits the devil, and continues one of the long robe in glory." CLIENTS WHO LOSE AND CLIENTS WHO WIN. " I was mightily delighted with the whim I was shown on a sign at a village not far from this capital ; though it is too serious a truth to excite one's risibility. On one side is painted a man stark naked, with this motto : ' I am the man who went to law and lost my cause.' On the reverse is a fellow all in tatters, looking most dismally LAWYBBS GENERALLY. 7 with this motto : ' I am the man who went to law and got my cause.' "This brings to my mind a passage reported of the Scottish king, James I., who soon after his accession to the English throne would needs be present in court while a notable cause was pleading. Those on the plaintiff's side having finished what they had to say, it proved so much to the king's satisfaction, that he cried out, ' It is a plain case,' and was going, when somebody said to him, 'Please to stay, sir, and hear the other side.' He did so, and the defendant's party made their case no less plain to His Majesty's conceptions; whereupon the monarch departed in a passion crying, 'Rogues all! rogues all ! ' The late renowned Czar, Peter the Great, being in Englajid in term-time, and seeing multitudes of people swarming about the Great Hall wherein are held the three superior Courts of Judicature, is reported to have asked some about him who all those busy people .were, and what they were about. Being answered, ' They are laAvyers, sir.' ' Lawyers ! returned he, with great signs of astonishment, ' why, I have but two in my whole dominion, and I design to hang one of them the moment I get home 1' " — Fog's Journal, 1737. LITIGANTS AND LAWYERS. Hudibras with masterly skill and humour states the old, old story of litigants and lawyers : He that with injury is grieved, And goes to law to be relieved, Is silUer than a sottish chouse Who, when a thief has robb'd his house, Applies himself to cunning men To help him to his goods again : When all he can expect to gain Is but to squander more in vain. For lawyers, lest the hear defendant And plaintiff dog should make an end on't, Do stave and tail with writs of error, Reverse of judgment, and demurrer, To let them breathe awhile, and then Cry whoop, and set them on again : At last with subtil cobweb cheats They're caught in knotted law, like nets, 8 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEEB. In which, when once they are embrangled, The more they stir, the more they're tangled; And while their purses can dispute, There's no end of th' immortal suit. THE BUST LAWYER. Mr. Dunning when at the bar being in very great business, was asked how he contrived to get through all his work. He replied: "I do one third of it; another third does itself; and I don't do the remaining third." Lord Thurlow was once asked how he got through his business as Lord Chancellor. He answered, "Oh, just as a pickpocket gets through a horsepond : he must get through I " COMPARATIVE LEARNING OF LAWYERS. Serjeant Hill's opinion was asked by Nichols, whether Dunning was as learned as Serjeant Glyn. " No," was the answer ; " everything which Dunning knows, he knows accurately ; but Glyn knows a great deal more." Glyn was reputed the best-read lawyer in West- minster Hall, and took a leading part on Fox's Libel BiU. LAWYERS AS TRIMMERS. Sir James Mackintosh, when speaking of "the versatile politicians who had the art and fortune to slide unhurt through all the shocks of forty years of a revolutionary age," says, "the Marquess of Winchester, the Lord Keeper, who had served Henry VIL, and retained office under every intermediate government tUl he died in his ninety-seventh year, with the staff of Lord Treasurer in his hands, is perhaps the most remarkable specimen of this species preserved in history." But more scandal was excited in bis own time by William Herbert, whom Henry VIIL created Earl of Pembroke. Having followed all the fantasies of that monarch, and obtained from him the dissolved monastery of Wilton, he was a keen Protestant under Edward VI., and one of LAWYBES GBNERAIjI^T. 9 the first to acknowledge and to desert Queen Jane. Mary having restored Wilton to the nuns, he ia said to have received them " cap in hand ; " but when they were suppressed by Elizabeth, he drove them out of the monastery with his horsewhip, bestowing upon them an appellation which implied their constant breach of the vow they had taken.— 3 Mackintosh's Hist, of England, 155. POPULAR PREJUDICE AGAINST LAWYERS. In 1450 Jack Cade's rebellion broke out, which was specially aimed against the Chancellor and all concerned with the profession of the law. The measures at first taken to suppress it were most inefficient, and the King and his court were obliged to seek protection in Kenil- worth Castle, London opening its gates to the insurgents. The Chancellor took the chief management of affairs, and the rebels having received a repulse, he succeeded in dispersing them by off"ering a general pardon and setting a price on Cade's head, which was earned by Iden of Kent. Many supposed that Cade had been set on to try the disposition of the people towards the right heir to the crown. He pretended to be a son oi Mortimer, who had married the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, elder brother of John of Gaunt ; and in this belief thousands flocked to his standard. The Duke of York, the real heir through a daughter of Mortimer, at last openly set up his claim, for which there was now a very favourable opportunity, from the intellectuaJ weakness of the King, — ^from the extreme unpopularity of the Queen, whose private character was open to great suspicion, and who was considered a devoted partisan ot France,— from the loss of the foreign possessions which had so much flattered the pride of the English nation,--^ from the death and discomfiture of the ablest supporters of the reigning dynasty,— from the energy and popularity of the pretender himself, — ^and from the courage, the talents, and the resources of his numerous adherents. The claims of the rival houses being debated in the Temple Gardens, the red and white roses there plucked became the opposing emblems ; and men took different 10 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. sides according to their judgment, their prejudice, and their interest. — 1 Camp. Ghana, 352. The Chancellor, Simon de Sudbury, being the author of the abhorred capitation tax in 1380, in the rebellion which it excited was the first victim. John Ball, the famous seditious preacher, inveighed bitterly against him by name, and, in reference to his aristocratic birth, the often-quoted lines were made which, Hume says, " in spite of prejudice, we cannot but regard with some degree of approbation." When Adam delved, and Eve span, Where was then the gentleman ? The army, or rather mob, 100,000 strong, under Tyler and Straw, having taken post at Blackheath, and threatening genera] destruction — more especially to lawyers, and all who were supposed to have been instrumental in imposing the tax, or who resisted the demands for its repeal, the Chancellor took refuge in the Tower of London. They pursued him thither, attacked his fortress, and it being feebly defended, they soon stormed it. They instantly seized him, and dragged him to Tower Hill, with the declared intention of executing him there as a traitor. In this extremity he displayed great courage and con- stancy, and, addressing the multitude, reminded them of his sacred character, and tried to rouse them to some sense of justice and humanity. All these appeals were ineffectual; after many blows, his head was struck off, and his dead body was treated with barbarous indignity. In the riots of 1780 a similar spirit was displayed, and siege was laid to the Inns of Court with the intention of exterminating the whole race of lawyers, that " the skin of an innocent lamb " might no longer be converted into an indictment. — 1 Camp. Lives of Chanc, 283. DOCTOR COW-HEEL, THE CIVILIAN. Cowel, author of the Institutions and the Interpreter, was an eminent civilian in his day, and during the con- test between the civilians and the common lawyers he was the champion of the civilians, and countenanced by LAWTEBS GENERALLY. 11 James I. A great oracle of the common law (Coke) was pleased in derision to call him Doctor Cow-heel. And Fuller in his " Worthies " remarks of this nickname : " a cow-heel, I assure you, well dressed, is good meat, that a cook, when hungry, may lick his fingers after it." Fuller observes that " many slighted Cowel's book who used it, it being questionable whether it gave more information or offence. But a higher offence was charged upon him, that he made the king to have a double prerogative, the one limited by law, the other unlimited; which being complained of in Parliament, his book was called in and condemned." THE OLD SPIDER OF THE LAW. The Earl of Hardwicke (Lord Chancellor) and Lord Holland, though frequently in office together, seldom agreed in any measure, and not unfrequently opposed each other's bills from mere pique. Lord Hardwicke had opposed a bill of Lord Holland's, when Mr. Fox, in the Upper House with some acrimony. Mr. Fox, in com- menting on a private bill of Sir F. Delaval to enable him to sell an estate for the payment of his debts, threw out the following sarcasm on the Chancellor : " But where am I going ? Perhaps I shall be told, in another place, that this is a money bill, and shall be contravened upon this ground. How it can be so, I know not. But this I know, that, touch but a cobweb of Westminster Hall, and the old spider of the law is out upon you with all his younger vermin at his heels." LAWYERS ABUSED IN HOUSE OP LORDS. When Lord Hardwicke's Marriage Bill was in the House of Commons, Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, saying that one clause gave unheard-of power to parents on the marriage of minors, proceeded to lay open the chicanery and jargon of the lawyers, and the pride of their mufti, and drew a most severe picture of the Chan- cellor under the application of the story of a gentle- woman at Salisbury, who having a sore leg sent for a country surgeon, who pronounced that it must be cut oft 12 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTBES. The gentlewoman, unwilling to submit to the operation, sent for another more merciful, who said he could save her leg without the least operation. The surgeons con- ferred. The ignorant one said : " I know it might be saved, but I have given my opinion : my character de- pends upon it, and we must carry it through." The leg was cut oflF 1 VULGAR PREJUDICE AGAINST LAWYERS. Lords Mansfield, Camden, Loughborough, Ashburton, and Grantley, once having taken part in a discussion in the House of Lords, on a bill to disfranchise Cricklade for bribery, Lord Fortescue broke forth and bewailed the degraded dignity of the House, lowered and tarnished by a profusion of lawyers. It was no longer a House of Peers, he said, but a mere court of law, where all the solid honourable principles of truth and justice were shamefuUy sacrificed to the low pettifogging chicanery and quibbles of Westminster Hall. That once venerable and august assembly now resembled a meeting of attorneys in a Cornish Court acting as barristers; the learned Lord on the woolsack seemed full of nothing but contradictions and law subtleties and distinctions and all that." The Chancellor was not deterred from his obstructive course by these observations ; yet notwith- standing all his efforts, the bill was carried. MORE HITS AT LAWYERS. The sprightly Howell wrote in 1655 : " Law is not only a pickpurse, but a purgatory. You know the say- ing they have in France. Translated it means : The poor clients are the birds, Westminster Hall the field, the judge the net, the lawyers the rats, the attorneys the mice of the Commonwealth. I believe the saying was spoken by an angry client. For my part, I like his reso- lution who said he would never use lawyer nor physician but upon urgent necessity. I will conclude with this rhyme : PauTre plaideur, J'ai gran' piti^ de ta douleur," LAWIEBS GENERALLY. 13 COBBETTS HOKROR OF BEING A LAWYERS APPRENTICE. " Gracious Heaven ! " exclaimed William Gobbett, who preferred enlisting as a commou soldier to legal occu- pations; " if I am doomed to be wretched, bury me beneath Iceland snows, and let me feed on blubber, — stretch me under the burning line, and deny me the propitious dews, — nay, if it be thy will, suffocate me with the infected and pestilential air of a democrat's club-room ; but save me, whatever you do, save me from the desk of an attorney 1 " HOW A SERJEANT WOULD LEARN TO BE A FRIAR. Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More in his youth wrote a ballad on the following story, then current : A serjeant was employed to recover a sum of money from a spend- thrift who had taken sanctuary in a friend's house, where he confined himself so closely that the bailiff found it impossible to arrest his prisoner, and the creditor to obtain his money. At length it occurred to the serjeant to disguise himself as a friar, and by this means to gain access to the object of his search. He did so, and was suc- cessful He dismissed the maid who ushered him to the room where the intended prisoner remained. The serjeant then disclosed his mace, and claimed his prisoner, who resented the base advantage taken, called him thief, and belaboured him ; so that they fought and tore each other's hair and clothes, and tumbled and yelled. The mistress and maid had to return, who took the part of the debtor and kicked the serjeant out. The ballad has this stanza : Wise men alway affirm and say The best is for each man Diligently for to apply Such business as he can, And in nowise to enterprise Another facultie. A man of law that never saw The ways to buy and sell, Weening to rise by merchandise, I pray God speed him well. 14 OUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYBES. This ballad Sir Thomas More used to sing at the table of Archbishop Morton with great applause. — Wood's Athen., Oxon. MOKALITT OP LAWYERS AND PREACHERS. Dean Swiffc preached an assize sermon in Ireland, and afterwards dined with the judges. He had in his sermon considered the use and abuse of the law, and pressed rather hard on those counsellors who plead causes which they know in their consciences to be wrong. When dinner was over and the wine circulated, a young coun- sellor retorted upon the Dean; and after several warm contentions, the counsellor remarked, " K the devil was to die, I'm sure a parson could be found who for a little money would preach his funeral sermon." "Yes," said Swift, "I would gladly be the man, and I would then giv^e the devil his due, just as I have this day done with his children." THE lawyer's belief IN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. In 1766 it was said that a meeting of lawyers, at Lord Mansfield's, was called to take into consideration the alarming growth of perjury, which had become " so very rife in our courts of justice as to threaten the most dangerous consequences. It was determined at this meeting that nothing short of capital punishment was sufficient to deter persons from the commission of this crime, and it was agreed that a bill should be prepared to make perjury in any court of justice, etc., a capital offence punishable with death." — 17 Lady's Magazine, 667. THE lawyer's HATRED OF CHANGE. Roger North gives an instance of the lawyer's absurd attachment to mere forms. In his days the Court of Common Pleas used to sit in Westminster Hall, close to the great door, in order that suitors and their train might readily pass in and out. When the wind was in the north, this situation was found very cold, and it was proposed to move the court further back, to a warmer place. " But LAWYERS GENEEALLT. 16 the Lord Chief Justice Bridgman," says North, " would not agree to it, as it was against Magna Charta, which says that the Common Pleas shall be held in certo loco, or in a certain place, with which the distance of an inch from that place is inconsistent, and all the pleas would be coram non jucLice. That formal reason hindered a useful reform ; which makes me think of Erasmus, who, having read somewhat of English law, said that the lawyers were doctissimum genus indoctissimorum hominum." One of the most extraordinary reasons which any lawyer has alleged against effecting law reforms is that assigned by the Chancellor d'Aguesseau. He was once asked by the Duke de Grammont whether he had ever thought of any regulation by which the length of suits and the chicanery practised in the courts could be termi- nated. "I had gone so far," said the Chancellor, "as to commit a plan for such a regulation to writing ; but after I had made some progress, I reflected on the great number of advocates, attorneys, and officers of justice whom it would ruin: compassion for these made the pen fall from my hands. The length and number of lawsuits confer on gentlemen of the long robe their wealth and authority : one must continue, therefore, to permit their infant growth and everlasting endurance," — G. Butler's Mem. 16 CUEIOSITIES OS LAW AND LAWIEBS, CHAPTEE 11. ABOUT JUDGES. JUDGES SLOW XSD SWIFT. It was said of one Chancellor, (Bgerton, I think,) of a piercing judgment and quick despatch, that he ended causes without hearing; but of another, who was dull, slow, and dilatory, that he heard them without end. — Camd. Soc. (No. 5), 66. It was said of Lord Eldon that he never wronged a suitor or perverted a principle. " I began to think," said Sir Samuel Romilly, after the erection of the Vice- Chancellor's Court, " that the tardy justice of the Chan- cellor is better than the swift injustice of his deputy (Leach V.O.) "— EomiUy's Life. SLOWNESS OF JUDGES. When Sir Thomas Plumer was made the first Vice- Chancellor, Sir William Grant was Master of the Rolls, on whose retirement there stood five hundred causes entered on the RoUs List. People accounted for this, notwithstanding Giant's despatch, by saying that causes had been set down at the Rolls for two reasons — one being, that Grant might hear them ; and another being, that Plumer might not hear them. Plumer was so prolix and tedious, that he and Eldon together were hit ofi" in the following epigram : To cause delay in Lincoln's Inn, Two different methods tend : His Lordship's judgments ne'er begin, His Honour's never end. Vice-Chancellor Sir John Leach was as much distin- ABOUT JUDGES. 17 guished for " swift injustice " as Lord Eldon for endless doubt; and their merits were celebrated as follows: In Equity's high court there are Two sad extremes, 'tis clear : Excessiye slowness strikes us there, Excessive quickness here. Their source 'tvnxt good and evU brings A difficulty nice. The first from Eldan^s -virtue springs, The latter from his vice. A JUDGE S PEOIJXITT. Sir Thomas Plumer was the first Vice-Chancellor appointed under the Act of 1813. All his urbanitj'- was Unable to overcome the dislike the great leaders of the bar had shown to the project of creating his court. His judgments were prolix to an iusufferable degree, dis- playing great learning, and (what is even more rare) attention to the facts of the case he had to decide. Their diffuseness detracted much from their effect; yet his judgments were exceedingly forcible, though- familiar in style. In the well-known case of Cholmondeley v. Chnton, he is said to have expressed himself after this ■wise : " Testator says to himself, ' 111 have the right heir of Samuel RoUe, and be he male or be he female, he's the man for my money ! ' " He was unable to command the regular attendance of a bar. His usher, it has been said, might often be seen running about, even among the juniors, asking for em- ployment : " Pray, sir, have you anything to move ? Can you bring on anything before his Honour ? " — 2 Law and Lawyers, 85. A judge's swift injustice. Sir John Leach, though by no means deficient as a lawyer, had a reckless, slashing way of getting through business, which often wrought great injustice. In this respect the Chancery Court, presided over by Lord Eldon, formed a strange contrast with the Eolls Court under the direction of Leach. The first, the lawyers used to call the court of Oyer sans terrm/ner, and the 2 18 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEBS. latter the court of TerTniner sans oyer. This expedition drew praises from some people, and the following epigram as a " satire in disguise " : — A Judge sat on a judgment-seat, A goodly Judge was he ; He said unto the Registrar, " Now call a cause to me." " There is no cause," said Registrar, And laughed aloud with glee ; " A cunning Leach hath despatched them all ; I can call no cause to thee ! " A JUDGE WHO HAD NO TIME TO HEAR A CASE. Philip of Macedon was king, judge, and lawgiver; and a poor old woman had often tried in vain to get him to listen to the story of her wrongs. The king at last abruptly told her "he was not at leisure to hear her." " No ! " she exclaimed, " then you are not at leisure to be king !" Philip was confounded at this way of putting it, and seeing no answer to it, he called on her to proceed with her case. He ever after made it a rule to listen attentively to all applications addressed to him. JUDGE BRIDLEGOOSE'S CONDUCT ON THE BENCH. According to Rabelais, Judge Bridlegoose (supposed to mean a French Chancellor) admitted, when taxed with an outrageous judgment, that since he had become old he could not so easily distinguish the points on the dice as he used to do. And when pressed to explain how he came to resort to dice, he said he always, like their other worships, decided his cases by the throw of the dice, because chance a.nd fortune were good, honest, profitable, and necessary to put a final stop to lawsuits. When pressed to explain why, if he used dice, he received so many pleadings and papers from the pai-ties, he said he used to heap these heavy papers at opposite ends of the table, and when they were pretty evenly balanced he used his small dice; but when the papers of one party were larger than the other's, he used his large dice. Being again pressed to say why he kept the papers so long, seeing that he never read them, but decided his ABOUT JUDGES. 19 cases by the dice, he gave three reasons. First, because it was decorous and seemly to keep them ; secondly, he used to turn them over and bang and toss them about as a healthy bodily exercise ; and, thirdly, he kept them so long in order that the issue might ripen, and the parties might be more reconciled to bear their misfortune when it came to them. These lucid reasons convinced his censors that he was about as efficient as his neighbours in his day and gene- ration, which was about the year 1545. THE CASE OF HALKEESTON'S COW. A tenant of Lord Halkerston, a judge of the Scotch Court of Session, once waited on him with a woeful countenance, and said: "My lord, I am come to' inform your lordship of a sad misfortune. My cow has gored one of your lordship's cows, and I fear it cannot live." " Well, then, of course, you must pay for it." " Indeed, my lord, it was not my fault, and you know I am but a very poor man." " I can't help that. The law says you must pay for it. I am not to lose my cow, am I ? " " Well, my lord, if it must be so, I cannot say more. But I forgot what I was saying. It was my mistake entirely. I should have said that it was your lordship's cow that gored mine." " Oh, is that it ? That's quite a different affair. Go along, and don't trouble me just now. I am very busy. Be off" I say ! " THROWING STONES AT JUDGES. Judge Richardson in going the Western Circuit, had a great flint stone thrown at his head by a malefactor then condemned (who thought it meritorious and the way to be a benefactor to the Commonwealth to take away the life of a man so odious), but leaning low on his elbow in a lazy reckless manner the bullet flew too high, and only took off his hat. Soon after, some friends congratulating his deliverance, he rephed (as his fashion was to make a jest of everything), " You see now, if I had been an up- right judge (intimating his reclining posture), I had been slain."— Camd. Soc (No. 5), 53. 20 OUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEBS. A judge's affectation of recluse habits. " When I was Chancellor," says Lord Bacon, " I told Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, that I would willingly forbear the honour to get rid of the burthen ; that I had always a desire to lead a private life." Gondomar an- swered, that he would tell me a tale: "My lord, there was once an old rat that would needs leave the^ world ; he acquainted the young rats that he would retire into his hole, and spend his days in solitude, and commanded them to respect his philosophical seclusion. They for- bore two or three days; at last, one hardier than his fellows ventured in to see how he did ; he entered, and found him sitting in the midst of a rich parmesan cheese I " — Bacon's Apophth. A JUDGE KEEPING FINE COMPANY. Sir John Leach was not only a clever lawyer, but also a fine gentleman. He was by no means unknown in the West End, and was always esteemed a desirable acquisi- tion at the card-tables of venerable dowagers. He was (if the phrase be allowed) always courtly in court; and although very fond of saying sharp and bitter things, always did so in accents most suave and bland. No sub- mission could meliorate his temper, no opposition asperate his voice. He was very fond of pronouncing judgment without assigning a single reason. He would pronounce the fatal decree in a tone of solemnity, betraying, how- ever, the opinion he entertained of the application. In his days, as is well known, the Rolls Court sat only in the evening. The appearance the court then presented, to a stranger seeing it for the first time, must have been very absurd; for when his Honour had taken his seat, two large fan shades were placed in such a position as not only excluded the light from the Master's eyes, but rendered him invisible to the court. After the counsel, who was addressing the court had finished, and resumed his seat, there would be a painful pause for a minute or two, when at length, out of the darkness which sur- rounded the chair of justice, would come a voice, distinct, ABOUT JUDGES. 21 awful, solemn, but with the solemnity of suppressed anger, " The bill is dismissed with costs." No explanations, no long series of arguments advanced to support this conclusion — ^the decision was given with the air of a man who knows he is right, and that only folly and villany could doubt the propriety of his judgment. — 2 Law and Lawyers, 90. A JUDGE ALWAYS ANTICIPATINa AND JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS. Ourran was often stopped by Lord Avonmore in his ailment by the remark, "Mr. Ourran, I know your cleverness, but it's quite in vain for you to go on : I see the drift of it all, and you are only giving yourself and me unnecessary trouble." One day, Ourran being too often stopped in this way, thus addressed the judge: " Perhaps, my lord, I am straying, but you must impute it to the extreme agitation of my mind. I have just wit- nessed so dreadful a circumstance, that my imagination has not yet recovered from the shock." The judge was aU attention : " Go on, Mr. Ourran." " On my way to court, my lord, as I passed by one of the markets, I observed a butcher proceeding to slaughter a calf. Just as his hand was raised, a lovely little child approached him unperceived, and, terrible to relate — I see the life-blood gushing out still — the poor child's bosom was under the butcher's hand, when he plunged the knife into — into " " luto the bosom of the child ! " cried out the judge with great emotion. " Your lordship sometimes anticipates — it went right into the neck of the calf ! " JUDGE BEADING NEWSPAPERS ON THE BENCH. Lord Ohancellor Hardwicke used to declare tha\) "he did not take his place upon the bench to write letters to his correspondents, or to read the newspaper." Lord Campbell observes that this last practice has occasionally been carried to an indecorous and incon- venient length, A glance at a newspaper may be permitted to a judge during a tedious reply, as a hint to the counsel against prolixity ; and such was the habit 22 CUBI0SITIE8 OP LAW AND LAWTEES. of Lord Mansfield, who was ever completely master of all the facts, and all the law, of every case that came before him. But Lord Campbell had seen a judge indulge his curiosity by turning over the unwieldly pages of the Times while a counsel has been opening in a condensed manner a very important and complicated case, requiring the closest attention of a judge, how- ever quick, learned, and discriminating. — 5 Camp. Chanc, 46. On one occasion, when Dunning was arguing a case before Lord Mansfield, who was reading the newspaper, he stopped, whereupon the judge said, "Pray go on, Mr. Dunning." The counsel paused, and significantly answered, " I fear, my lord, that I am interrupting your lordship's more important occupations. I will gladly wait until your lordship finds leisure to attend to my client and his humble counsel," JUDGES WRITING LETTERS ON THE BENCH. After Sir Samuel Romilly and Mr. Leach had gone over the arguments in cases before Lord Eldon, his attention ceased to be engaged, although he seemed to listen. In reality, he was writing a gossiping letter to Lady Frances, his daughter, or Mrs. Ridley, his sister-in- law. He found this occupation very agreeable, and he was pleased to have undisturbed leisure for it, — laying the flattering unction to his soul that while he was sitting on the bench, and counsel were speaking in his hearing, he could not be accused of neglecting his duty. — 7 Camp. Chanc, 622. A LORD CHANCELLOR WRITING HIS LETTERS ON THE BENCH. Lord Brougham's habit which caused him the greatest peril was writing letters while he was sitting on the bench, and supposed to be listening to arguments from the bar. He did not resort to the art of the wily Eldon, who, when writing letters in court to his private friends folded the paper as if he had been taking notes of tlu ABOUT JUDGES. 23 argument. Lord Chancellor Brougham, above all dis- guise, many times in the course of a morning would openly receive letters on the bench, read them, and write, seal, and despatch answers, meanwhile listening to the counsel and asking them questions. This habit was particularly distasteful to that very petulant though very learned and able counsel Sir Edward Sugden (after- wards Lord St. Leonards), who tried to correct it, but was unlucky on the occasion which he took and the method he employed for that purpose. As the most marked and effectual intimation of his displeasure, he suddenly stopped in the middle of a sentence while the Chancellor was writing. After a considerable pause, the Chancellor, without raising his eyes from the paper, said, "Go on, Sir Edward; I am listening to you." Sugden said, "1 observe that your lordship is engaged in writing, and not favouring me with your attention." Chancellor. "I am signing papers of mere form. You may as well say that I am not to blow my nose or take snuff while you speak." Sir Edward sat down in a huff ; but on this occasion he was laughed at, and the Chancellor was applauded. — 8 Camp. Chanc, 386. A JUDGE NOT LISTENING ATTENTIVELY. Sir W. Pringle, a Scotch advocate, was apt to be very passionate when he thought one of the judges did not listen to him properly. One day, before Lord Forglen, he opened a case, and the opponent, among other objections, insisted on one— namely, that notice had not been regularly posted on the wall, which was the mode of giving due notice at that time. Sir Walter replied to all the objections with accuracy and spirit, but took no notice of the trifling point of form about the notice. Lord Forglen said, " Sir Walter, you have argued your case very well, but what do you say to the wall ? " " Indeed," said he, " my lord, I have been speaking to it this half-hour," and off" he went in a great passion, Mr. Andrew Balfour used to say of Lord Karnes as a judge : " He has the obstinacy of a mule and the levity of a harlequin." 24 OUEIOSITIEB or LAW AND LAWTEBS. A JUDGE IN CONSULTATION WITH HIS DOG. One day when Curran was arguing in the Irish Court of Chancery, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Clare, a deter- mined enemy of that counsel, brought a large Newfound- land dog upon the bench with him, and during the progress of the argument he lent his ear often to the dog rather than the counsel, which struck the whole bar as being very indecent. At one important passage the judge turned aside and began to fondle the animal. Curran stopped at once. " Go on, go on, Mr. Curran," said Lord Clare. " Oh, I beg a thousand pardons, my lord; I really took for granted that your lordship was employed in consultation." — Phillips' Curran, 148. A CHANCELLOR TEARING UP PAPERS WITH STATE SECRETS IN COURT. What completed the rupture between Lord Chancellor Brougham and the Times newspaper in 1834, and made it irreparable, was his carelessness in allowing to come to the knowledge of the Times the following "secret and confidential " letter he received one morning when sitting on the bench in the court of Chancery in Lincoln's Lan Hall : — Dear Brougham, — What I want to see you about is the Times, — whether we are to make war on it, or come to terms. Yours ever, AlTHOBP. This Lord Brougham read during the argument of a case in the Court of Chancery, answered immediately, and tore it up, throwing away the fragments. These fragments were picked up by a shorthand writer, put together, and carried next day to the office of the Times. It so happened that this very day some information which the editor asked from the Government was abruptly refused. The inference drawn was, that by the Chancellor's advice a determination had been formed by the Government to make war on the Tvmes, and the TiTnes determined to make war upon Brougham, ABOUT JUDGES. 25 sparing for a while at least the main body of his colleagues. Accordingly, while a general support was given to Lord Melbourne's Government, a series of bitter attacks began upon the devoted Chancellor. — 8 Camp Chanc, 442. A JUDGE WHO WELL BECAME THE CUSHION OF THE PLEAS. Koger North, in his Life of Guilford, thus describes Sir M. Hale when Chief Justice of the Common Pleas : " He became the cushion exceedingly well. His manner of hearing patient, his directions pertinent, and his dis- courses copious, and, although he hesitated often, fluent. His stop for a word, by the produce, always paid for the delay ; and on some occasions he would utter sentences heroic. He was allowed on all hands to be the most profound lawyer of his time ; and he knew it. But that did not serve him ; he would be also a profound philoso- pher, naturalist, poet, and divine. When he was oflF the seat of justice, his conversation was with none but flatterers. This great man was most unfortunate in his famQy; for he married his own servant-maid, and then for excuse said there was no wisdom below the girdle. All his sons died in the sink of lewdness and debauchery. Although he was very grave in his own person, he loved the most bizarre and irregular wits in the practice of the law before him, most extravagantly. And, besides, he was the most flatterable creature that ever was known; for there was a method of resignation to him, and treating him vrith little meals, and private, with his pipe at ease, which certainly captivated him. So Sir George Jeffries gained as great an ascendant in practice over him as ever counsel had over a judge. In short, to give every one his due, there was in him the most of learning and wisdom, joined with ignorance and folly, that ever was known to coincide in the character of any one man in the world." A WART JUDGE. When Sir John FitzJames was made Lord Chief Justice by Henry VIII., Chancellor Audley was anxious 26 CUEIOSITIES OS" LAW AND LAWYERS. to throw upon that judge part of the responsibility of condemning Sir Thomas More for refusing the oath of supremacy. Accordingly, the Chancellor asked the Chief Justice in open court whether the indictment of Sir T. More were sufficient or no. To whom our judge warily returned, " My lords all, by St. Gillian " (which was ever his oath), " I must needs confess that, if the Act of Parliament be not unlawful, then the indictment is not m my conscience insufficient." — Fuller's Worthies. A CAUTELOUS JUDGE WHO WAS FREE FROM TREPANS. Koger North says his brother, " the Lord Chief Justice, was very free from trepans, as being known to be sagacious and cautelous, and not apt to give opportunities ; for he entered not into promiscuous companies nor dealt in the bottle ; but had his friends often, and his servants always about him. Once after dinner a servant told him a gentleman waited in the next room (which he used as a closet) to speak with him ; and his lordship, as he passed by, saw a couple of fellows stand in the passage, which made him think of eavesdropping. And being entered, the gentleman came up to him, and said, " My lord, my name is Claypole." His lordship instantly knew him to be (as he was) a descendant of the once Lord Claypole, one of Cromwell's sons-in-law : and then turned round upon his heel, and passing his two eaves- droppers, "who were come nearer the door, went to his company and merrily told them what a vision he had seen. What his counterfeit lordship's business was could neither be known or guessed at. But in such cases being alone with any person, that person is master, and may swear his pleasure." MERRY ENOUGH FOR A JUDGE. When Sir John Walter, in the time of Charles L, was made a judge, it was said of him that he became when a pleader, eminent ; when a judge, more eminent; when no judge, most eminent. This last allusion was to his being ousted of his place as Chief Baron of Exchequer about the illegality of the loan. When he left the bar, his ABOUT JUDGES. 27 temper was greatly changed for the better ; and Fuller says, in bis " Worthies," that he was most passionate as Sir John, most patient as Judge Walter, and great his gravity in that place. When Judge Denham, his most upright and worthy associate in the Western Circuit, once said to him, "My lord, you are not merry 1" he replied, " Merry enough for a judge 1 " THE SLEEPING JUDGE. Sir John Doddridge, Justice of the King's Bench, who died in 1628, was called the sleeping judge. Fuller says in his " Worthies " : " He was commonly called the sleeping judge, because he would sit on the bench with his eyes shut, which was only a posture of atten- tion to sequester his sight from distracting objects, the better to listen to what was alleged and proved." FuUer further says, that it was hard to say whether this judge was better artist, divine, civil or common lawyer, though he fixed on the last for a profession. He became noted for exclaiming against the venal and corrupt practices of his day ; and he used this famous expression : " That as old and infirm as he was, he would go to Tyburn on foot to see such a man hanged that should proffer money for a place of that nature." Sir John was obviously an advanced thinker for his own day and generation. A JUDGE WITH LEAD IN HIS HEAD. A very prosy judge was laying down the law at in- ordinate length to a jury on circuit, and remarking on the evidence of a witness who had spoken to seeing the prisoner steal some copper. The judge, who was con- stantly calling the metal "lead," and on each occasion was corrected by counsel, said, " I beg your pardon, gentlemen — copper; but I can't get the lead out of my head ! " The whole court laughed at this unconscious sally, and kept up the laughter rather too long, which rather surprised the judge. 28 0UEI0SITIE8 OP LAW AND LAWYEES. A JUDGE WITH ELEVEN SONS AND ELEVEN DAUGHTERS. Sir Lewis Pollard, a Justice of the King's Bench in the time of Henry VIII., made his name memorable for his creditable family. He had eleven sons, of whom four attained knighthood. He had also eleven daughters, married to the most potent families in Devonshire, " so that (what is said of Cork in Ireland, that aU the in- habitants therein are kin) by this match almost all the ancient gentry in that county are allied." Fuller in his " Worthies " says : " There was a tradition in this family, that the lady glassing the window at Nimet Bishop, in her husband's absence at the term in London, caused one child more than she then had to be set up, presuming (having had one-and-twenty already, and usually con- ceiving at her husband's coming home) she should have another child; which, inserted in expectance, came to pass accordingly. This memorable knight died in 1540." A PRISONER WHO BECAME CHIEF JUSTICE. Chief Justice Pemberton in his youth managed by gambling and drink to get rid of all his means, and was imprisoned in the Fleet. He professed there to have a vision and to reform, and took to studying the law. The other prisoners began to look on him as an authority, and called him " Counsellor," and " apprentice of the law." He bought books with the fees they gave him for advice. He came out of prison a sharper at the law, having prevailed on his creditors to such an extent that they thought he would sooner pay their debts by letting him out. He was called to the bar in due time, and became an ornament of the bench. After being made a puisne iudge, he was displaced; he returned to the bar, and recovered his practice, and afterwards was made Chief Justice, on the dismissal of Scroggs. He afterwards again returned to the bar on being displaced, and was an able and zealous counsel for the seven bishops. ABOUT JUDGES. 29 A HIGHWAYMAN BECOMES A JUDGE, Aubrey relates of Chief Justice Popham thus : " For severall yeares young Popham addicted himselfe but little to the studie of the lawes, kept profligate company, and was wont to take a purse with them. His wife considered her and his condition, and at last prevailed with him to lead another life, and to stick to the studie of the lawe, which, upon her importunity, he did, being then about thirtie years old. He spake to his wife to provide a very good entertainment for his comerades to take his leave of them, and after that day fell extremely hard to his studie, and profited exceedingly. He was a strong, stout man, and could endure to sit at it day and night ; became eminent in his calling, had good practice, was called to be a serjeant and a judge." This we certainly know, says Lord Campbell, that he became a consummate lawyer, and was allowed to be so by Coke, who depreciated all contemporaries, and was accustomed to sneer at the "book learning" of Francis Bacon. He was notorious as a " hanging judge." Not only was he keen to convict in cases prosecuted by the Government, but in ordinary larcenies ; and above all in highway robberies, there was little chance of an accjuittal before him. CHALLENGING A CHIEF JUSTICE. Moore says that Elwyn mentioned to him an anecdote of Lord Byron having once taken a challenge from to Chief Justice Best, on account of the latter having said that was a great rascal. " I confess, my lord, I did say that was a great rascal, and I now repeat the assertion to your lordship. But are you aware. Lord Byron, (he added, laughing,) of the consequences you expose yourself to by bringing a challenge to a Chief Justice ? " Lord Byron was soon made to feel the ridicule of the step, and they parted very good friends, leaving 's honour to shift for itself Moore says he afterwards mentioned this story to the Attorney-General of 1829, who doubted it, but advised 30 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEES. bim to write to Best, who would be very good-humoured, and would give an answer. — Moore's Mem. HANGING JUDGES AND THEIR REASONS. Justice Buller was said always to hang for sheep- stealing, avowing as a reason that he had several sheep stolen from his own iiock. Justice Heath, acting more on principle, used to hang in all capital cases, because he knew of no good secondary punishments. Said he, " If you imprison at home, the criminal is soon thrown upon you again, hardened in guilt. If you transport, you corrupt infant societies, and sow the seeds of atrocious crimes over the habitable globe. There is no regene- rating of felons in this life, and for their own sake, as well as for the sake of society, I think it is better to hang." When sitting in the Crown Court at Gloucester, Buller asked a lying witness from what part of the county he came, and being answered, " From Bitton, my lord," he exclaimed, " You do seem to be of the Bitton breed, but I thought I had hanged the whole of that parish long ago." — 6 Camp. Chanc, 154. MORE HANGING JUDGES. Justice Page was well known by the name of the hanging judge. One day Crowle, the punning barrister, was on circuit, and being asked by a friend if the judge was not just behind them, at once replied, " I don't know, but I am sure he never was just before." When this old judge was decrepit, he perpetrated an excellent joke upon himself As he was coming out of court shuffling along, a friend stopped him and inquired after his health, " My dear sir," the judge replied, " you see I keep just hanging on — hanging on." Counsellor Grady, of the Irish Bar, said he heard of a relentless judge who was known by the name of the hanging judge, and who was never known to have shed a tear but once, and that was at a representation of the Beggars' Opera, when Macheath got a reprieve ! ABOUT JUDGES. 31 As a criminal judge, Lord Ellenborough was reputed severe. During one day at an assize dinner, some one offered to help him to some fowl. " No, I thank you," said his lordship, " I mean to try that beef." " I am sure you'll like it, my lord," said Jekyll, "it is well- hung beef." Lord Kenyon was not such a " hanging judge " as some of his colleagues. A barrister once related the following anecdote, in a debate in the House of Commons : — " On the. Home Circuit a young woman was tried for stealing to the amount of forty shillings in a dwelling- house. It was her first offence, and was attended with many circumstances of extenuation. The prosecutor came forward, as he said, from a sense of duty; the witnesses very reluctantly gave their evidence ; and the jury still more reluctantly their verdict of guilty. The judge passed sentence of death. The unhappy prisoner instantly fell lifeless at the bar. Lord Kenyon, whose sensibility was not impaired by the sad duties of his office, cried out in great agitation from the bench, " I don't mean to hang you, good woman, — I don't mean to hang you. Will nobody tell her I don't mean to hang her?" A HANGING JUDGE FOILED. When Hone had been acquitted on his first trial for blasphemy, and this was related to the enfeebled Chief Justice EUenborough, the judge's energy was revived, and he swore that at whatever cost he would preside in court next day himself, so that conviction might be certain, and the insulted law might be vindicated. Accordingly he appeared in court pale and hollow- visaged, but with a spirit unbroken, and more stern than when his strength was unimpaired. As he took his place on the bench, "I am glad to see you, my Lord EUenborough," shouted Hone ; " I know what you are come here for ; I know what you want." " I am come to do justice," retorted the noble and learned lord; "my only wish is to see justice done." "Is it not rather, my lord," said Hone, " to send a poor bookseller 32 CUEIOSIIIES OF LAW AND LAWTEBS. to rot in a dungeon? " The Chief Justice had the morti- fication to hear the words "Not guilty" pronounced, followed by a tremendous burst of applause, which he could not even attempt to quell. Bishop Turner, who was present at the trial, and accompanied the Chief Justice home in his carriage, related that all the way he laughed at the tumultuous mob who followed him, remarking that " he was afraid of their saliva, not of their bite ; " and that passing Charing Gross he pulled the check-string, and said, " It just occurs to me that they sell the best red- herrings at this shop of any in London : buy six." The popular opinion, however, was, that Lord EUenborough was killed by Hone's trial, and he certainly never held up his head in public after. — 3 Camp. C.J.s, 225. Another version is that the article was not " herring," but " black pudding," which was obviously a much more natural diet for a hanging judge. RISKS OF A HANGING JUDGE. Aubrey says that Sir Miles Fleetwood, who was Re- corder of London when James L came to England, once harangued the City merchants to this effect: "When I consider your wealth I do admire your wisdom, and when I consider your wisdom I do admire your wealth." Sir Miles was also noted for being a severe hanger of high- waymen, so that the frateri^ity resolved to make an example of his worship. So they lay in wait for him one day not far from Tyburn, as he was on his way from his house in Buckinghamshire. They had a halter in readi- ness, brought him under the gallows, tied his hands be- hind his back, and then left him to the mercy of his horse, which he called Ball. But the good horse Ball stood still instead of running away. So Sir Miles was saved, for somebody soon came along the road and released him, and out of gratitude to Ball he kept that horse as long as he lived. A JUDGE UNEASY AT SENTENCING A PRISONER. Justice Willes about 1780 sentenced a boy at Lancaster to be hanged, with the hope of reforming him by frighten- ABOUT JUDGES. 33 ing him, and he ordered him for execution next morning. The judge awoke in the middle of the night, and was so affected by the notion that he might himself die in the course of the night, and the boy be hanged, though he did mean that he should suffer, that he got out of his bed and went to the lodgings of the High Sheriff, and left a reprieve for the boy, or what was to be considered equi- valent to it, and then, returning to his bed, spent the rest of the night very comfortably. JUDGES AND SUKE-FOOTED HOBSES. When Lord Campbell was Attorney-General, Chief Justice Tindal, a most amiable as well as witty friend, used to tell the following story of him : — " I had a stumbling horse that had come down with me several times, to the great peril of my life, and many of my friends strongly advised me to get rid of him; but he was very quiet, and a great favourite, so that I continued to ride him, till one day I met Campbell as I was dis- mounting at Westminster, who said, ' That is a nice horse you have got, Chief Justice.' I answered, ' Yes, but he has come down with me several times, and I am advised to part with him.' ' Don't, my dear Chief Justice,' cried Mr. Attorney ; ' I'll warrant you he is very sure-footed for all that' I walked home, and sold the animal next morning." — 6 Camp. Chanc, 139. judges' CENSUEE of frivolous QUESTIONS. The last day Lord Tenterden ever sat in court (which was on the trial of the magistrates of Bristol) — to rebuke a counsel who was wasting time by irrelevant questions respecting a journey performed by the mayor in a post- chaise and four — he observed with much solemnity, " Sir, you have forgot to ask him the colour of the jackets of the postilions." He was taken dangerously ill the same night ; and having in his delirium still dreamed of the trial, he expired with these words on his lips : " Gentle- men of the jury, you will now consider of your verdict." — 3 Camp. C.J.s, 580. Justice Maule was trying a case, and was much per- 3 34 CURIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYERS. plexed by the confused way in which the counsel was opening it. The judge at last interrupted him : " I wish you would put your facts in some kind of order. Chrono- logical order is one way, and perhaps the best; but I am not particular : any order you like — alphabetical order if you prefer it ! " COUNSEL FRIGHTENING A YOUNG JUDGE. O'Connell had to defend a prisoner for a capital crime, and the defence was said by the attorney to be hopeless. Serjeant Lefroy happened to be acting for the judge, who had been suddenly indisposed, and being then young and his character known to O'Connell, the latter purposely put several inadmissible questions to the witness, which of course were objected to by the opposite counsel. The Serjeant at last rather peremptorily stopped further questions of the same kind. O'Connell then with great warmth said, "As you refuse me permission to defend my client, I leave his fate in your hands, — his blood be on your head if he be condemned." He left the court at once with majestic stride, in a huff', and paced up and down outside the court for half an hour. At the end of that time his attorney rushed out of court, exclaiming, " He's acquitted ! he's acquitted ! " This stratagem was successful, and O'Connell with complacency told his friends, that he had intended to throw the responsibility of the conviction on the judge. A JUDGE REBUKED FOR HIS REBUKE. Lord EUenborough presided at a trial of the publishers for a newspaper libel, Mr. Brougham being their counsel, who made a fervid address on their behalf. The judge in summing up remarked that the defendant's counsel had imbibed the noxious spirit of his client, and had inocu- lated himself with all the poison and virus of the libel. Mr. Brougham, when his client was brought up for judgment, thus complained of these animadversions : " My lord, why am I thus identified with the interests of my client ? I appear here as an English advocate, with the privileges and responsibilities of that office ; and no man ABOUT JUDGES. 85 shall call in question my principles in the faithful and honest discharge of my duty. It is not assuredly to those only who clamour out their faith from high places, that credit will be given for the sincerity of their professions." The judge discreetly remained silent. JUDGE PUTTING DOUBTFUL QUESTIONS. Mr. Jeremiah Mason, the eminent American lawyer, was in a case when the judge put a question to a witness which was of doubtful admissibility. Mason at once bluntly interfered with this remark : " If your Honour puts that question for us, we don't want it : if you put it for the other side, then I object, that it is not evidence ! " A JUDGE WHO WAS GENERALLY EIGHT. " Lord Mansfield," once said Lord Thurlow, " was a surprising man; ninety-nine times out of a hundred he was right in his opinions or decisions. And when once in a hundred times he was wrong, ninety-nine men out of a hundred could not discover it. He was a wonderful man ! " Such an eulogy as this is worth all the snarling criticism of Johnson and Parr ; the first of whom hated him because he was not a Tory, and the second because he was not a Whig." A JUDGE SHAKING HIS HEAD AT A PROPOSITION. When Lord Mansfield once exclaimed to Mr. Dunning, as he was laying down a legal point, " Oh, if that be law, Mr. Dunning, I may burn my law books ! " " Better read them, my lord," was the ready retort. In a similar manner, an Irish judge shook his head as Mr. Curran was elaborating one of his points to a j ury. " I see," said Mr. Curran, " I see, gentlemen, the motion of his lordship's head : common observers might imagine that it implied a difference of opinion, but they would be mistaken. It is merely accidental. Believe me, gentle- men, if you remain here many days, you will yourselves perceive that when his lordship shakes his head, there's NOTHING IN IT ! " — Phillips' Curran, 57. 36 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEES. KEEPING A WEAK JUDGE RIGHT. When business is divided in a court between two great leaders without competitors, justice may be substantially administered, although not always to the satisfaction of the losing party, who expects his counsel to make the best fight he can in return for his fee. The late Chief Justice Gibbs told Lord Campbell, when he led the Western Circuit against Serjeant Lens, they kept a weak judge right. " Thus," said he, " I once, knowing I had no case, opened a nonsuit before my brother Graham. He was for deciding in my favour ; but I insisted upon being nonsuited, and saved' my client the expense of having a verdict in his favour set aside." A JUDGE AND HIS AVARICE. Avarice "was Lord Hardwicke's predominant passion. It was in this way that he got the name of "Judge Gripus." He was one of a commission which, in the year 1740, reported in favour of some very extensive reforms in the Court of Chancery ; but although he concurred in this report, and possessed the ability of carrying the recommendations which it embodied into effect, he made no effort towards such an end, preferring the continuance of abuses to any change which would reduce his income or diminish his patronage. " My lord," George II. one day said to him, "I observe that thei'e never is a place vacant but you have some friend on whom you wish it to be bestowed." — 1 Law and Lawyers, 356. A JUDGE CALLING COUNSEL A " HATIANGUE." Lord Eskgrove, a Scotch judge, before whom Lord Brougham practised at the Scotch bar in his early days, and who was annoyed by the interminable vehemence and pertinacity of that advocate, said one day, "I declare that man Broom, or Broug-ham, is the torment of my life ! " The judge's revenge, as usual, consisted in sneer- ing at Brougham's eloquence by calling it, or him, "the Harangue," and he used to address the jury in this waj' : ABOUT JUDGES. 37 " Well, gentlemen, what did tJie Harangue say next ? Why, it said this " (mis-stating it) ; " but here, gentle- men, the Harangue was most plainly wrong, and not in- telligible."— Cockburn's Mem., 122. A JUDGE BLAMING COUNSEL WHO THUMPED THE TABLE. Mr. James Ferguson, a Scottish advocate, was an elo- quent speaker, and used to be very energetic in his address, occasionally beating with violence the table, in order to clinch an argument. One day he was arguing a case before Lord Polkemmet with great vigour, when the judge coolly interrupted him with this callous remark : " Maister Jemmy, dinna dunt : ye may think ye're dunting it intUl me, but ye're juist dunting it oot o' me, man I " JUDGE TELLING COUNSEL TO DECLAIM. A Scotch counsel named Baird was in a dull, technical way once stating a dry case to Lord Meadowbank, an acute, vigorous, and learned judge, who was sitting alone. This did not please the judge, who thought that his dignity required a grander tone. So he dismayed poor Baird, than whom no man could have less turn for burning in the forum, by throwing himself back in his chair, and saying, "Declaim, sir! — why don't you declaim ? Speak to me as if I were a popular assembly." — Cockburn's Mem., 144. JUDGE CALLING TO COUNSEL — "STOP." Sir C. Cress well, when judge, used sometimes a very haughty and contemptuous tone towards counsel, and one day, while taking, down notes of the witness's evidence, had occasion to call out frequently, as judges often do, to the counsel to " Stop " — so that he might have time to bring up his notes of what witnesses say. He called out " Stop " so often and so offensively, and, as was generally thought, unnecessarily, that at last counsel went on with- out attending to it. "The judge then addressed the counsel by name, and complained that he went on too fast, and 38 CUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYERS. did not give time to take the evidence down in writing, and asked if he did not hear the call to stop. To which the counsel blandly retorted, "Oh, my lord, I thought your lordship had been calling to the usher of the court," A SQUINTING JUDGE. Sir John Trevor, Master of the Rolls, and a boon com- panion of Lord Chancellor Jeffreys, was brought up as an errand-boy in a relative's ofEce, expressly to learn the knavish part of the law, as he squinted abominably. Yet he became Speaker of the House of Commons and a Master of the Rolls ; but was understood to traffic in bribes ; and he gambled and betted heavily. When Speaker, he had to sit for six hours hearing himself abused, and then to put the motion to the House " whether he (himself) had been guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours." He was expelled the House for bribery, when a wit remarked that " Justice was blind, but Bribery only squinted." Once meeting Bishop Tillotson, he muttered, "I hate a fanatic in lawn sleeves." The Bishop retorted, " And I hate a knave in any sleeves." His avarice was a foible. One day a Welsh relative was introduced to his room as he was sitting at his wine, whereupon he broke out upon his servant thus : " You rascal, you have brought my cousin, Roderick Lloyd, Esq., Prothonotary of North Wales, Marshal to Baron Price, etc., etc., up my back stairs. Take him down again instantly, and bring him up my front stairs." During this operation Sir John stowed away all his wine, so as to avoid being obliged to dispense a little to his relative during the visit. A JUDGE GREAT AT ARBITEATION. Lord Dun was a Scotch judge in 1704, and very dis- tinguished for his piety. Thomas Coutts, the banker, used to relate of him that when a difficult case came before his lordship as Lord Ordinary, he used to say, " Eh, Lord, what am I to do ? Eh, sirs, I wish you would make it up ! " — 3 Chambers' Dom. Ann. Scot, ABOUT JUDGES. 39 A judge's wife on the right side. When the great case of ship money and Hampden was argued, in 1635, " Judge Croke (of whom ' I speak knowingly' says Whitelocke) was resolved to deliver his opinion for the king, and to that end had prepared his argument. Yet a few days before he was to argue, upon discourse with some of his nearest relations and most serious thoughts of this business, and being heartened by his lady, who was a very good and pious woman, and told her husband upon this occasion that ' she hoped he would do nothing against his conscience for fear of any danger or prejudice to him or his family ; and that she would be contented to suffer want or any misery with him rather than be an occasion for him to do or say any- thing against his judgment and conscience.' Upon these and many the like encouragements, but chiefly upon his better thoughts, he suddenly altered his purpose and arguments ; and when it came to his turn, contrary to expectation, he argued and declared his opinion against the king. All the judges except Croke and Hutton were for the king." A judge who was "the common friend." Mr. Beaumont Hotham was appointed a judge, being thought by his contemporaries not very fit for that office, and yet he continued a judge for thirty years. He had had little experience at the bar, but had much good sense and most courteous and obliging manners. His knowledge of law was so scanty that when any difficulty arose he was in the habit of recommending the case to be referred to arbitration, thus acquiring among the wags of West- minster Hall the nickname of " the common friend." A conscientious judge. Mr. Justice Lawrence was famed for his courtesy and conscientiousness. By a codicil to his will, he directed the costs of an action to be paid to a certain litigant who had been defeated in an action tried before him, and on 40 OUBIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYEBS. which occasion the judge considered that he had decided wrongly, thereby causing the loss. A JUDGE WHO TUENED THE MATTER OVER IN HIS MIND. Sir Thomas Sewell, Master of the Rolls, when in Parliament had occasion to take part in the great debate on the illegality of gcTieral warrants, and strongly urged the adjournment of the debate, because it would atford him an opportunity to examine his books and authorities, so that he might then be pre- pared to give a final opinion on the subject, but which he was not then prepared to do. At the adjournment he appeared in the House in his great wig, as his custom was, and then gravely told the House of Commons that " he had turned the matter over as he lay on his bed upon his pillow, and after ruminating and considering upon it a great deal, he could not help declaring that he was of the same opinion as before." On this result, Charles Townshend rose, and said " he was very sorry that what the learned gentleman had found in his night-cap he had lost in his periwig." A JUDGE TURNING IT OVER IN WHAT HE IS PLEASED TO CALL HIS MIND. When Lord Westbury was at the bar, he had occasion to appeal against a decree of a Vice-Chancellor, and was commenting on that decree with great scorn, and tearing it to tatters befoi-e the Court of Appeal. After having forcibly destroyed the decree, and all the grounds on which it rested, Mr. Bethell added this : " And yet this professes to be a decree made by his Honour after the most mature reflection, and after turning it over and over in what he is pleased to call his mind ! " A JUDGES CANDID OPINION OF HIS BRETHREN. Baron Thomson, of the Court of Exchequer, was asked how he got on in his court with the business, when he sat between Chief Baron Macdonald and Baron Graham. ABOUT JUDGES. 41 He replied, " What between snuff-box on one side, and chatterbox on the other, we get on pretty well ! " Judge Story says that Chief Justice Marshall was in company with the eminent American advocates Dexter and Fisher Ames. The chief commenced a conversation, or rather an opinion, for he was almost solus in the dialogue, which lasted some three hours. On breaking up, the two latter commenced on their way homeward to praise the depth and learning of the chief. Said Ames, after a short talk, " To tell the truth. Dexter, I have not understood a word of his argument for half an hour." " And I," rejoined Dexter, " have been out of my depth for an hour and a half." The Chief Justice's great phrase was " It is admitted." As he was a powerful reasoner, it was often remarked, "Once admit his premises, and you are forced to his conclusions." Said Daniel Webster to me once, " When Judge Mar- shall says, ' It is admitted, sir, so and so,' I am preparing for a bomb to burst over my head, and demolish all my points." — Judge Story's Life. A PUISNE JUDGE AND HIS CHIEF. Roger North says of his brother, Lord Chief Justice North : " Judge Atkins made an open opposition to his lordship about the disposal of a Prothonotary's place, which is known to belong to the Chief Justice. But he thought fit to stir up his brethren to put in for a share, and there were some words and altercation passed in court about it. His lordship told his brother Atkins that "he should know here was no republic; " and the other answered, ' No, nor monarchy.' But the new officer was at last sworn." I A CHIEF JUSTICE AND HIS PUISNES. A hundred years ago it was deemed a very unusual thing for a puisne judge to differ from the Chief Justice. And in Lord Mansfield's time it occurred only two or three times. During Lord Kenyon's time it happened 42 CURIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYERS. only about six times in fourteen years. Lord Kenyon treated a puisne judge's opinion usually with great contempt. On one occasion he laid down that certain circumstances in a case before the court amounted to legal fraud. But the three puisne judges all differed, and held there was no fraud. When they finished, the old chief exclaimed in a huff, "Good God! what injustice have I hitherto been doing 1 " A PUISNE JUDGE PRAISING HIS CHIEF. Justice Buller was appointed a judge at the early age of thirty-two, having been made a King's Counsel after five years' standing at the bar. He was a special favourite of Lord Mansfield, who wished Buller to bci his successor. The judge pronounced this eulogium on his patron soon after the latter retired : — " Within these thirty years the commercial law of this country has taken a very different turn from what it did before. Lord Hardwicke himself was proceeding with great caution, not establishing any general principle, but decreeing on all the circumstances put together. Before that period we find that in courts of law all the evidence in mercantile cases was thrown together : they were left generally to a jury, and they produced no general prin- ciple. From that time we all know the great study has been to find some certain general principle which shall be known to all mankind, not only to rule the particular case then under consideration, but to serve as a guide for the future. Most of us have heard these principles stated, reasoned upon, enlarged, and explained, till we have been lost in admiration at the strength and stretch of the human understanding. And I should be very sorry to find myself under a necessity of differing from any case upon this subject which has been decided by Lord Mansfield, who may be truly said to be the founder of the commercial law of this country." JUDGES SPEAKING OUT OF COURT ABOUT CASES. Lord Camden said, " Lord Mansfield has a way of say- ing, 'it is a rule with me — an inviolable rule, never to ABOUT JUDGES. 43 hear a syllable said out of court about any cause that either is, or is in the smallest degree likely to come before me as judge.' Now I, for my part," said Lord Camden, " could hear as many people as choose to talk to me about their cases, it would never make any the slightest impression on me." The practice of Lord Mansfield has been since regarded as more sensible than that of Lord Camden in this matter. JUDGE MIMICKING JUDGE. Lord Loughborough was felicitous in mimicking the self-laudatory style of Erskine. " The egotism of that pleader," says Miss Burney, "is proverbial, and so happily was his manner hit, rather than caricatured, by the Chancellor Loughborough, that the audience deemed his inventive faculty a mere exercise of memory. Giving an account of a supposed piiblic meeting, Erskine, he said, opened to this effect : 'As to me, gentlemen, I trust I have some right to give my opinion freely. Would you know whence my title is derived ? I challenge any man among you to inquire ! If he ask my birth, — its genealogy may dispute with kings ! If my wealth, — it is all for which I have time to hold out my hand ! II my talents, — No ! of these, gentlemen, I leave you to judge for yourselves ! " In Scotland, Lord Cullen while at the bar was so perfect a mimic that he could personate all the leading counsel and every judge on the bench, and hit off the peculi- arities of each so that everybody roared with laughter at the performance. A JUDGE RISING BT HIS GRAVITT. Shiel told Moore of a good thing said by Keller, an Irish barrister. Keller meeting some judge, an old friend of his, a steady solemn fellow who had succeeded as much in his profession as Keller had failed, said to him : " In opposition to all the laws of natural philosophy you have risen by your gravity, while I have sunk by my levity I " — Moore's Mem. 44 CUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWXEES. COUNSEL INSISTING ON BEING HEARD BT JUDGE. Lord Manners, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, stopped several of the many counsel 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 wiU 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, dis- cussing and distinguishing and commenting and quoting, till he secured the attention, and evidently was making an impress! cm on the unwilling judge. Every five 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 im- pressive and lucid manner than I can hope to do, etc., etc.," until he finished a masterly address. The Lord Chancellor next morning gave judgment in favour of O'Connell's client.— 2 O'Flanaghan's Irish Chanc, 366. PERFECT JUDGES. Jekyll used to say of Baron Graham's matchless good- temper and politeness, that " no one but his sempstress could ruffle him." Lord Brougham composed the following inscription for the monument of Justice Holroyd in Wargrave Church, erected in IbSl : — " Sacred to the memory of Sir George Sowley Holroyd, Knight, one of the justices of the Court of King's Bench. A lawyer to be ranked among the greatest of any age. Endowed with an original genius to enlarge the bounds of any science, but peculiarly adapted to that which he pursued: a counsellor sure, faithful, and sagacious : an advocate learned, patient, humane : of a gentle nature, serene temper, ready, skilful, correct : a judge upright, firm : of simple and kindly manners, but of principles pure. ABOUT JUDGES. 45 lofty, inflexible. He was not more honoured in his public capacity than beloved in all the private relations of life." PRAISING A DEAD JUDGE. Baron HuUock died on circuit, and a brother Baron mentioned the loss thus sustained by the profession when he addressed a grandjury next day, saying of his deceased brother judge, "He circumscribed the ocean of the law with firm and undeviating steps." EPITAPHS ON LAWYERS. Pope also wrote an epitaph on a lawyer, Mr. Nathaniel Pigott, a Roman Catholic friend whom he often visited, and whose coachman once upset the poet in crossing a ford of the Thames. The poet altered this epitaph thrice, and it stood thus in the third edition : " To the memory of Nathaniel Pigott, barrister-at-law, possessed of the highest character by his learning, judgment, experience, integrity. Deprived of the highest stations only by his conscience and religion. Many he assisted in the law, more he preserved from it. A friend to peace, a guardian of the poor, a lover of his country. He died July 5, 1737, aged 76 years." In the two former editions the poet inserted after the words " barrister-at-law " these words : " who gave more honour to his profession than he derived from it." Also, besides " guardian of the poor," he was at first said to be also " guardian of property, and a servant of God." In a lengthy epitaph on Judge Denison, who died in 1765, it was said, "He showed by his practice that a thorough knowledge of legal art and form is not litigious, or an instrument of chicane, but the plainest, easiest, and shortest way to the end of strife." A GENEROUS JUDGE. An action on an attorney's bill was tried before the Chief Justice Sir James Mansfield, and on a reference of several bills of costs being pressed, the plaintiff, an 46 CUBIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYERS. attorney, refused to refer the case to arbitration unless bis charge of 3s. 4cZ. for a letter was previously agreed to be allowed, but which the defendant pertinaciously re- fused. Upon this the judge facetiously declared that rather than the cause should not be referred he would himself pay the 3s. 4 be set to the rage of hunger, and balm be poured into the wounds of those whose property, which is their life-blood, is taken for this laudable end. It has been said that all poor laws are grossly unjust, because they tax the industrious to feed the idle and profligate. But it has been aptly answered, that, if there were no such tax, it would merely shift what ought to be the common burden of all to the shoulders of the few who are always considerate and humane, — 2 Paterson's Lib. Subject, 5. THE POOR LAWS — HOW FAR EFFICIENT. By the now existing machinery, which, however cum- brous, acts with certainty, and can be brought to bear on each individual case as it arises, it can seldom happen, except by some criminal delinquency or scarcely less criminal apathy of the officials, that any one individual member of the community, however obscure, can be left to die of starvation, whatever be his misfortunes or what- ever his demerits — except indeed it be, that some false shame on the part of the necessitous, or some accident for which none can be blamable, prevents their case being known and so brought within the reach of the machinery provided. And the whole is a result which reflects the highest glory on the legislature of any country — that it has provided a means which enables every human being to be supplied with at least sufficient support for life, though it is to be given in such a way as neither to injure the recipient nor those who are the involuntary donors. The cumbrous and far-fetched method of doing this may admit of many improvements in detail; but it must always appear a monument of human wisdom, for which we are indebted, not to the Greeks or the Romans, nor even to our common law, but to that fortunate system of government which allows the hardships and wants of every class to reach the ears of those who are not too far removed in sympathy and self-interest, and who are both able and willing to alleviate them. — 2 Paterson's Lib. Subject, 119. law; its AtJTHOES, BEFOEMS, AND COUBTS. 83 OUTLIVING THE LAW. From the mouth of that dull black-letter lawyer, Ser- jeant Maynard, came two of the most felicitous sayings in the English language. Jeffreys having once rudely taunted him with having grown so old as to forget his law, " True, Sir George," replied he ; "I have forgotten more law than you ever learned." When the Prince of Orange first took up his quarters at Whitehall, on James's flight, different public bodies presented addresses to him, and Maynard came at the head of the men of the gown. The Prince took notice of his great age, and observed he must have outlived all the lawyers of his time. " If your Highness," answered he, " had not come over to our aid, I should have outlived the law itself." We ought to value still more highly Serjeant Maynard's encomium on the great palladium of our freedom. " Trial by jury," said he, "is the subject's birthright and inherit- ance, as his lands are ; and without which he is not sure to keep them or anything else. This way of trial is his fence and protection against all frauds and surprises, and against all storms of power." OLD LEGAL AUTHOES. All writers who have touched upon our juridical history have highly extolled the legal improvements which dis- tinguished the reign of Edward I., without giving the slightest credit for them to any one except the King him- self; but if he is to be denominated the English Justinian, it should be made known who were the Tribonians who were employed by him; and the English nation owes a debt of gratitude to the Chancellors, who must have framed and revised the statutes which are the foundation of our judicial system, — who must, by explanation and argument, have obtained for them the sanction of Par- liament, — and who must have watched over their con- struction and operation when they first passed into law. Lord Campbell rejoiced in doing tardy justice to the 84 CUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYERS. memory of Robert Burnel, decidedly the first in this class, and in attracting notice to his successors, who walked in his footsteps. He said that to them, too, we are probably indebted for the treatises entitled Fleta and Britton, which are said to have been written at the request of the King, and which, though inferior in style and arrangemeat to Braaton, are wonderful performances for such an age, and make the practitioners of the present day, who are bewildered in the midst of an immense legal library, envy the good fortune of their predecessors, who, in a few manuscript volumes, copied by their own hand, and con- stantly accompanying them, could speedily and clearly discover all that was known on every point that might arise. — 1 Camp. Lives of Chanc, 189. LEGAL ATTTHOBS AND LAW BOOKS. Lord Campbell in 1846 observed that it must be admitted thiat juridical writing is a department of litera- ture in which the English have been very defective, and in which they are greatly excelled by the French, the Germans, and even by the Scotch. The present state of the common law may now probably be tet learned from the Notes of PatteiSon and Williams, or Serjeant Williams' Notes to Saunders's Reports of Cases decided in the reign of Charles II., and written in Norman-French. — 1 Camp. Lives of Chanc, 160. PEOFESSIONAL JEALOUSY OF BLAGKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES. Charles Yorke told Dr. Warburton that if Blackstone's Commentaries had been published when he bega«i the study of law, it would have saved him the reading of twelve hours in the day. This work, which proved of so much advantage to the law student, was on its appear- ance greeted with the sneers and whispered censures of many of our black-letter lawyers. It became the fashion among a certain class to decry it. A gentleman was told by one who prided himself on being of the old school, that there was scarcely one page in Blaefcstone in which there was not one false principle and two doubtful prin- law: its authobs, befokms, and coubts. 85 ciples stated as undoubted law. Home Tooke, who was always ambitious of a legal reputation, declared that " it was a good gentleman's law book, clear but not deep." It was, in short, obnoxious to one charge, viz., that it was intelligible. Mr. Hargrave (see a specimen of that gentle- man's eloquence under the head of " Conveyancers ") is reported to have said, that " any lawyer who writes so clearly as to be intelligible was an enemy to his pro- fession." This accounted for the unfavourable reception which Blackstone's Commentaries met with from some quarters. — 2 Law and Lawyers, 58. HAEGEAVE AS A LEGAL AUTHOR. Hargrave, the eminent commentator on Coke, died neglected. He was, to be sure, with all his learning, hardly producible in any judicial office j and latterly his mind was diseased, insomuch that when he was brought to Lincoln's Inn to vote as a Bencher in the choice of a Preacher, and his vote was objected to, Jekyl said that, " instead of being deprived of his vote, he ought to be allowed two votes, for he was one beside himself." It was owing to an infirmity of Hargrave (one of the senior counsel in the Chelsea Hospital case), which caused him to leave the court two or three times in the middle of his argument, and which so protracted the hearing that it had to be adjourned tiU next morning, that Erskine, the next junior counsel, had an oppor- tunity of preparing his first immortal speech next morn- ing, and which was the making of his fortune. WHY SOME JUDGES BECAME GREAT LAWYERS. Lord Holt was said to have given his unwearied devotion to the law and to his business owing to the di^.- taste he had for Lady Holt's scolding propensities. Judge Gilbert, who wrote so many excellent law books, shut himself up in his chambers in Serjeant's Inn for the same reason. The same characteristic was noticed in Lord Coke and Lord Chancellor Bacon, and to some extent in Lord Hale and Lord Mansfield. 86 OUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEKS. EEPOETEES OF LAW CASES. Lord Chancellor Harcourt seems to have given mortal offence to Vernon, the reporter, who practised as a counsel regularly before him, but spitefully suppresses his best decisions, and gives doubtful ones. (See 2 Vernon, 664 — 668.) Lord Campbell suspected that the reporter may have been a Whig, and copied the Tory blacksmith, who in shoeing the horse of a Whig always lamed him. Lord Campbell says as to his own work as a reporter : " When I was a Nisi Prius reporter, I had a drawer marked 'Bad Law,' into which I threw all the cases which seemed improperly ruled. I was flattered to hear Sir James Mansfield, C. J., say : ' Whoever reads Camp- bell's Reports must be astonished to find how uniformly Lord Ellenborough's decisions wei'e right.' My rejected cases, which I kept as a curiosity — not maliciously — were all burnt in the great fire in the Temple when I was Attorney General." — 4 Camp. Chanc, 458. A LAW REPORTER AS A PEDESTRIAN. The author of Keble's Reports, which are very poor productions, was not Serjeant Keble, as Lord Campbell assumed, but one Joseph Keble, who was one of the eccentricities of Hampstead. He had a small estate at Northend, where he lived during the vacation. He usually walked to Hampstead ; and a Mr. Keble, a book- seller in Fleet Street, a relative, used to relate that Joseph generally performed the walk in the same number of steps, which were gravely counted by him. TAKING NOTES OF A LEGAL ARGUMENT. Sir George Rose, when at the bar, having the note- book of the regular reporter of Lord Eldon's decisions put into his hand, with a request that he would take a note for him of any decision which should be given, entered in it the following lines as a full record of all that was material, which had occurred during the day : — law: its authobs, eefobms, and ooubts. 87 " Mr. Leach Made a speech, Angry, neat, but wrong: Mr. Hart, On the other part. Was heavy, dull, and long; Mr. Parker Made the case darker. Which was dark enough without : Mr. Cooke Cited his book. And the Chancellor said — I doubt." This jeu d'espHt, flying about Westminster Hall, reached the Chancellor, who was very much amused with it, notwithstanding the allusion to his doubting propensity. Soon after, Mr. Rose having to argue before him a very untenable proposition, he gave his opinion very gravely, and with infinite grace and felicity thus concluded : " For these reasons the judgment must be against your clients; and here, Mr. Rose, the Chancellor does not doubt" QUOTING THE BOOK OF NATUEE. A declamatory speaker (Randle Jackson, counsel for the East India Company), who despised all technicalities, and tried to storm the Court by the force of eloquence, on one occasion, when uttering these words, " In the book of nature, my lords, it is written " was stopped by this question from the Chief Justice, Lord Ellenborough, " Will you have the goodness to mention the page, sir, if you please ? " ONE peeson's doubts betteb than othee people's CEETAINTIES. Lord Chancellor Hardwicke said of a Scotch law book called " Dirleton's Doubts " — being a discussion of several moot points in that law: "Dirleton's doubts are better than most people's certainties." 88 crEiosiTiES OP law and lawtees. LAW REFORM. In classic antiquity lawgivers were honoured not less than conquerors, ai d all the most celebrated laws of Rome bore the names of their authors ; but in our own history (horresco referens) oblivion seems to await all those who devote themselves to legal refonn. We do not know with any certainty who fiamed the Statutes of West- minster in the time of Edward I., the Statute of Fines, the Statute of Uses, the Statute of Wills, or the Statute of Frauds, although they ought to have been commemorated for conferring lasting benefit on their country. The Grenville Act for the trial of controverted elections was the first which conferred any ^lat on the name of its author, and Fox's Libel Act is almost the only other down to our own times. — 1 Camp. Lives of Chanc,, 41. THE CODIFICATION OF ENGLISH LAW. The confused and chaotic state of the laws of England has long been the ridicule of foreigners, the lamentation of our own intelligent legislators and citizens, a standing confession of weakness to many a government, which has constantly postponed to a more convenient season addressing itself to what Bacon said even in his time would be a heroic work — the making of a digest of the law. It is true that the apathy on this subject has never yet been traced to any poverty in the material, and it has been shared by the classes whom a code would most sensibly benefit, and who seem only dimly conscious of a loss from never having enjoyed the possession. A petty state, having little to boast of, may well keep its laws, or what are called laws, hidden in obscurity ; but a great country loses half its dignity and strength when it cannot in an orderly and methodical way give some account to all whom it may concern of the main reasons why its own social progress and the contentment of its citizens have been so well assured. — 1 Paterson's Lib. Subject, 175. law: its authoes, befobms, and oouets. 89 PEOJECT OF A LAW UNIVERSITY UNDER HENRY VHI. Sir Nicholas Bacon, in 1537, presented to King Henry VIII. a splendid plan for the endowment from the spoils of the monasteries of a great seminary in London, after a model of a university, for the study of the law, and for the training of ambassadors and statesmen. It is much to be regretted that, owing to the rapacity of the courtiers, this effort was abortive, as down to our own time London remained the only metropolis in Europe (except Con- stantinople) without a university ; and English lawyers, though very acute practitioners, have been noticed to be rather deficient in an enlarged knowledge of jurisprudence. Besides the study of the common and civil law, the objecis of the projected institution were to cultivate the knowledge of Latin and French, and in those languages to write and debate on all questions of public policy; to form historical collections, and publish new treatises relating to domestic institutions and foreign diplomacy ; and the students were finally to perfect their knowledge of political science as attacMs, travelling in the suites of King's ambassadors on the Continent. — 2 Camp. Lives of Chanc, 89. wolsey's notion of a law university. If Cardinal Wolsey was sneered at for his ignorance of the doctrines and practice of the Court when he was Lord Chancellor, he had his revenge by openly complaining that the lawyers who practised before him were grossly ignorant of the civil law and the principles of general jurisprudence ; and he has been described as often inter- rupting their pleadings, and bitterly animadverting on their narrow notions and limited arguments. To remedy an evil which troubled the stream of justice at the fountain-head, he, with his usual magnificence of con- ception, projected an institution to be founded in London, for the systematic study of all branches of the law. He even furnished an architectural model for the building, which was considered a masterpiece, and remained long after his death as a curiosity in the palace at Greenwich. Such an institution is still a desideratum in England, 90 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEBS. for, with splendid exceptions, it must be admitted that English barristers, though very clever practitioners, are not such able jurists as are to be found in other coun- tries where law is systematically studied as a science. — 1 Camp. Lives of Chanc, 507. WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR'S CENTRAL COURT OF LAW. William the Conqueror's plan was to have a grand cen- tral tribunal for the whole realm, which should not only be a court of appeal, but in which all causes of importance should originate and be finally decided. This was after- wards called Curia Megis, and sometimes Aula Regis, because it assembled in the hall of the king's palace. The great officers of State — the Constable, the Mareschal, the Seneschal, the Chamberlain, and the Treasurer — were tlfe judges, and over them presided the Grand Justiciar. Next to the King himself, he was chief in power and authority, and when the King was beyond seas (which frequently happened) he governed the realm like a viceroy. He was at all times the guardian of the public peace as Coroner-General, and he likewise had a control over the finances of the kingdom. In rank he had the precedence of all the nobility, and his power was greater than that of all other magistrates. The administration of justice continued nearly on the same footing for eight reigns, extending over rather more than two centuries. Although, during the whole of this period, the Aula Regis was preserved, yet, for convenience, causes, accord- ing to their different natures, were gradually assigned to different committees of it, — to which may be traced the Court of King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of Exchequer, and the Court of Chancery. — 1 Camp. Ch. Js., 303. COURTS OF LAW MADE STATIONARY. There was introduced under Edward III. a great im- provement in the administration of justice, by rendering the Court of Chancery stationary at Westminster. The ancient kings of England were constantly migrating, — one principal reason for which was, that the same part of the country, even with the aid of purveyance and pre- LAW : ITS AUTHOES, EEFOEMS, AND COUETS. 91 emption, could not long support the Court and all the royal retainers, and the render in kind due to the King could be best consumed on the spot. Therefore, if be kept Christmas at Westminster, he would keep Easter at Winchester, and Pentecost at Gloucester, visiting his many palaces and manors in rotation. The Aula Regis, and afterwards the Courts into which it was partitioned, were ambulatory along with him — to the great vexation of the suitors. This grievance was partly corrected by Magna Charta, which enacted that the Court of Common Pleas should be held in a "certain place," a corner of Westminster Hall being fixed upon for that purpose. In point of law, the Court of King's Bench and the Court of Chancery may still be held in any county of England, "wheresoever in England the King or the Chancellor may be." Down to the commencement of the reign of Edward III., the King's Bench and the Chancery actually had continued to follow the King's person, the Chancellor and his officers being entitled to part of the purveyance made for the royal household. By 28 Edward I., c. 6, the Lord Chancellor and the justices of the King's Bench were ordered to follow the King, so that he might have at all times near him sages of the law able to order all matters which should come to the Court. But the two Courts were now by the King's command fixed in the places where, unless on a few extraordinary occasions, they continued to be held down to our own times, at the upper end of Westminster Hall, the King's Bench on the left hand, and the Chancery on the right, both remaining open to the Hall, and a bar being erected to keep off the multitude from pressing on the judges. The Chancellor, on account of his superior dignity, had placed for him a great marble table, to which there was an ascent by five or six steps, with a marble chair by the side of it. The marble table and chair are said to have been displaced when the Court was covered in from the Hall. — 1 Camp. Lives of Ohanc, 218. SHOPS IN WESTMINSTER HALL ABOLISHED. "In 1630, one Saturday night, a woman having negligently left a pan of coals under one of the stalls or 92 CURIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWTEES. shops in Westminster Hall which do pass along from the Common Pleas towards the Chancery, all those shops except three were burnt up. And the flame mounted so high on the west side of the Hall as not only some of the angels' wings were singed, but the fire took hold on the roof; and had not Mr. Squib, one of the tellers of the Exchequer, passed by chance through the HaU betimes on Sunday morning, and hired two sailors to climb up and to open the lead in three or four places and pour down water, that goodly Hall had been burned down. So now His Majesty Charles I. will suffer no more shops to stand there,"— Life of Ch.L CHANGING THE SITES OF COUETB. That Lord Keeper Bridgman, in the time of Charles IL, was not a judge of very enlarged views, one may con- jectui'e from his celebrated construction of the clause of Magna Charta providing for the due administration of justice. The Court of Common Pleas, in the reign of Charles II., was held in Westminster Hall, near the great northern gate ; and the judges, counsel, attorneys, suitors, and bystanders being much annoyed by the cold and the noise, there was a general wish that the Court should be removed to an adjoining recess, from which the voice of the Serjeants, when eloquent, might still have been heard in the hall; but the Chief Justice would by no means agree to this innovation. '' For the Great Charter enacts that the Court of Common Pleas, instead of following the KiDg in his progresses, shall be held in aliquo certo loco; so that, after the proposed removal, all the proceedings of the' Court would be a coram non judice, and void." — Roger North. COMMONWEALTH HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE. When the ordinance to constitute the High Court ot Justice was first introduced into the House of Commons, Seijetint Bradshaw was named in it as an assistant only, but in a further stage of its progress he was promoted to the i-ank of Commissioner. He was chosen President of the Court to try Charles I. For the occasion he had a law: its authors, beforms, and courts. 93 thick crowned beaver hat, lined with plated steel, to ward off blows in the event of any public tumult. A HIGH COUKT OF JUSTICE. The Lord Protector Cromwell was obliged, on the discovery of a royalist plot, to resort to a very arbitrary measure, by establishing a High Court of Justice, which was to decide on life or death without a jury, and without the control of any known law. The Lords Commis- sioners of the Great Seal were placed at the head of it, and Lord Lisle acted as President. The name of the High Court of Justice was revived in the reign of Victoria, when some of the old courts were rearranged, and a new Palace of Justice (called the Royal Courts) was built at Temple Bar. COURTS OF JUSTICE OPEN TO THE PUBLIO. A court of justice is open to the public; and any person whatever, whether interested or not by reason of inhabitancy or otherwise, is entitled to enter, if there is room for him to be there. All the superior courts are therefore free to the visitation of any one who chooses to attend. This right has never been questioned. Never- theless it is not an absolute right for any person to go and insist on choosing his own position, for the regulation of places must necessarily reside in the judge, otherwise his own seat might be taken possession of by the first comer. Thus it follows, that the presiding officer, whether he be judge, coroner, justice, or sheriff, has the control of the proceedings, and the power of admission or exclusion according to his own discretion. In all courts of justice there are occasions when matters are or ought to be conducted in privacy and to avoid scandal; and it rests with the judge of the court, exclusively and without appeal, to determine when such an occasion has arisen. The propriety of his decision cannot be questioned in any action ; for this being a matter within his juris- diction, and no judge being amenable to an action for anything done in the execution of his office, it follows that no one has a remedy by way of damages for any 94 CUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYEBS. mistake. And this is the rule applicable to all courts, great and small. — Paterson's Lib. Press, 12.5. THE OLD MARSHALS COURT. Hyde, afterwards Lord Chancellor Clarendon, when in the House of Commons, had the honour of striking the first blow in the House at a specific grievance. This was by a motion for papers respecting tbe Court of Honour, or Earl Marshal's Court, which, under pretence of guard- ing heraldic distinctions, had become a powerful organ of oppression. He mentioned several instances with great effect. A citizen was ruinously fined by this Court, because, in an altercation with an insolent waterman who wished to impose upon him, he deridingly called the swan on his badge "' a goose." The case was brought within the jurisdiction of the Court by showing that the waterman was an Earl's servant, and that the swan was the Earl's crest. The citizen was so severely punished for " dishonouring " this crest. Again, a tailor who had often very submissively asked payment of his bill from a customer of gentle blood, whose pedigree was duly registered at the Herald's College, on a threat of personal violence for his importunity, was provoked into saying that " he was as good a man as his creditor." For this offence, which was alleged to be a levelling attack upon the aristocracy, he was summoned before the Earl Marshal's Court, and mercifully dismissed with a repri- mand — on releasing the debt. While the House was thus amused and excited, Hyde successfully concluded his maiden speech by telling them that not only was the Court oppressive to the humbler classes, but that its exactions were onerous to the nobility themselves, and to the whole body of the gimtry of England. This obnoxious Marshal's Court had not relaxed in its mischievous activity since its recent exposure; and Hyde, who now " spoke smartly and ingenuously," said that for words of supposed defamation, of which the law took no notice, more damages had been given by the sole judg- ment of the Earl Marshal in two days, than by juries in all the actions tried in all the Courts in Westminster HaU during a whole term. He further proved that LAW : ITS AUTHORS, EEFOEMS, AND OOUETS. 95 this supposed Court was a mere usurpation during the present reign, the earliest precedent of its having enter- tained a suit of words being in the year 1633. The committee reported, "that the Constable's and Earl Marshal's Court has no jurisdiction to hold plea of words, that the Earl Marshal can make no Court without the Constable, and that the Earl Marshal's Court is a griev- ance." The report was adopted by the House ; and so palpable was the usurpation which, unchecked, might have been confirmed by usage, that the Earl Marshal begged pardon for what he had done, throwing the blame upon his advi.iers, and, without any bill to abolish it. " the Court never presumed to sit afterwards." — 3 Camp, Chanc, 121. A JUDGE ARRESTED IN COURT. Hyde was a member of the Committee for inquiring into the illegal conduct of the judges respecting ship money, and assisted Lord Falkland in preparing the charges against Lord Keeper Finch. He presented a report from the Committee, which so deeply implicated Mr. Justice Berkeley, that the learned judge, while sitting in the Court of King's Bench in his robes, was arrested, and brought away prisoner through Westminster Hall, then full of people. See this incident noticed also ante, p. 67. THE STAR CHAMBER. Lord Bacon and Lord Coke particularly praised the statute of 2 Henry VII. c. 1, contrived to extend the jurisdiction of the Star Chamber, which they called "a Court of Criminal Equity," and which, not being governed by any certain rules, they considered superior to any other Court to be found in this or in any other nation. It was certainly found a very useful instrument of arbitrary government during the whole continuance of the Tudoi dynasty ; but its authority being still stretched in opposition to a growing love of freedom, it mainly led to the unpopularity of the Stuarts and their expulsion from the throne. Lord Campbell said he wished that there had been 96 OUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEBS. preserved to ns the debates on the abolition of the Star Chamber. He made no doubt that its advocates ascribed to it all the prosperity and greatness of the country, and prophesied from its abolition the speedy and permanent prevalence of fraud, anarchy, and bloodshed in England. CONTEMPT OF COURT. The power to commit summarily for contempt all persons who intrude into the judicial function, and pro- fess to have better and superior means of knowledge, or who suggest partial or corrupt conduct, is deemed in- herent in all courts of record, though the occasion and extent of this summary jurisdiction have given rise to nice distinctions. It is said to be a necesbary incident to every court of justice, whether of record or not, to fine and imprison for a contempt acted in the face of it. This exercise of power is as ancient as any other part of the common law. If the course of justice is obstructed, that obstruction must be violently removed. When men's allegiance to the laws is fundamentally shaken, this is a dangerous obstruction. Chief Justice Wilmot, who put this doctrine as high as it could be put, and examined the authorities, ended by saying that the object of courts having the power of punishing by attachment for contempt was " to keep a blaze of glory round the judges, and to deter people from attempting to render them contemptible in the eyes of the public." — Pater son's Lib. Press, 122. CHIEF JUSTICE GASCOIGNE COMMITTING THE PRINCE OF WALES. Sir Thomas Elyot, in his work " The Governor," relates this incident as to Chief Justice Gascoigne. " The moste renouned prince king Henry the fyfte, late kynge of Englande, durynge the lyfe of his father, was noted to be fiers and of wanton courage ; it hapened that one of his servantes, whom he favoured well, was, for ffJony by him committed, arrained at the kjmges benche : whereof the prince being advertised and incensed by lyghte persons aboute him, in furious rage came hastily to the law: its authors, eefoems, and couets. 97 barre where his servante stode as a prisoner, and com- manded him to be ungyved and set at libertie ; -whereat all men were abashed, reserved the Chiefe Justice, who humbly exhorted the prince to be contented, that his servant mought be ordred accordynge to the aunciente lawes of this realme : or if he wolde have hym saved from the rigour of the lawes, that he shulde obteyne, if he moughte, of the kynge his father, his gratious pardon, whereby no lawe or justyce shulde be derogate. With which answere the prince nothynge appeased, but rather more inflamed, endevored hymselfe to take away his servuant. The juge considering the perillous example and inconvenience that mought thereby ensue with a valyant spirite and courage, commanded the prince upon his alegeance, to leave the prisoner, and depart his way. With which commandment the prince being set all in a fury, aU chafed and in a terrible maner, came up to the place of jugement, men thynking that he wold have slayne the juge or have done to hym some damage ; but the juge sittynge sty 11 without moving, declaring the majestie of the kynge's place of jugement, and with an assured and noble countenance, sayde to the prince these wordes followyng : " ' Syr, remembre yourselfe, I keep here the place of the kyng your soveraine lorde and father, to whom ye owe double obedience ; wherefore eftsoones in his name, I charge you desyste of your wylfulness and unlawful! enterprise, and from hensforth give good example to those, whyche hereafter shall be your propre subjectes. And now, for your contempte and disobedience, go you to the prysone of the kynge's benche, whereunto I commyte you, and remayne ye there prysoner untyll the pleasure of the kynge your father be further knowen.' " With whiche wordes being abashed, and also won- dryge at the mervaylous gravitie of that worshypfulle justyce, the noble prince layinge his weapon aparte, doying reverence, departed, and went to the kynge's benche, as he was commanded. Whereat his servauntes disdayninge, came and shewed to the kynge all the hole affaire. Whereat he awhyles studyenge, after as a man ravyshed with gladnes, holdynge his eien and handes up towarde heven, abraided, saying with a loude voice : — 7 98 OUEIOSITIBS OF LAW AND LAWYERS. " ' merciful! God, howe moche am I, above all other men, bounde to your infinite gooduess, specially for that ye have gyven me a juge, who feareth not to minister justyce, and also a sonne, who can suffre semblably, and obey jus tyce!' " A JUDGE EOBBBD ON THE BENCH. The Chancellor Sir T. More did not despise a practical joke. While he held his City office as Recorder, he used regularly to attend the Old Bailey Sessions, where there was a tiresome old justice, " who was wont to chide the poor men that had their purses cut for not keeping them more warily, saying that their negligence was the cause that there were so many cutpurses brought thither." To stop his prosing, More at last went to a celebrated cutpurse then in prison, who was to be tried next day, and promised to stand his friend if he would cut this justice's purse while he sat on the bench trying him. The thief being arraigned at the sitting of the Court next morning, said he could excuse himself sufficiently if he were but permitted to speak in private to one of the bench. He was bid to choose whom he would, and he chose that grave old justice, who then had his pouch at his girdle. The thief stepped up to him, and while he rounded him in the ear, cunningly cut up his purse, and, taking his leave, solemnly went back to his place. From the agreed signal. More, knowing that the deed was done, proposed a small subscription for a poor needy fellow who had been acquitted, beginning by himself setting a liberal example. The old justice, after some hesitation, expressed his willingness to give a trifle, but finding his purse cut away, expressed the greatest astonishment, as he said he was sure he had it when he took his seat in Court that morning. More replied, in a pleasant manner, " What ! will you charge your brethren of the bench with felony ? " The justice becoming angry and ashamed, Sir Thomas called the thief and desired him to deliver up the purse, counselling the worthy justice hereafter not to be so bitter a censurer of innocent men's negligence, since he himself could not keep his purse safe when presiding as a judge at the trial of cutpurses. LAW : ITS AUTHOES, EEFOBMS, AND COURTS. 99 Lord Campbell relates this story of Sir John Sylvest jr, Recorder of London. " He was in my time robbed of his watch by a thief whom he tried at the Old Bailey. During the trial he happened to say aloud that he had forgot to bring his watch with him. The thief being acquitted for want of evidence, went with the Recorder's love to Lady Sylvester, and requested that she would immediately send his watch to him by a constable he had ordered to fetch it." "Soon after I was called to the Bar, and had published the first number of my 'Nisi Prius Reports,' while de- fending a prisoner in the Crown Court, I had occasion to consult my client, and I went to the dock, where I conversed with him for a minute or two. I got him off" and he was immediately discharged. But my joy was soon disturbed : putting my hand into my pocket to pay the 'junior' of the circuit my quota for yesterday's dinner, I found that my purse was gone, containing several bank-notes, the currency of that day. The inci- dent causing much merriment, it was; communicated to Lord Chief Baron Macdonald, the presiding judge, who said, 'What! does Mr. Campbell think that no one is entitled to take notes in court except himself?'" — 1 Camp. Lives of Chanc, 598. STRATAGEM IN HIS FAVOUR. The London Post of 1st June, 1700, reported this ad- venture. "Two days ago, Mr. Simon Harcourt (afterwards Lord Chancellor), a lawyer of the Temple, coming to town in his coach, was robbed by two highwaymen on Houn- slow Heath of £50, his watch, and whatever they could find valuable about him ; which being perceived by a countryman on horseback, he dogged them to a distance ; and they taking notice thereof, turned and rid up towards him ; upon which he, counterfeiting the drunkard, rid forward, making antic gestures ; and being come up with them, spoke as if he clipped the King's English with having drunk too much, and asked them to drink a pot, offering to treat them, if they would but drink with him ; 100 CUBIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. whereupon, they believing him to be really drunk, left him, and went forward again; and he still followed them till he came to Kew ferry, and when they were in the boat discovered them, so that they were both seized and committed ; by which means the gentleman got again all they had taken from him." APPLAUDING COUNSEL IN COURT. Though Holt complained once of the audience hissing, our courts fortunately forbid this demonstrative sym- pathy. The advocates of ancient Rome, in its palmy days, resorted to tricks to secure an audience ; and they hired and bought a rabble to follow them about and clap them ; as Pliny the younger, himself a leading advocate, described the practice with contempt. He says the first person who introduced the practice was Licinius, though all he did at first was to invite people to come and hear him. Quintilian told Pliny that it happened in this way. One day Domitius Afer was pleading before the centumviri in his slow and impressive way, when on a sudden a shout- ing and clapping was heard in a neighbouring court. He paused in astonishment, and resumed after a grave look of indignation. Again another shouting, and another pause. A third time it occurred, and the advocate asked what it was. He was then told it was Licinius addressing the next court. Domitius Afer thereon threw down his brief, exclaiming, " This, my lords, is intolerable ; our profession is going to the dogs : I quit it for ever." Pliny says that things got worse and worse, and noises were more like cymbals and drums, and the yelling and shouting became worse than what occurred in a theatre. He was disgusted, and loathed the whole business, and would have left it at once if it had not been that his friends thought he might as well make a little more money first. THE JUDGES REFERRING THE CASE TO A MILLINER. In Paris an action was brought to recover the price ol a magnificent dress from Mrs. Graham, who had ordered a body to be made to correspond with a dress of embroidered black lace. This body was to correspond with the skirt LAW : ITS AUTHOBS, EEFOBMS, AND COUETS. 101 and no other details were entered into. The milliner followed the pattern of the border, and not of the skirt, and the English lady refused to accept the dress. Her counsel produced the dress in court, and the judges being puzzled, referred the matter to a celebrated lady, a lace dealer, who returned her lucid opinion on stamped paper, and duly sealed, as follows : " If it be true in principle that the custom was to make the body correspond with the skirt, yet in fact good sense and good taste concur in justifying the proceedings of Madame Troyes, who, eman- cipating herself from the trammels of routine, had boldly dared to substitute for the happy accomplishment of her object the rich and tasteful design of the border instead of the mean and paltry one of the skirt ! " OOUBT POSTPONING JUDGMENT FOE A HUNDRED TEARS. When Dolabella was proconsul in Asia, a woman of Smyrna was accused before him of poisoning her husband and son. She admitted the fact, but said that they had by plot killed another son of hers, who was a most excellent and blameless youth. Dolabella referred the case to his council, and they seemed to think it was not a fit case for punishment. The case was then referred to the Areopagites at Athens as the most skilful judges. That court was so perplexed that it adjourned the hearing to that day one hundred years thence. Aristotle told a similar story of a woman who was violently in love with a youth who was not much in love with her, and she gave him a magical potion to restore his love; but he, unfortunately, died in the operation. When charged before the Areopagites with murder, they were satisfied she never meant to kill him; so they adjourned the further hearing si/ne die. COURTS JUDGING FOB THEMSELVES AS TO AN ALLEGED INDECENCY. The jealous Toledo clergy wished to put down the Bolero (a favourite Spanish dance), on the pretence of immorality. The dancers were allowed in their defence 102 CUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWTEES. to exhibit a specimen to the Court. When they began, the bench and the bar showed symptoms of restlessness, and at last, casting aside their gowns and briefs, they joined, as if under some uncontrollable impulse, in the amusement. Verdict for the defendants, with costs. IMPOUNDING A DOCUMENT IN COURT. In one case. Baron Hullock, when at the bar, was par- ticularly instructed not to produce a certain deed uuless it was a.bsolutely necessary. Notwithstanding this, he produced it in order to decide the business at once. On examination it proved to have been forged by his client's attorney, who was seated behind him, and who had warmly remonstrated. Mr. Justice Bayley, who tried the cause, ordered the deed to be impounded, so that a prosecution might be instituted. Before this could be done, Mr. Hullock requested leave to inspect it, and on its being handed to him immediately returned it to his bag. The judge remonstrated, but in vain. Mr. Hullock said, " No power on earth should induce him to surrender it. He had incautiously put the life of a fellow creature in peril; and though he had acted to the best of his discretion, he should never be happy again, were a fatal result to ensue." Mr. Justice Bayley — not sorry, perhaps, for an excuse — continued" to insist on the delivery of the deed, but declined taking decisive measures until he had con- sulted with the other judge. The consultation came too late, for the deed was destroyed without delay, and the ttorney escaped. A SERJEANT COMING LATE INTO COURT. A learned serjeant kept the Court waiting one morning for a few minutes. The business of the Court commenced at nine. '' Brother," said the judge, " you are behind your time this morning. The Court has been waiting for you." "I beg your lordship's pardon," replied the Serjeant ; " I am afraid I was longer than usual in dressing." "Oh," returned the judge, "I can dress in five minutes at any time." "Indeed!" said the learned brother, a little surprised for the moment ; " but in that law: its authoks, befoems, and coubts. 103 my dog Shock beats your lordship hollow, for he has nothing to do but to shake his coat, and thinks himself fit for any company." "bt all means protest and go." Henry Hunt once took up the cause of a boy who was unjustly imprisoned. He addressed the judge: "I am here, my lord, on the part of the boy Dogood," proceeded the undaunted volunteer advocate. His lordship cast a moment's glance on the printed list, and quietly said, " Mr. Hunt, I see no name of any boy Dogood in the paper of causes," and turned towards the door of his room. " My lord," vociferated the orator, "am I to have no redress for an unfortunate youth ? I thought your lordship was sitting for the redress of injuries in a court of justice." " O no, Mr. Hunt," still calmly responded the judge ; " I am sitting at Nisi Prius ; and I have no right to redress any injuries, except those which may be brought before the jury and me, in the causes appointed for trial." — " My lord," then said Mr. Hunt, somewhat subdued by the unexpected amenity of the judge, "I only desire to protest." "Oh, is that all?" said Lord Ellen- borough; "by all means protest, and go about your business ! " So Mr. Hunt protested, and went about his business ; and my lord went unruiHed to his dinner, and both parties were content. ACCIDENT DUKING TRIAL KILLING THE ATTORNEY. When Justice Wilmot was trying a cause at Worcester assizes in 1767, a stack of chimneys was blown over on the roof, and beat it down over the court. The judge sitting up close to the wall escaped without hurt ; but the attorney in the cause and another man were killed, as well as two of the jurymen ; and many were wounded. Most of the counsel had left the court, and the judge was summing up, otherwise more deaths must have been caused, JUDGE STOPPING A NOISE IN COURT. Lord Hermand, the Scotch judge, while presiding in Court, heard a noise near the door which annoyed him. 104 CUEI0SITIE3 OP LAW AND LAWYEES. and called out to the officer, " What is that noise ? " "It's a man, my lord." " What does he want ? " " He wants in, my lord." " Keep him out ! " The man, it seems, did get in, and soon afterwards alike noise was renewed, and his lordship again demanded, " What's the noise there ? " " It's the same man, my lord." " What does he want now ? " " He wants out, my lord." " Then keep him in — I say, keep him, in/" A WAG BRINGING A MUSICAL SNUFF-BOX INTO COURT. When Lord Hermand, the Scotch judge, was trying criminal cases on circuit, some wag put a musical snuff- box in one of the seats, which played "Jack's alive." The music struck the audience with consternation, and the judge stared in the air, looking unutterable things, and frantically called out to the usher or macer, " Macer, what, in the name of God, is that ? " The macer looked round in vain, when the wag called out, "It's 'Jack's alive,' my lord." "Dead or alive, put him out this moment," called out the judge. " We cannot grip him, my lord." " If he has the art of hell, let every man assist to arraign him before me, that I may commit him for this outrage and contempt." Everybody tried to discover the offender, and fortunately the music ceased. But it began again half an hour afterwards, and the judge exclaimed, "Is he there again? By all that's sacred, he shall not escape me this time — fence, bolt, bar the doors of the court, and at your peril let a man living or dead escape." All was bustle and confusion, the officers looking east and west, and up in the air, and down to the floor ; but the search was vain. The judge at last began to suspect witchcraft, and exclaimed, " This is a deceptio auris, — it is absolute delusion, necromancy, phantasmagoria." And to the day of his death the judge never understood the precise origin of this unwonted visitation. THE USHER OF THE COURT. One of the ushers of the Court of Session who was rather noted for drunkenness was carrying in a couple of candles as the Court was sitting late one afternoon. LAW : ITS AUTHOBS, EEFOBMS, AND COUBTS. 105 Mr. William Carmichael, advocate, who was remarkably humpbacked, and greatly loved a little mischief, stretched out his legs as the usher passed, which made that functionary come down with great noise. The Lord President flew into a great passion, calling out, "You drunken beast, this is insufferable." The usher, gathering himself up with dignity, addressed his lordship slily: " An't please your lordship, I am not drunk ; but the truth is, as I was bringing in the candles, I fell over Mr. William Carmichael's back." This sally put the whole Court in good humour. ANOTHER USHBB OB" THE COURT. O'Connell told a story of an usher in an Irish court one day being anxious to thin the court, and who called out: "All ye blackguards that isn't lawyers, quit the coortl" OLD GEIEVANCB OF CHANCERY DELAYS. "The Chancery," says a contemporary pamphlet in the time of the Commonwealth, "is a great grievance, one of the greatest in the nation. It is confidently affirmed by kuowing gentlemen of worth, that there are depending in that court 23,000 causes ; that some of them have been depending five, some ten, some twenty, some thirty years and more ; there have been spent in causes many hundreds, nay thousands of pounds, to the undoing of many families ; what is ordered one day is contradicted the next, so as in some causes there have been 500 orders." ONE ORIGIN OF CHANCERY DELAYS. Lord Keeper Bridgman had been a celebrated lawyer, and sat with high esteem in the place of Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. The removing him from thence to the Chancery did not at all contribute any increase to his fame, but rather the contrary, for he was timorous to an impotence, and that not mended by his great age. He laboured very much to please everybody, and that is a temper of ill consequence in a judge. It was 106 CUEIOSITIBS OF LAW AND LAWTEES. observed of him, that if a case admitted of divers doubts, which the lawyers call points, he would never give all on one side, but either party should have somewhat to go away with. And in his time the Court of Chancery ran out of order into delays and endless motions in causes, so that it was like a field overgrown with briars. And what was the worst of all, his family were very ill qualified for that place ; the lady being a most violent intrigueress in business, and his sons kept no good decorum whilst they practised under him ; and he had not a vigour of mind and strength to coerce the cause of so much disorder in his family. — North's Life of Lord Keeper, 88. bldon's chancert doubts, and keeping the king's conscience. Lord Brougham said of Eldon : "He who would adjourn a private estate bill for weeks unable to make up his mind on one of its clauses, or would take a month to decide on what terms some amendment should be allowed in a suit, could without one moment's hesitation resolve to give the king's consent to the making of laws, when His Majesty was in such a state of mental disease that the keeper of his person could not be suffered to quit the royal closet for an instant, while his patient was with the keeper of his conscience performing the highest function of sovereignty." DEALING WITH THE SUITOR'S MONET IN CHANCERY. To check abuses in time to come. Lord King, when Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Master of the Rolls, remodelled Lord Macclesfield's order, forbidding Masters in Chancery any longer to make use of suitors' money for their own advantage, and commanding them forthwith to pay all sums received by them into the Bank of England. This for the future secured the prin- cipal of the money, but would not have done justice to the suitors, whose fortunes might be locked up many years in the course of administration, or pending a com- plicated litigation. A plan was therefore devised whereby law: its authoes, eefoems, and courts. 107 interest should be allowed to them in the meantime, the money being vested in public securities in the name of a new oiEcer, acting under the control of the Lord Chan- cellor, to be called the Accountant-General. This was carried into effect by two Acts of Parliament, 12 Geo. I. cc. 32, 33, the one entitled, " An Act for better securing the Monies and Effects of the Suitors of the Court of Chancery ; " and the other, "An Act for the Relief of the High Court of Chancery." " Happy had it been," says Oldmixon, " if the Acts had farther relieved the suitors in that court, by regulating the litigious, tedious, and expensive suits, and the enormous extortions of hungry solicitors, and the vexatious and chargeable attendances upon Masters, which render even a Court of Equity in too many instances equally ruinous and terrible." But the difficulties in the way of further improvement were probably then insurmountable. — 4 Camp, Ohanc, 639. 108 CUBIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWXEB3. CHAPTEE IV. ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, CONVEY- ANCERS, AND ATTORNEYS. THE MORALITY OF ADVOOAOT. "I asked Dr. Johnson," says Boswell, "whether, as a moralist, he did not think that the practice of the law, in some degree, hurt the nice feeling of honesty." Johnson. "Why, no, sir, if you act properly. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations of your opinion : you are not to tell lies to a judge." Boswell. "But what do you think of supporting a cause you know to be bad ? " Johnson. " Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts clearly ; so that your thinking, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the judge to whom you urge it ; and if it does convince him, why, then, sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge : and you are not to be confident in your own opinion that a cause is bad, but to say all you can for your client, and then hear the judge's opinion." Boswell. " But, sir, does not afiecting a warmth when you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion, when you are, in reality, of another opinion, — does not such dissimulation impair one's honesty? Is there not some danger that a lawyer may put on the same mask in common life, in the intercourse with his friends ? " Johnson. " Why, no, sir. Everybody knows ABOUT ADTOCATES, PLEADEBS, ETC. 109 you are paid for aflfecting warmth for your client ; and it is, therefore, properly no dissimulation ; the moment you come from the bar you resume your usual behaviour. Sir, a man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourae of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling upon his hands will continue to tumble upon his hands when he should walk upon his feet." A CLIENT ENTITLED TO HAVE HIS VIEWS PUT IN THE BEST WAY. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson to Sir William Forbes, "a lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly; the justice, or injustice, of the cause is to be decided by the judge. Consider, sir, what is the purpose of courts of justice — ^it is that every man may have his cause fairly tried by men appointed to try causes. A lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie — ^he is not to produce what he knows to be a false deed ; but he is not to usurp the province of the jury and of the judge, and determine what shall be the effect of evidence, what shall be the result of legal argument. K, by a superiority of atten- tion, of knowledge, of skill, and a better method of communication, a lawyer hath the advantage of his adversary, it is an advantage to which he is entitled. There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that that advantage should be by talents than by chance." — Boswell's Johnson. THE FUNCTION OF THE BAB. D'Aguesseau, the celebrated French advocate, said of the bar : " It is an order as ancient as the magistracy, as noble as virtue, as necessary as justice; it is distinguished by a character which is peculiar to itself, and it alone always maintains the happy and peaceful possession of independence. The advocate is free without being useless to his country ; he devotes himself to the public without being a slave to it." 110 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYERS. Eerryer, at a later date, said this : " The iudependence of the bar is a bulwark for each citizen against the rage and the violence of authority, against the violation of law, against unjust prosecutions. We have everything to dread if it be weakened : we have no reason to despair while it is maintained and respected. There will triumph, I trust, the persevering efforts of right reason, of the spirit of justice, of public integrity. There, at least, in the words of D'Aguesseau, will resound the last cry of expiring freedom." EESKINE ON COUNSEL AND CLIENT. Several of Erskine's friends earnestly persuaded him to refuse the retainer of Tom Paine to defend him against the prosecution for seditious libel ; and among these was Lord Loughborough, who ought to have known better, but who thought that at last he had the Great Seal within his grasp. Erskine himself, many years after, gave the following amusing account of their interview : " In walking home one dark November evening, across Hampstead Heath, I met Loughborough coming in an opposite direction, apparently with the intention of meet- ing me. He was also on foot. ' Erskine,' he said, ' I was seeking you, for I have something important to com- municate to you.' There was an unusual solemnity in his manner, and a deep hoUowness in his voice. We were alone ; the place was solitary ; the dusk was gathering around us; and not a voice, not a footstep, was within hearing. I felt as Hubert felt when John half opened, half suppressed the purpose of his soul, in that awful conference which Shakespeare has so finely imagined. After a portentous pause, he began : 'Erskine, you must not take Paine's brief ' But I have been retained, and I will take it, by G — d,' was my reply." Messages to the same effect were brought to Erskine from the Prince of Wales ; but he was inexorable. By many well-meaning people, ignorant of professional etiquette, and of what is required by a due regard for the proper administration of criminal justice, his obstinacy was much condemned, and scurrilous attacks were made upon him in the Government newspapers. If the advocate ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADEES, ETC. Ill refuses to defend from some opinion he may have of the charge or of the defence, he assumes the character of the judge ; nay, he assumes it before the hour of judgment ; and, in proportion to his rank and reputation, puts the heavy influence of perhaps a mistaken opinion into the scale against the accused, in whose favour the benevolent principle of English law makes all presumptions, and which commands the very judge to be his counsel. In his speech Erskine proceeds to the defence, and lays down, with admirable discrimination, the limits of free discussion on political subjects. Erskine afterwards said, " I owe it to his Royal Highness to express my opinion that, circumstanced as he was, he. had no other course to take in those disgraceful and disgusting times, and that - my retainer for Paine was made a pretext by the King's Ministers for my removal." — 6 Camp. Chanc, 457. EESKINB A HEAVEN-BORN ADVOCATE. Erskine being junior, in his first case threw out insinu- ations against Lord Sandwich for his interference with Greenwich Hospital. Lord Mansfield, observing the counsel heated with his subject, and growing personal on the First Lord of the Admiralty, told him that Lord Sandwich was not before the Court. Ershine. " I know that he is not formally before the Court, but for that very reason I wiU bring him before the Court. He has placed these men in the front of the battle in hopes to escape under their shelter, but I will not join in battle with them; their vices, though screwed up to the highest pitch of human depravity, are not of dignity enough to vindicate the combat with me. I will drag Aim to light, who is the dark mover behind this scene of iniquity. I assert that the Earl of Sandwich has one road to escape out of this business without pollu- tion and disgrace, and that is by publicly disavowing the acts of the prosecutors, and restoring Captain Baillie to his command ! If he does this, then his offence will be no more than the too common one of having suffered his own personal interest to prevail over his public duty in placing his voters in the hospital. But if, on the con- trary, he continues to protect the prosecutors, in spite of 112 CUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWTEES. the evidence of their guilt, which has excited the abhor- ence of the numerous audience who crowd this court, — if he keeps this injured man suspended, or dares to turn that suspension into a removal, — I shall then not scruple to declare him an accomplice in their guilt, a shameless oppressor, a disgrace to his rank, and a traitor to his trust. But as I should be very sorry that the fortune of my brave and honourable friend should depend either upon the exercise of Lord Sandwich's virtues or the influence of his fears, I do most earnestly entreat the Court to mark the malignant object of the prosecution, and to defeat it. I beseech you, my lords, to consider that even by discharging the rule, and with costs, the defendant is neither protected nor i-estored. I trust, therefore, your lordships will not rest satisfied with ful- filling your judicial duty ; but, as the strongest evidence of foul abuses has by accident come collaterally before you, that you will protect a brave and public-spirited officer from the persecution this writing has brought upon him, and not suffer so dreadful an example to go abroad into the world, as the ruin of an upright man for having faithfully discharged his duty. My lords, this matter is of the last importance. I speak not as an advocate alone. I speak to you as a man, as a member of a state whose very existence depends upon her naval strength. If our fleets are to be crippled by the baneful influence of elections, we are lost indeed. If the seaman, while he exposes his body to fatigues and dangers, looking forward to Greenwich as an asylum for infirmity and old age, sees the gates of it blocked up by corruption, and hears the riot and mirth of luxurious landsmen drowning the groans and complaints of the wounded, helpless com- panions of his glory, he will tempt the seas no more. The Admiralty may press his body, indeed, at the expense of humanity and the constitution, but they cannot press his mind, — they cannot press the heroic ardour of a British sailor; and instead of a fleet to carry terror all round the globe, the Admiralty may not be able much longer to amuse us even with the peaceable, unsubstantial pageant of a review. Fine and imprisonment ! The man deserves a palace instead of a prison who prevents the palace built by the public bounty of his country from being ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADEBS, ETC. 113 converted into a dungeon, and who sacrifices his own security to the interests of humanity and virtue. And, now, my lords, I have done ; but not without thanking your lordships for the very indulgent attention I have received, though in so late a stage of this proceeding, and notwithstanding my great incapacity and inexperience. I resign my client into your hands, and I resign him with a well-founded confidence and hope; because that torrent of corruption which has unhappily overwhelmed every other part of the constitution is, by the blessing of Providence, stopped here by the sacred independence of the judges. I know that your lordships will determine according to law ; and therefore, if an information should be suflered to be filed, I will bow to the sentence, and shall consider this meritorious publication to be indeed an oflence against the laws of this country ; but then I shall not scruple to say, that it is high time for every honest man to remove himself from a country in which he can no longer do his duty to the public with safety, where cruelty and inhumanity are sufiered to impeach virtue, and where vice passes through a court of justice unpunished and unreproved." — Erskine's Speeches. COUNSEL COLLECTING HIS THOUGHTS. Justice Gurney, when at the bar, was considered an adept in criminal law, and at the Old Bailey he rose mainly by his gravity, and the skilful use of two phrases, " Hush ! " and " Shut that door ! " Whenever he wished for a moment's pause to collect his thoughts or to give his witness time, he affected to hear a pin fall, and complained of the noise. " My lord, it is impossible for the jury to hear what I have to say in this confusion." By steadily adhering to this course the ushers and door-keepers were forced to attend to their duty ; and those who were not familiar with the court inferred that as silence was more complete while Mr. Grurney was speaking, he must be better worth listening to than any other man. They listened : what they heard was good, though not wonderful. His reputation increased till he rose to the bench. 114 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. COUNSEL HAVING THE LAST WORD. O'Connell said of Judge Day : " No man would take more pains to serve a friend, but as a judge they could scarcely have placed a less efficient man upon the bench. He once said to me at the Cork assizes, ' Mr. O'Connell, I must not allow you to make a speech. The fact is, I am always of opinion with the last speaker, and therefore I will not let you say one word.' ' My lord,' said I, ' that is precisely the reason why I'll let nobody have the last word but myself, if I can help it.' I had the last word, and Day charged in favour of my client." A FRENCH FOPPISH ADVOCATE DISCONCERTED. A young French advocate, in the course of his address to the Court, flourished about his hand in such a manner as to show off a magnificent diamond ring. He was young, good-looking, and pleading for a lady of quality who demanded a separation from her husband. The husband, who happened to be present, interrupted him in the middle of a period, and turning to the judges exclaimed theatrically, " My lords, you will appreciate the zeal which Monsieur M. is displaying against me, and the sincerity of his argument, when you are informed that the diamond ring he wears is the very one which I placed on my wife's finger on the day of that union he is so anxious to dissolve." The Court, said M. Berryer, who relates the story, was struck, and rose immediately. The cause was lost, and the advocate never had another. To add to the poignancy of the catastrophe, the hus- band's insinuation had no foundation in fact. SPEECH FOR A CLIENT INJURED BY AN ACCIDENT. Being counsel for a person who, whilst travelling in a stage-coach, which started from the " Swan with Two Necks," in Lad Lane, had been upset, and had his arm broken, Erskine thus with much gravity began : " Gentlemen of the jury, the plaintiff in this case is Mr. Beverley, a respectable merchant of Liverpool, and the defendant is Mr. Nelson, proprietor of the 'Swan ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADBliS, ETC. 115 with Two Necks/ in Lad Lane, — a sign emblematical, I suppose, of the number of necks people ought to possess who ride in his vehicles." COUNSEL USING AN OATH IN HIS SPEECH. There was witnessed in 1781 the single instance recorded in our judicial annals of an advocate in a court of justice introducing an oath by the sacred name of the Divinity; and it was introduced not only without viola- tion or offence to pious ears, but with the thrilling sensations of religious rapture, caught from the lips of the man who, as if by inspiration, uttered the dreadful sound. Arguing upon the construction of certain words attributed to Lord George Gordon, Erskine, his counsel, exclaimed, " But this I will say, that he must be a ruffian, and not a lawyer, who would dare to tell an English jury that such ambiguous words, hemmed closely between others not only innocent, but meritorious, are to be adopted to constitute guilt by rejecting both introduction and sequel." Then, after noticing the ofi'er made to the Government by the prisoner himself to quell the disturbance, Erskine ventured upon the following bold and extraordinary sentence : " I say, by God, that man is a ruffian who shall, after this, presume to build upon such honest, artless conduct, as an evidence of guilt." The sensation produced by this daring appeal to the feelings of the jury, and by the magic of the voice, the eye, the face, the action with which it was uttered, is related by those present on this memorable occasion to have been electrical. Some have supposed that the oath was premeditated; but it has been well observed that intuitive and momentary impulse could alone have prompted a flight which it alone could sustain ; and as its failure would indeed have been fatal, so its eminent success must be allowed to rank it among the most famous feats of oratory. — 6 Camp. Ohanc, 411. lEISH COUNSEL USING THE SIMILE OF THE EAGLE. A young Irish barrister in course of his speech began to use a simile of " the eagle soaring high above the 116 OUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEEB. 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 dowii after some vain attempts to regain it. The judge sai I, " The next time, sir, you bring an eagle into court, I should recommend you to dip its wings." EESKINE ON THE INDIAN CHIEF. Erskine in one of his famous speeches used this figure : " Gentlemen, I think I can observe that you are touched with this way of considering the subject; and I can account for it. I have not been considering it through the cold medium of books, but have been speaking of man and his nature, and of human dominion, from what I have seen of them myself, amongst reluctant nations submitting to our authority. I know what they feel, and how such feelings can alone be repressed. I have heard them in my youth from a naked savage, in the indignant character of a prince surrounded by his sub- jects, addressing the governor of a British colony, holding a bundle of sticks as the notes of his unlettered eloquence. ' Who is it,' said the jealous ruler over the desert encroached upon by the restless foot of the English adventurers, — ' who is it that causes this river to rise in the high mountains, and to empty itself into the ocean ? Who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again into summer ? Who is it that rears up the shade of those lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick lightning, at His pleasure ? The same Being who gave to you a country on the other side of the waters, and gave ours to us ; and by this title we will defend it,' said the warrior, throwing down his tomahawk upon the ground, and raising the war-sound of his nation. These are the feelings of subjugated men all round the globe; and, depend upon it, nothing but fear will control where it is vain to look for affection." — Erskine's Speeches. ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADEES, ETC. 117 COUNSEL SLANDERING THIRD PARTIES IN DEFENCE OF HIS CLIENT. At a trial of a cashier of a bank for embezzlement, Rufus Choate, the American advocate, appeared for the defendant, and argued with great force that his client had been compelled to do what he did by the order of the directors, and they alone were responsible, and ought to be punished. He went on flaying the directors, when one of them being present, rose in court in great anger to deny all these insinuations. Ohoate, without stopping, blandly said, " I beg the director to be seated, as he wishes to be treated with moderation in a court of justice." Then instantly breaking out into a great scream, which he alone could make with dramatic effect : " I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, my client was as helpless in the hands of these directors as an infant surrounded by ten thousand Bengal tigers !" Everybody in court was appalled at the vehemence of the orator, and not a soul dared to smile. IRISH COUNSEL ON CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION. Curran, in defending Rowan, the Secretary of the United Irishmen, for seditious libel, had this splendid burst : . " I speak in the spirit of British law, which makes liberty commensurate with and inseparable from British soil, which proclaims even to the stranger and sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and con- secrated by the genius of universal emancipation. No. matter in what language his doom may have been pro- nounced — no matter what complexion incompatible with freedom an Indian or an African sun may have burnt upon him — no matter in what disastrous battles his liberties may have been cloven down, nor with what solemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of slavery — the very first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain the altar and the god sink together in the dust, his soul walks abroad in her own majesty, his body swells beyond the measure of the chains which burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, re- 118 CUKIOSITIES Of LAW AND LAWYEES. generated, and disfanthralled by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation." — Ourran's Speeches. brougham's peroration in defence of the queen. Lord Brougham, when defending the Queen, concluded thus : " Such, my lords, is the case now before you. Such is the evidence in support of this measure, evidence in- adequate to prove a debt, impotent to deprive of a civil right, ridiculous to convict of the lowest offence, scan- dalous if brought forward to support a charge of the highest nature which the law knows, monstrous to ruin the honour, to blast the name of an English queen ! What shall I say, then, if this is the proof by which an act of judicial legislation, a parliamentary sentence, an ex post facto law, is sought to be passed against a defenceless woman ? My lords, I pray you to pause ; I do earnestly beseech you to take heed ! You are standing upon the brink of a precipice — then beware ! It will go forth your judgment, if sentence shall go against the Queen. But it will be the only judgment you ever pronounced which, instead of reaching its object, will return and bound back upon those who gave it. Save the country, my lords, from the horrors of this catastrophe ; save your- selves from this peril ; rescue that country of which you are the ornaments, but in which you can flourish no longer, when severed from the people, than the blossom when cut off from the roots and the stem of the tree. Save that country, that you may continue to adorn it ; save the crown which is in jeopardy, the aristocracy •which is shaken; save the altar, which must stagger with the blow that rends its kindred throne ! You have said, my lords, you have willed — the Church and the King have willed — that the Queen should be deprived of its solemn service. She has, instead of that solemnity, the heartfelt prayers of the people. She wants no prayers of mine. But I do here pour forth my humble supplica- tions at the Throne of Mercy, that that mercy may be poured down upon the people in a larger measure than the merits of its rulers may deserve, and that your hearts may be turned to justice." — Brougham's Speeches. Lord Brougham, according to Lord Campbell, said that ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, ETC. 119 he had rewritten the above peroration seventeen times before he was satisfied with it. AN ADVOCATE INVOKING THE GOD OF ELOQUENCE. It was said of John Adams, the President of the United States, that he once invoked the god of eloquence in a celebrated speech on Independence. He denied this, and gave the following as the correct version of his exordium: " This is the first time of my life when I seriously wished for the genius and eloquence of the celebrated orators of Athens and Rome, called in this unexpected and unpre- pared manner to exhibit all the arguments in favour of a measure, the most important, in my judgment, that ever has been discussed in civil or political society. I have no wit or oratory to exhibit, and can produce nothing but simple reason and plain common sense. I feel myself oppressed by the weight of the subject, and I believe if Demosthenes or Cicero had ever been called to deliberate on so great a question, neither would have relied on his own talents without a supplication to Minerva and a sacrifice to Mercury or the god of eloquence." AS AMERICAN ADVOCATE AI^LUDINQ TO THE LAST JUDGMENT. The American advocate, George Evans, thus concluded a famous speech to the jury in defence of Dr. Coolidge, charged with murder : " We are assembled in no ordinary place of justice. We are standing in a temple dedicated to the service of the most high God, where prayer is wont to be made and blessings invoked, where forgiveness and charity are entreated as we mete them out to others, , where all teachings suited to our condition are constantly administered. I invoke the solemnity of the place, and the occasion, to impress you with the unspeakable import- ance of so considering and deciding, that the judgment you are to pronounce shall be that of justice and truth, mingled with mercy and compassion. When your ver- dict shall have been rendered, this vast assemblage will separate to meet no more — no more on earth. But once — once more all will assemble, not to judge, but to be 120 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWIEBS. judged — to be judged for the deeds done this day. ' For I saw,' said the exile at Patmos, ' I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, and the books were opened, and the dead, both small and great, were judged out of the things written in the books.' God grant that on that occasion the blood of no man be found upon your hands 1" " COME FORTH, THOU SLANDEEEE ! " On Queen Caroline's trial, when Mr. Denman had to address the House of Lords, that intrepid counsel for the Queen alluded to the rumours that "there are persons, and these not of the lowest condition, and not confined to individuals connected with the public press — not even excluded from your august assembly, who are industri- ously circulating the most odious and atrocious calumnies against Her Majesty. Can this fact be ? " Then after some sentences more, fixing his eye on the gallery, and looking steadily at the Duke of Clarence (\^'illiam IV.), who sat there, he proceeded thus : " To any man who could even be suspected of so base a pi-actice as whispering calumnies to judges, distilling leprous venom into the ears of jurors, the Queen might well exclaim — ' Come forth, thou slanderer, and let me see thy face ! If thou wouldst equal the respectability of an Italian witness, come forth and depose in open court ! As thou art, thou art worse than an Italian assassin, because, while I am boldly and manfully meeting my accusers, thou art planting a dagger unseen in my bosom, and converting thy poisoned stiletto into the semblance of the sword of justice'!" Lord Denman's biographer says, that " at the passage ' come forth,' etc., the advocate raised his voice to the full measure of its magnificent compass, tiU the old roof rang again, and a thrill of inexpressible emotion pervaded every heart in the densely crowded assembly." A CHIEF JUSTICE ENVYING AN ADVOCATE. When Chief Justice Oliver, an American judge, made a charge to the grand jury, it was usually a vehement ABOUT ADYOOATES, PLEADERS, ETC. 121 harangue upon politics. Highly complimented one day by his friends on the profound wisdom and irresistible eloquence of his speech, and upon the great impression it had made on the people, he said, " Ah 1 notwith- standing all that, Mr. John Adams has nothing to do but to go upon the green among the people, and say it is all equivocal and evasive, to destroy the whole effect ofit." This John Adams used to be pointed out by his con- temporaries, before he ever became a representative, as one .that would yet be the greatjst man in North America. He became President in due course. SUING A LADY FOE MONEY LENT. A good example of brevity occurred in a case where a gentleman sued a lady for ten guineas, money borrowed. Erskine for the plaintiff, after observing that when love was over, or out of the question, the laconic style of epistolary writing was the best, said he should simply read her letter : " Sir, — When convenient, you shall have your ten guineas. I despise you. — Catherine Keeling." " That is my case," said Erskine. " I will prove the hand- writing." " Is that all ? " said Bearcroft, the counsel for defendant. " Yes." " Then I despise you." And Justice BuUer exclaimed, " Call the plaintiff," which meant that there was no defence. COUNSEL FOR DELIBIUM TREMENS. 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 delwium 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,, si^yping 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." 122 OUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYERS. COUNSEL IN A PATENT CASE. Erskine was counsel for a patentee who sued for infringement of a patent for buckles, and with his usual eloquence expatiated on the great improvement made on that article. Taking out his own buckle and exhibiting it to the Court, he exclaimed, " What would my ancestors say were they to rise out of their graves and see me with such an ornament as this ? " Mingay, the opposite counsel, at once interposed this remark : " They would be surprised, I dare say, to see you with either shoes or stockings/" LENGTH OF COUNSEL'S SPEECHES. The time which the Roman advocate might occupy was formerly unlimited ; but Pompey, in his third consul- ship, introduced the clepsydra, or water-glass, by which the pleaders were obliged to measure the duration of their speeches. It seems that the presiding magistrate determined beforehand the length of time or quantity of water which each side might consume at a trial, and clepsydrae of various sizes were used according as much or little time was deemed allowable. LENGTH OF COUNSEL'S AEGUMBNT3. A very heavy case of Small v. Attwood long occupied the courts, being a suit instituted by the plaintiffs, who were directors of the British Iron Company, to set aside a contract for the purchase of a mineral estate in Staffordshire. The argument lasted twenty days. Mr. Knight Bruce spoke for seven days, and Sir E. Sugden, who led on the opposite side, for ten days. After a year's consideration, Lord Lyndhurst, by a surprising eflfort of memory, delivered the judgment, which extends over fifty pages of the report, without referring to his notes. SERIOUS RESULT OF AN ADVOCATE'S PROSY SPEECHES. Sir Samuel Prime was represented as a good-natured but rather dull man, — as an advocate, wearisome beyond comparison. He had to argue an ejectment case on the ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADEES, ETC. 123 circuit. The case excited great interest. The court was full, and the day very hot; nevertheless he spoke for three hours. Early in the cause, a boy managed to clamber to the roof of the court, and seated himself on a transverse beam over the heads of the spectators. Over- come by the heat, and the Serjeant's monotonous tones, he fell fast asleep, and, losing his balance, came tumbling down upon the people below. He escaped with a few bruises ; but several persons in court were severely hurt. For this offence the seijeant was tried at the Circuit table, after dinner, found guilty, and sentenced to pay three dozen of wine towards the mess, which he did with the greatest possible good humour. Upon the occasion of another lengthy oration, the counsel on the other side rose to address the drowsy jury. " Gentlemen, after the long speech of the learned serjeant " " Sir, I beg your pardon," interrupted Mr. Justice Nares, " you might say — ^you might say — after the long soliloquy, for my brother Prime has been talking an hour to himself." — 2 Woolrych's Serjeants, 559. COUET BRmGLNG COUNSEL TO THE POINT. A French advocate whose pleading seemed far too long in proportion to the subject-matter he was dilating upon, received a hint from the president of the court to abridge his observations. But the advocate, without abridging anything, replied with firmness that what he was saying was essential to his case. The president, hoping at last to silence him, said, " The Court directs you to conclude at once with your proposition." " Very well," said the imperturbable advocate, " then I conclude with the proposition that the Court shall hear mel" COUNSEL PAUSING FOB A WORD. Mrs. Powell, the actress, was attending a trial at the assizes when a young barrister was making his first speech to a jury, and he suddenly stopped short, and rather too long. She felt for his situation, and being familiar with the prompter's opportune service, called out, somewhat loudly and peremptorily, " Somebody give him the word — somebody gwe him the word I " 124 0UEI0S1TIE3 OP LAW AND LAWYBES. AN ADVOCATE CALLED "THE OEATOK OF NATTJEB." Patrick Henry, the great advocate of Virginia, was called " the orator of nature," and by his spirit-stirring speeches was said to give the first impulse to the revo- lution and independence of the United States. Jefferson said Henry was the gieatest orator that ever lived. In a great debate in the House of Burgesses of Virginia, when descanting on the tyranny of the Stamp Act, he concluded a grand peroration with Olympian voice thus : " Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third — " (" Treason ! " cried the Speaker ; " Treason ! treason ! " echoed from all parts of the House. Henry faltered not a moment, but, fixing his eye of fire on the Speaker, he added in measured tones) " — may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." After this he was stamped as the prime orator of Virginia. On another great occasion he said: "Our petitions have been slighted, our supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain after these things may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free — if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privi- leges for which we have been so long contending — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, — we must fight ! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left to us If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery ! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on thoi plains of Boston. The war is inevitable, and let it come. I repeat it, Sir, let it come ! It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry ' Peace, peace ! ' but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resound- ing arms I Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle ? What is it that gentlemen wish ? ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, ETC. 125 What would they have ? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery ? Forbid it, Almighty God ! I know not what course others may take ; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death ! " — Wirt's Life of Henry. COUNSEL TOO MUCH EMPLOYED. Lord Brougham says it was once said by Bearcroft, when much employed in House of Commons Committees, and seen walking about in the Court of Requests, un- moved by the manj' calls of his name in all quarters, that he was there to avoid giving undue preference to any of his clients. At a later date, Charles Austin, the great Parliamentary counsel, was seen riding in Rotten Row one day, when many committees were sitting, in each of which he held a brief His explanation was that he did not wish to offend any of his clients by giving his services to one only I TIME DESTEOTDSra SKCUEITIES OF TITLE. Lord Brougham greatly admired the celebrated illus- tration given by Lord Plunket, which embodied not only a principle, but the very argument in hand — namely, as to prescriptive titles. " If Time destroys the evidence of title, the laws have wisely and humanely made length of possession a substitute for that which has been destroyed. He comes with his scythe in one hand to mow down the muniments of our rights ; but in his other hand the law- giver has placed an hour-glass, by which he metes out incessantly those portions of duration which render needless the evidence he has swept away." Lord Brougham admired the force of Lord Plunket's other celebrated saying as to his becoming a reformer : "Circumstances are wholly changed: formerly Reform came to our door like a felon — a robber to be resisted. He now approaches like a creditor: you admit the justice of his demand, and only dispute the instalments by which he shall be paid." 126 CUKIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYEES. A YOUNG IRISH COUNSEL S FIRST SPEECH. Lord Kenyon's style of oratory reminded people of a young Irishman's account of the first bar-speech he ever heard. " 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." — 1 Law and Lawyers, 10. AN UNPATRIOTIC BUTCHER SUING FOR HIS BEEF. Patrick Henry, the great American advocate, was defending an army commissary, who, during the dis- tresses of the American army in 1781, had seized two bullocks of John Hook, a wealthy Scotch settler. The seizure was not quite legal. But Henry, for the defence, painted with graphic force the hardships of the patriotic army, naked and frozen, toiling over the ground with bleeding feet. " Where was the man," he said, " who had an American heart in his bosom who would not have thrown open his fields, his barns, his cellars, the doors of his house, the portals of his breast, to have received with open arms the meanest soldier in that little band of famished patriots ? Where is the man ? There he stands ; but whether the heart of an American beats in his bosom, you gentlemen are to judge." He then painted the surrender of the British troops, their humiliation and dejection, the triumph of the patriot band, the shouts of victory, the cry of " Washington and liberty," as it rang and echoed through the American ranks, and was rever- berated from vale to hill, and then to heaven. "But, hark ! what notes of discord are these, which disturb the general joy and silence, the acclamations of victory — they are the notes of John Hook hoarsely bawling through the American camp — ' Beef ! beef! beef! ' " The Court was convulsed with laughter at this sally. The Clerk of Court, unable to command his feelings, and unwilling to commit a breach of decorum within the ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, ETC. 127 precincts, ruslied out of the court-house, and rolled him- self on the grass in a paroxysm of laughter. The uneasy plaintiff soon after also sought some relief in the open air for another reason, and seeing the clerk tumbling about frantically, said, " Jemmy Steptoe, what the devil ails ye, man ? " Mr. Steptoe, after a pause, said he could not help it. " Never mind ye," said Hook ; " wait till Billy Cowan gets up : he'll show him the law ! " Billy Cowan, however, made no impression on the jury. They, almost by acclamation, gave their verdict for the defendant, and the mob so entirely approved this, that they were anxious to add tar and feathers to the plaintiff in further testimony of their sentiments. — Wirt's Life of Henry. AS AUCTIONEER SUING FOR HIS COMMISSION, Mr. Spurrier, an auctioneer, sued Mr. Beard, in ] 789, for a sum of £230, his commission of 1 per cent, for selling an estate. Mr. Christie, auctioneer, a witness for the plaintiff, said the charges were usual, and that " the business of an auctioneer required a knowledge grounded on experience, a proper acquaintance with all the circumstances of the estate, and the mode of preparing proper advertisements to enlarge the ideas of the public." Erskine, counsel for the defendant, made fun of this account to the jury. He said he found the profession of an auctioneer was infinitely preferable in point of pleasure and profit to that of a barrister, for the difference between the charge of the present plaintiff and his own was as follows : — Auctioneer's charge — To a pleasant journey into Sussex, where I was hospitably entertained (out two days), £230. Barrister's charge — To pleading from nine in the morning till four in the afternoon, by which I was melted down by fatigue to the size of a silver penny, £10 10s. Erskine said that if auctioneers were paid the demand in question on every adventure, they would be the richest subjects in the kingdom. By enlarging the ideas of the public, which he found was the business of the gentlemen of the hammer, he supposed was meant representing an estate to be worth £20,000 which was only worth £10,000. The plaintiff was nonsuited. 128 OUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. AN ADVOCATE WHO TWISTED A THKBAD ROUND HIS FINGBRS. The Spectator mentions an instance of a lawyer who, in course of his argument, used always to be twisting about his finger a piece of pack-thread, which the punsters of that time called with some reason the thread of his discourse. One day a client of his had a mind to see how he would acquit himself without it, and stole it from him. The consequence was, that the orator became silent in the midst of his harangue, and the client suffered for his waggery by the loss of his cause. A PEOST Serjeant's eloquence. Jekyll, the wit of his day, wrote an impromptu on a learned Serjeant who was holding the Court of Common Pleas with his glittering eye : " Behold the serjeant full of fire, Long shall his hearers rue it, His purple garments came from Tyre, His arguments go to it." THE VEHEMENCE OF VENETIAN ADVOCATES. About a hundred years ago Mr. Sharp, the traveller, had occasion to witness the extraordinary manner of the Venetian advocates. "Every advocate mounts into a small pulpit a little elevated above the audience, where he opens his harangue with some gentleness, but does not long contain himself within those limits. His voice soon cracks, and, what is very remarkable, the beginning of most sentences, while he is under any agitation and seeming enthusiasm in pleading, is at a pitch above his natural voice, so as to occasion a wonderful discord. Then if he means to be very emphatical he strikes the pulpit with his hands five or six times together as quick as thought, stamping at the same time, so as to make the great room resound with this species of oratory. At length, in the fury of his argument, he descends from the pulpit, runs about pleading upon the floor, returns in a violent passion back again to the pulpit, thwacks it with ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, ETC. 129 his hands more than at first, and continues in this rage, running up and down the pulpit several times, until he has finished his harangue. The audience smile now and then at this extravagant behaviour. The advocates seem to be in continual danger of dropping their wigs from their heads, and this sometimes happens. There may be some advocates who speak with more dignity, but those I saw were all men of eminence in their profession." "thbdeagonof wahtlet" FfiifSiT^s more, gkntlbman, etc. The most memorable attorney, of whom the order may be proud, seems to have been' one More, of More Hall, who was immortalised in the ballad of " The Dragon of Wantley." The locality of WharncliflFe wood, vulgarly called Wantley, is the property of the Wortley family, near Rotherham, in Yorkshire. More was said to have been the counsellor or attorney who conducted some heavy suit against Wortley, the impropriator of tithes, and who, as such, threatened to devour the property of all the good people round. More lived at More Hall, near the bottom of a wood, and this is alluded to in the ballad as " creeping out of a well." The impropriator, as a monster dragon, ate up trees and forests and houses and churches like geese and turkeys. But More, after ordering a coat of mail from Sheffield, all round with spikes, fought the dragon two days and a night, and all the people got upon the trees and houses to watch the combat. Tnis tithe suit is said to have been carried on in the time of Elizabeth. COUNSEL DEFYING THE ATT0RNBT3. In the midst of the proceedings of national interest about the Reform Bill, Brougham drew the notice of the public to a combination against himself of the attorneys and solicitors," in consequence, as he said, of a bill he had introduced for the establishment of local jurisdiction, which they thought would lessen their profits. The learned gentleman read a letter addressed to him con- taining this threat, which he complained of as a breach of privilege. He exclaimed: "Let them not lay the 9 130 CUEIOSITIBS OF LAW AND LAWTBRS. flattering unction to their souls that I can be prevented by a combination of all the attorneys in Christendom, or any apprehensions of injury to myself, from endeavouring to make justice pure and cheap. These gentlemen are much mistaken if they think I will die without defending myself The question may be, whether barristers or attorneys shall prevail; and I see no reason why barristers should not open their doors to clients without the intervention of attorneys and their long bills of costs. If I discover that there is a combination against me, I will decidedly throw myself upon my clients — upon the country gentlemen, the merchants and manufacturers — and if I do not, with the help of this House, beat those leagued against me, I shall be more surprised at it than at any misadventure of my life." — 8 Camp. Chanc. 370. COUNSEL KICKma ATTOENET. A young barrister had commenced his forensic career in a novel and rather dangerous manner by kicking an attorney who was opposed to him on an arbitration. The attorney insulted him, and, receiving a kick on the breech, brought his action of assault and battery, which was tried at the Lancaster assizes. It was the sporting cause of the assize. John Williams (afterwards a judge), who was for the defence, extracted by a dextrous cross- examination the cause of offence — an insulting speech — and concluded a very effective address for his client with these words — "An insult, a kick, a farthing, all the world over." The plaintiff obtained his farthing. The counsel for the plaintiff, gathering up his papers, gravely exclaimed, as he left the court, " My client has got more kicks than halfpence." A SUBSCRIPTION TO BUET AN ATTOENET. O'Connell said there was in his younger days an Irish barrister of the name of 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 con- One day, in the Hall of the Four Courts, an ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADEES, ETC. 131 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 apph'cant, " 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." THE PEACTICE OF BUEYING ATT0ENEY3. A gentleman in the country, who had just buried a relation, an attorney, complained to Foote of the great expenses of a country funeral. " Why, do you hury attorneys here ? " gravely inquired Foote. " Yes, to be sure : how else ? " " A.h ! we never do that in London." "No!"- exclaimed the other, much surprised, "why, how do you manage, then ? " " Why, when the patient happens to die, we lay him out in a room overnight by himself, lock the door, throw open the sash, and in the morning he is entirely oif ! " " Indeed ! " said the gentle- man, amazed : " and pray what becomes of him ? " " Why, that we cannot exactly tell, not being acquainted with supernatural causes. All that we know of the matter is that there is a strong smell of brimstone in the room next morning I " attoeney's bill of costs. Curran was counsel for an attorney who sued for a bill of costs. Lord Clare, the judge, said, " Here, now, Mr. Curran, is a flagitious imposition ! How can you defend this item — ' to writing innumerable letters, £100 ' ? " " Why, my lord," said Curran, " nothing can be more reasonable. It's not a penny a letter." THE OTSTBE AND THE SHELL QTJESTIOK. The lawyers such a profit make, .^8 olden stories tell, 'Tis said that they the oyster take, And clients get the shell ; 132 OUBIOSITIBS OF LAW AND LAWYBES. But, should a pearl be found, good lack I As pearls therein may dwell, Would clients say — " Come, give me back The oyster for the shell " ? Sir John Hamilton, who had suffered much from the persecutions of the law, used to say that an attorney was like a hedgehog : it was impossible to touch him without pricking one's fingers. A GERMAN LAWYER'S BILL OF COSTS. In Germany a solicitor sent his biU of costs for business done. In the bill relating to a suit for divorce, he charged the lady one item thus : " Further, 30 sous, for being awoke in the night, and having thought over your matter." LORD THURLOW'S CONTEMPT OF ATTORNEYS. Lord Chancellor Thurlow often treated the bar with great rudeness, and his demeanour to the other branch of the profession sometimes awakened recollections of Jeffreys. A solicitor once had to prove a death before him, and being told upon every statement he made, " Sir, that is no proof," at last exclaimed, much vexed, " My Lord, it is very hard that you will not believe me : I knew him well to his last hour ; I saw him dead and in his coffin, my lord. My Lord, he was my client ! " " Oh, why did you not tell me that before ? I should not have doubted the facts for one moment ; for I think nothing can be more likely to kill the man than to have you for his attorney." This brutal jest, which was probably thought innocuous by the author of it, is said to have ruined the reputation and the business of the unfortunate victim. LORD chancellors' RUDENESS TO ATTORNEYS. Lord Chancellor Jeffreys was generally rude to counsel, but attorneys fared much worse. When they did any- thing to displease him, he gave them what he called a lick with the rough side of his tongue ; and he terrified ABOUT ADVOOATES, PLEADERS, BTO. 133 them with his face and voice " as if the thunder of the day of judgment broke over their heads." He had to decide upon a petition against a great city attorney with whom he used to get drunk, and who had given him a great many briefs at Guildhall when still obscure ; and one of the affidavits swore, that when the attorney was threat- ened with being brought before my Lord Chancellor, he exclaimed, "My Lord Chancellor! I made him!" — meaning that he had laid the foundation of his fortune by bringing him early into city business. Jeffreys. " Well ! then will I lay my maker by the heels." But he would drink and be merry, be familiar with these boon companions overnight, and the next day fall upon them ranting and scolding with insufferable violence. Very different from Lord Mansfield's vengeance on Dr. Brocklesby, the famous physician, who, having met him in society overnight, and being examined before him in Court next morning chose to be offensively familiar. Lord Mansfield (summing up to the jury), went on to say, " Gentlemen, the next witness is one Rockleby, or Rocklesby, or Brocklesby, and, first, he swears he is a physician, eta" ATTORNEY DINING WITH CLIENT. The London Chromicle, 1781, says that an attorney in Dublin having dined by invitation with his client several days, pending a suit, charged six-and-eightpence for each attendance, which was allowed by the master on taxing costs. In return for this, the client furnished the master with a bill for the attorney's eating and drinking, which the attorney refusing to pay, the client brought his action and recovered the amount of his charge. Bat he did not long exult in his victory, for in a few days afterwards the attorney lodged an information against him before the the Commissioners of Excise for retailing wine without a licence, and not being able to controvert the fact, to avoid an increase of costs he submitted, by advice of counsel, to pay the penalty, a great part of which went to the attorney as informer. — 10 Notes and Quer. 343. 134 CTJEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYERS. MBETINS AS ATTORNEY IN A STAGE COACH. Sheridan was travelling to London in a stage coach in order to canvas Westminster in opposition to Mr. Paull. In the coach two friends were conversing, and one, asked by the other whom he was going to vote for, said, "Oh,for Paull, certainly, for though I think him but a shabby fellow, I would vote for any one rather than that rascal Sheridan!" " Do you know Sheridan ? " said the other. " Not I, sir, nor should I wish to know him." The conversation then changed ; and when the passengers stopped at the next stage for breakfast, Sheridan said to the friend, confiden- tially, " Pray, who is that very agreeable gentleman you were talking to ? He is one of the pleasantest fellows I ever met with; I should like to know his name!" "Oh, that," said the gentleman, "is the eminent lawyer Mr. T., who lives in Lincoln's Inn Fields." After the passengers resumed their seats Sheridan turned the conversation to the law, and said, " It is a fine profession, Men may rise in it to the highest eminence in the state. It gives vast scope to the display of talent. Many of the most virtuous and noble characters in history have been lawyers. I am sorry, however, to add that some of the greatest rascals have also been lawyers. But of all the rascals of lawyers I ever heard of, the greatest is one T., who lives in Lin- coln's Inn Fields." The stranger fired up at this, and said, very angrily, " I am Mr. T., sir." " And I am Mr. Sheridan," was the retort. The jest was then instantly seen ; they shook hands, and the rascally T. was one of the staunchest supporters of the rascally Sheridan. AN attokney's action eeferred to arbitration. An attorney of a very bad character, having a dispute with a bailiff, the latter brought an action against him, which Foote recommended to be compromised. The parties at length agreed upon arbitrators, but requested that in case of a difference of the arbitrators, they might permit them to call upon him (Foote) as umpire, to decide. " Oh, no," said Foote, " I may be partial to one or other of you ; but I'U do better — I'll recommend a thief as the common friend of both." ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, ETO. 135 SUCCESS OF YOUNG ATTORNEYS. A young attorney was asked by a friend how he liked his new profession. The answer was, " Well, I find my profession is better than my practice ! " A PEISONEK WHO WAS A2J ATTORNEY. A man was tried before Lord Mansfield, on the Home Circuit, for stealing a silver ladle. In the course of the trial the prosecutor's counsel enlarged on the enormity of the offence, and said it was all the worse, seeing that the prisoner was believed to be an attorney. The judge said in a half whisper to the counsel : " Come, come, don't exaggerate matters ; if the fellow had been an attorney you may depend upon it, he would have stolen the bowl as well as the ladle 1 " Two attorneys fought a duel, and one of them shot away the skirt of the other's coat. The second of the good shot, observing the truth of the aim, declared that if the opposite man had been a client, he would most probably have hit his pocket! DANGERS OF SERVING WRITS. A process server in Ireland once made an affidavit to account for his not having personally served a writ. After reciting that he had knocked several times at the door of the debtor, the deponent said, " Whereupon this deponent was proceeding to knock a fourth time, when a man, to this deponent unknown, holding in his hands a musket or blunderbuss, loaded with balls or slugs, as this deponent has since heard and verily believes, appeared at one of the upper windows of the said house, and pre- senting said musket or blunderbuss at this deponent, threatened that if said deponent did not instantly retire he would send his (this deponent's) soul to hell, which this deponent verily believes he would have done, had not this deponent precipitately escaped." 136 OUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEES. WEITINO ON ROUGH PAPER. A client observed to bis attorney tbat he was writing his bill in equity on very rough paper. "Oh, never mind," said the attorney, "it must hejiled before it comes into court." A YOTING ATTOENBT'S COURTSHIP WITHOUT PREJUDICE. Mr. Chitty related an anecdote of a young attorney who had been carrying on a correspondence with a young lady, in which he had always, as he thought, expressed himself with the greatest caution. Finding, however, that he did not perform what he had led the lady to believe that he would, she brought an action for breach of promise of marriage against him. When his letters were produced at the trial, it appeared that he had always concluded, " Always without prejudice, " Yours faithfully, C. D." The judge facetiously left it to the jury to determine whether these concluding words, being from an attorney, did not mean that he did not intend any prejudice to the lady, and the jury with great goodwill took the hint and found accordingly for the plaintiff. CALLING AN ATTORNEY NAMES. An attorney named Else, rather diminutive in his stature, and not paiticularly respectable in his character, once met Mr. Jekyll. " Sir," said he, " I hear you have called me a pettifogging scoundrel. Have you done so, sir ? " " Sir," replied Jekyll, with a look of contempt, "I never said you were a pettifogger or a scoundrel, but I said you were little else J " lawyers' CLERKS WRITING WIDE LINES. A man asked the reason why lawyers' clerks wrote such wide lines in all their legal papers. He was told it was done to keep the peace, for if the plaintiff should be ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADEBS, ETC. 137 in one line and the defendant in the next line, the lines being too close together, they might perhaps fall together by the ears. OEIGIN OF SOLICITORS. The historian and reporter of the Star Chamber, Hudson, of Gray's InD, in the time of Charles I., says : " In our age there are stepped up a new sort of people, called solicitors, unknown to the records of the law, who, like the grasshoppers in Egypt, devour the whole land ; and these I daresay were express maintainers, and could not justify their maintenance upon any action brought. I mean not where a lord or gentleman employed his servant to solicit his cause, for he may justify his doing thereof; but I mean those which are common solicitors of causes, and set up a new professioD, not being allowed in any court, or at least not in this court, where they follow causes. And these are the retainers of causes and devourers of men's estates by contention and prolonging suits to make them without end." Though "attorney" was the original and time-honoured name of the larger half of the legal profession, it has in its turn become somewhat odious, and has been all but superseded since the passing of the Judicature Act of 1875 by the name of solicitor, which itself was some- what in disfavour at first, as the above account shows. EPITAPH ON A CONVEYANCES. Mr. Preston, the conveyancer, died in 1850, having a great reputation as a sound lawyer. He had long the credit of having written many of Lord Brougham's Judgments in Chancery, Sir George Eose wrote on him the following epitaph : — " Stem Deabh hath cast into abeyance here A most renowned conveyancer. Then lightly on his head be laid The sod that he so oft conveyed. In certain faith and hope he sure is, His soul like a scintilla juris In nubibus expectant lies To raise a freehold in the skies " 138 OUBIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. OONVETANCBK S DESCRIPTION OF PARTIES TO CON- VEYANCES. In modern deeds it is not usual to describe the personal appearance of seller and purchaser. But in Egypt, in Cleopatra's time, B.C. 107, a conveyance describes both minutely. Thus, " There was sold by Pamouthes, aged about forty-five, of middle size, dark complexion and handsome figure, bald, round-faced, and straight-nosed, and by Semmuthes, aged about twenty-two, of middle size, sallow complexion, round-faced, flat-nosed, and of quiet demeanour, children of, etc." (Then the situation of ground is described.) " It was bought by Nechutes the Less, the son of Asos, aged about forty, of middle size, sallow complexion, cheerful countenance, long face, straight nose, with a scar upon the middle of his forehead, for 601 pieces of brass, etc." CONVEYANCmO FORMS IN INDIA. A Hindoo conveyance, purporting to be a grant of land of very ancient date, referred to the monarch who granted it in this highly coloured style : " Where his innumerable army marched, the heavens were so fiUed with the dust of their feet that the birds of the air could rest upon it. His elephants moved like walking mountains, and the earth oppressed by their weight mouldered into dust." RECLUSE HABITS OF LAWYERS. A story is told of an eminent conveyancer who, having taken his first ride on the first horse he had ever bought, and having occasion to dismount, tied his horse to a gate, and walked back to his chambers quite forgetful of his newly acquired property. AN INGENIOUS BLACK-LETTER LAWYER. Noy was a diligent black-letter lawyer in the time of Charles I., who had an afiected morosity, as Clarendon described it. It was he who, in order to compensate the ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, ETC. 139 Crown for the loss of revenue sustained by the sale of Crown lands and the grants of new pensions, revived the old forest laws, which were exercised by the Earl of Holland with the greatest rigour, and produced the most grievous discontent. By him also were first projected and drawn by his own hand the memorable writs of ship-money — designed, in the words of Clarendon, " for a spring and magazine that should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply of all occasions." He also moulded the odious project of a monopoly in soap. In short, Noy thought, as Clarendon remarks, " that he could not give a clearer testimony that his knowledge in the law was greater than aU other men's, than by making that law, which all other men believed not to be so." The wits made an anagram of his name: "William Noy — I moyl in law." He went to Tunbridge Wells, and died there at the age of fifty-eight, where all the vintners drank carouses of joy now he was gone, for they were in hope to dress meat again, and sell tobacco, beer, sugar, and faggots. The players also on the stage rejoiced at his death, Noy left an odd will, by which, after a few legacies, he gave all the residue to his eldest son Edward, " to be consumed and scattered, for I never hoped better." The only good thing Noy ever did was to discover and advance Lord Hale, then an obscure youth. A FEE SIMPLE IS THE HIGHEST ESTATE. Chief Justice Gibbs once told Lord Campbell this anecdote of Serjeant Vaughan, who, although a popular advocate, and afterwards made a judge, was utterly ignorant of the law of real property, and terribly alarmed lest he should commit some absurd blunder. " He was arguing a real property case before me, of which he kaew no more than the usher ; and he laid down Preston's proposition that ' an estate in fee simple is the highest estate known to the law of England.' I, wishing to frighten him, pretended to start, and said, 'What is your proposition, brother Vaughan ? ' When, thinking he was quite wrong, and wishing to get out of the scrape, he observed, ' My lord, I mean to contend that an estate in fee simple is one of the highest estates known to the 140 CUBIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEES. law of England — that is, my lord, that it may be under certain circumstances — and sometimes is so.' " — 3 Camp. Ch. JJs. 238. A CONVBTAITOEE S POLITICS. "During all the troubles of the times," says Eoger North, " Sir Orlando Bridgman, called ' the father of con- veyancers,' lived quiet in the Temple, a professed and known Cavalier ; and no temptation of fear or profit ever shook his principle. He lived then in the great business of conveyancing, and had no clerks but such as were strict Cavaliers. One, I have heard, was so rigid that he could never be brought to write Oliver with a great 0. And it was said, the attorney (Palmer was made Attorney- General on the restoration) chose to purchase the manor of Charleton because his master's name (Charles) sounded in the style of it." A BLACK-LETTEB CONVEYANCBE's ELOQUENCE. Mr. Hargrave, the conveyancer, thus described the Hon. Charles Yorke, who died a rising lawyer : " That modem constellation of English jurisprudence, that elegant and accomplished ornament of Westminster Hall in the pre- sent century (1792), the Honourable Charles Yorke, Esq. ; whose ordinary speeches as an advocate were profound lectures ; whose digressions from the exuberance of the best juridical knowledge were illuminations ; whose energies were oracles ; whose constancy of mind was won into the pinnacle of our English forum at an inaus- picious moment ; whose exquisiteness of sensibility at almost the next moment from the impressions of imputed error stormed the fort even of his cultivated reason, and so made elevation and extinction contemporaneous ; and whose prematureness of fate, notwithstanding the great contributions from the manly energies of a Northington, and the vast splendour of a Camden, and notwithstanding also the accessions from the two rival luminaries which have more latterly adorned our equitable hemisphere (Thurlow and Wedderburn), cause an almost insuppliable interstice in the science of English equity. To have been ABOUT ADTOOATES, PLEADBBS, ETC. 141 selected as the friend of such a man was nearly vnstar (ynnium to an English lawyer. Even to be old enough to have received the impressions of Mr. Charles Yorke's character as a lawyer from the frequency of hearing his chaste, delicate, and erudite expressions in the discharge of professional duty, is some source of mental gratifica- tion." — Hargrave's Preface to Hale, p. clxxxi. EVIDENCE NECBSSAET ON BOTH SIDES. When Numerius, governor of the Narbonnoise Gaul, was impeached for plunder of his province, he defended himself, and denied the charge and explained it away so skilfully that he bafiled his accusers. A famous lawyer thereupon exclaimed, " Caesar, who will ever be found guilty, if it is sufficient for a man to deny the charge ? " To which Julian retorted, " But who will appear innocent if a bare accusation is sufficient ? " THE BLOOD AVENGER BEFORE THE DAYS OF PLEADINQ. Among the ancient and barbarous nations, whether a man was slain by accident or not, the wisest course that occurred to them was to let the nearest relative of the dead man have his will, and kill or assassinate the slayer, and often the slayer's relatives also, without mercy or compunction, or the formality of trial, or even an hour's breathing time. It was at a later period generally deemed but fair that the doomed man should have one chance for his life; and hence, if by superior speed or skill he could outrun the avenger for a certain distance, and reach a city of refuge or sanctuary, then he was not to be murdered; but to be let alone, at least for a time, till he banished himself in due course from the country. The practice of a blood avenger seems traditionary in every ancient society. — 1 Paterson's Lib. Subject, 380. EVEN ADAM "WAS HEARD IN HIS DEFENCE. Justice Aland Fortescue, whose nose was like the trunk of an elephant, was blaming a counsel for using a very lame argument when the latter replied, " If your lordship will only have a little more patience, I will make it as 142 OUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWTEES. plain as the nose in your lordship's face." This was the judge who used the following illustration of a fundamen- tal rule of law. " The laws of God and man both give the party au opportunity to make his defence, if he have any. I remember to have heard it observed by a very learned man, that even God Himself did not pass sentence upon Adam before he Wi called upon to shew cause, — ' Adam where art thou ? Hast thou not eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat ? ' And the same question was put to Eve also." A PLEADBK DEFYING THE COURT TO PLEAD BETTER. Mr. Cooper, an Irish counsel, who considered himself an astute pleader, when a motion was made in the Court of Exchequer to set his pleas aside for prolixity, rose to defend them, " and defied their lordships, or any man in court, to frame shorter pleas." Baron Pennefather undertook to do so, and struck out a large part of the averments, leaving what he said as quite sufiicient. When the judge read it out. Cooper started up and wildly exclaimed, " I demur to that plea, and if it is set down for argument in any other court of the hall, I'll beat your lordship 1 " INDICTING BULLS AND PIGS FOR CRIME. When pleading was scarcely developed, the courts used to hear suits against Liiimals. The fondness for imagi- nary trials in the middle ages took a practical shape. By the old law of France, if a vicious animal killed a person, and it was proved that its owner knew of its propensity to attack people, and sufiered Ittc go at large, he was hanged and the animal also. In liJ]*, a bull having killed a man by tossing him with its horns, was brought before the judges in the province of Valois, and indicted as a criminal, and after several witnesses had given evidence, it was condemned to be hanged. This sentence was confirmed by an order of Parliament, and carried into effect. And we are told that an unfortunate pig which chanced to kill a child in Burgundy, was in like manner solemnly tried in court, and suffered the same punishment. ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, ETC. 143 So late as 1650 the French law books treated of the proper procedure against animals, such as rats, locusts, flies, and eels and leeches, and the mode of appointing counsel to defend them. In Switzerland, criminal prose- cutions were often brought against worms. A FBBNCH LAWSUIT AGAINST CATEEPILLARS. Nicholas Chorier, a French historian, mentions that in 1584 the heavy rains brought on a vast number of cater- pillars. The walls, windows, and chimneys were covered with them. The grand vicar of Valence cited the caterpillars before him ; he appointed a proctor to defend them. The cause was solemnly argued, and he sentenced them to quit the diocese. But they did not obey. Human justice has no command over the instruments of the justice of the Deity. It was discussed whether to proceed against these animals by anathema and impre- cation, or, as it was expressed, by malediction and excommunication. But two priests and two theologians, having been consulted, changed the opinions of the grand vicar, so that afterwards nothing was made use of but adjuration, prayers, and sprinkling holy water. The life of these animals is short, and these ceremonies, having continued several months, received the credit of having miraculously exterminated them. These prosecutions against animals were common in France. Gui Pape relates that about 1450 he saw a hog hung on a gibbet for killing a child. THE FRENCH LAWSUIT AGAINST THE RATS. The famous French lawyer, Chassanee, first established his fame by defending the rats in a process that had been instituted against them in the diocese of Autun. The rats did not appear at the first citation, and their advocate suggested that they had not aU been summoned, but those only in a few localities ; the proper way was to summon all the rats in every parish. This was held a good plea, and therefore all the rats were duly summoned. They did not however attend, but their advocate suggested that many of them were old and sick, and an extension 144 OUBIOSIXIES OF LAW AND LAWTEBS. of time should be given. This was again allowed, but the rats did not come into court at the extended time. The advocate then pleaded as the next excuse that the rats were most anxious to come, but as there were many cats on their way to court, they were entitled to pro- tection in going and coming, otherwise they were afraid to venture out of their holes. Therefore security must be given that the cats would not molest the litigants. The court allowed that this was reasonable; but the owners would not undertake to be bound for the good behaviour of their cats, and so the next appointment of the sitting of the court fell through, and the hearing was adjourned sine die. A SPECIAL PLEADER TAKING OUT HIS PUPILS TO WALK. An eminent special pleader (probably Baron Wood, in that earlier stage of his career when he was a pleader) after long fagging in chambers with his pupils, and sitting through very complicated matters, thought, as the weather was fine, he would like a walk with his pupils. He accordingly went out, and on going as far as the Inner Temple gate he first looked east, then west, and then north, and he felt perplexed in which of these three directions he should go. He balapced in his mind all the objections, and was so nicely poised in his aSections that his pleader's mind could not choose between the three courses, or see any reason for preferring one direction to another. It was at that period of time when Lord Eldon used to take twenty years to decide a similar difiiculty, and the debility superinduced by a long career of demurrers and surrebutters was unequal to the emer- gency. The worthy gentleman thought upon the whole he had better return to chambers, and not tempt Provi- dence by any rash decision on so weighty a matter. So he did not go to the country, THE OLD PLEADER WATCHING HIS PUPIL TRY HIS HAND. In ancient Rome, Julianus, the great advocate, took as a pupil a youth of fortune, who wanted to study for the bar. The youth, after a time, during the holidays, pressed ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADBBS, ETC. 145 Julianus and Aulus Gellius to go and hear him at Naples plead a case at a court and try his skill. A rival student proposed the following case for solution : " Seven judges had to try a prisoner, and the majority were to determine the sentence. Two of the judges held that the prisoner deserved banishment ; two others that he should be fined; and three more that he should be put to death. What was to be the correct punishment ? " The pupil of Julianus at once began to discuss this case, and poured out a torrent of language and high-sounding phrases which were all gabble and nonsense, and gave no solution of the controversy. Julianus sat perplexed at the exhibition, and blushed with confusion. After leaving the place, Julianus was asked his opinion as to the per- formance of his pupil, and he replied : " Don't ask me ; without controversy this young man is eloquent." A HORSE GOING TO THE COUNTET. In an action against a stable-keeper, for not taking proper care of a horse, — " The horse," said Mingay, who led for the plaintiff, " was turned into a stable, with nothing to eat but musty hay. To such feeding the horse demurred." "He should have gone to the country," retorted Er-skine This, though caviare to the multitude, to a true special pleader is of exquisite relish, " demur- ring " and " going to the country " being the technical terms for requiring a cause to be decided on a question of law by the judges, or on a question of fact by the jury. CEETIOEAEI TO EEMOVE TO HEAVEN. When a cause or judgment is removed from an inferior court to the High Court, the process used is a writ of certiorari. Sir George Oroke was in the time of Elizabeth continued one of the judges of the Queen's Bench, and his son-in-law. Sir Harbottle Griniston, wrote in the preface of Croke's Reports that the judge so remained a judge of that court " until a certiorari from the Great Judge of heaven and earth to remove him from a human bench of law to a heavenly throne of glory." 10 14:6 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. A counsel named Pashley, who was skilled in magisterial law, was noticed to be very often moving in the Court of Queen's Bench for " a certiorari to bring up " the adjudi- cations of justices to be quashed, this being the form of motion usual in all cases of that description. His business, which was considerable, consisting almost entirely of such cases, a wag observed that Pashley must surely bring up his children by certiorari / THE CHIEF JUSTICE PLEADING IN HIS OWN COUKT. During the chief justiceship of Lord Holt, the valuable sinecure office of chief clerk of the Court of Queen's Bench fell vacant, and the Chief Justice gave the ap- pointment to his brother, Roland Holt. The Crown disputed the appointment, claiming the patronage. The matter was brought to a trial at bar, before the three puisne justices and a jury. A chair was placed on the floor of the court for the Chief Justice, on which he sat uncovered near his counsel. The practice as to the office was proved, and ultimately a verdict was given against the Crown and in favour of the Chief Justice. TRIAL OF THE REGICIDES, AND THE INDICTMENT AGAINST THEM. Lord Chancellor Clarendon's attention was devoted to the trial of the regicides. Although his name was placed in the commission after that of the Lord Mayor of London, he did not take his place on the bench during any of the trials, but he was obliged to exercise a general superin tendence over the proceedings. It was without difficulty resolved that the indictment should be for " compassing the death of the king," — murdering him not being a substantive treason, — and that the decapitation should be laid only as the overt act, to prove the compassing ; but very puzzling questions arose whether the decapitation should be alleged to have been committed ? The Chan- cellor ordered the judges to be previously consulted. They agreed that all that was done tending to the King's murder, until the moment before his head was completely severed from his body, was in the time of his own reign, ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, ETC. 147 but that the murder was not perfected till the actual severance, when Charles I. being supposed to have died, a demise of the Crown had taken place, and a new Sove- reign must be considered as de jure on the throne. They resolved, however, tliat the compassing should be laid on the 29th of January, 24 Car. 1., and the murder frecesimo mensis ejiisdem Januarii, without here naming any year of any King ; and that the indictment should conclude, (;cmtrapacem nuper domini Regis coron. et dignitat. suas, necnon contra pacem domini nunc Regis coron. et dignitat. suas. — 4 Pari. Hist. 120. GOOD-LOOKmG PLAINTIFFS. The advocates in ancient Rome gave effect to their appeals by producing on fit occasions the living image of the client's misery, and his claims on the compassion of the courts. Thus, when Antony was defending against the charge of pecuniary corruption, Aquilius, who had successfully conducted the campaign in Sicily against the fugitive slaves, and was unable to disprove or refute the charge, in the midst of his harangue, after appealing in impassioned tones to the services rendered to his country by the brave soldier who stood by his side — he suddenly unloosed the folds of his client's robe, and showed to his fellow-citizens who sat upon his trial the scars of the wounds which had been received in their behalf They could not resist the effect of such a sight, and Aquilius was acquitted. A PROFESSIONAL BEAUTY IN COURT, When Phryne was prosecuted on a capital charge at Athens, her advocate, Hyperides, knowing she was the most beautiful of women, and the original of the Venus of Praxiteles, took care to place her in full view of her judges, and even arranged the details of her dress to the best advantage. He then used his highest oratorical arts to excite the pity of the court, and so subdued their feelings that they could not find it in their hearts to condemn, and she was acquitted. The result was, that the pubUc prosecutor, Euthias, swore he would never 148 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. prosecute another. The court also were so conscious of the disturbing cause of their judgment, that they made a rule that in future no accused person, man or woman, should be present in court at the time of the decision, — Athenseus, B. 13. THE HANDSOME GIRL WITH THE WOODEN LEO. On the Northern circuit the famous Jack Lee 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 in- deed, 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 gi-eat 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. — Twiss's Eldon. THE FRIENDS OP THE PRISONERS. When Cicero defended Fonteius against the accusations of Induciomarus and the other Gauls who had come to Rome to impeach him of corrupt conduct during his prsetorian government, he pointed to the mother and ABOUT ADYOOATES, PLEADEES, ETC. 149 sister of his client clinging to him in passionate embrace, and reminded the judges that that sister was a vestal virgin, whose chief tie to earth was her brother's existence. " Let it not be said hereafter," he exclaimed, as the affect- ing scene was acted before their eyes, " that the eternal fire which was preserved by the midnight care and watching of Fonteia, was extinguished by the tears of your priestess. A vestal virgin extends towards you in suppliant prayer those hands which she has been used to lift up to the immortal gods in your behalf Beware of the danger and the sin you may incur by rejecting the entreaty of her, whose prayers, if the gods were to despise, Rome itself would be in ruins." CLIENT WISHING TO PLEAD HIS OWN CASE. It is said that Thelwall, when tried for seditious libel, was a very troublesome client, and frequently interfered indiscreetly in the defence. At one time he was so much dissatisfied that he wrote on a piece of paper, which he threw to Erskine, his counsel, " I'll be hanged if I don't plead my own cause ; " upon which his counsel returned for answer, " You'll be hanged if you do." A CLIENT PRESSING A LAWJBK FOR HIS BILL. A tailor sent his bill to a lawyer, and a message to ask for payment. The lawyer bid the latter to tell his master that he was not running away, and was very busy at that 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 i " " Yes, I did, sir ; but he bade me tell you that lie was." "MT UNFORTUNATE CLIENT." A young counsel who had the reputation of being a very impudent fellow, but whose memory failed him when beginning to recite a long speech which he had prepared, having uttered these words : " The unfortunate client who appears by me — the unfortunate client who appears by me — my lord, my unfortunate client " the Chief 150 CDEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWTEES. Justice, Lord Ellenborough, interposed and almost whis- pered in a soft and encouraging tone — " You may go on, sir ; so far the court is quite with you." Another example of Lord Ellenborough's judicial jocosity is related when the great conveyancer, Mr, Preston, appeared to argue a case in the King's Bench as to a subject of which that counsel was a master. "An estate in fee simple, my lords," said the counsel, "is the highest estate known to the law of England." "Stay, stay," said the Chief Justice, with consummate gravity, " let me take that down." He wrote and read slowly, and emphatically, "An estate — in fee simple — ^is — the highest estate — known to — the law of England : " adding, " Sir, the court is much indebted to you for this informa- tion."— 3 Camp. Ch. JJs. 237. A LAW STUDENT IN TRAINING. The Tatler, in 1710, said, " Walking the other day in an inn of court, I saw a more happy and more graceful orator than I ever before had heard or read of. A youth of about niLeteen was, in an Indian nightgown and laced cap, pleading a cause before a glass. The young fellow had a very good air, and seemed to hold his brief in his hand rather to help his action than that he wanted any notes. When I first began to observe him I feared he would soon be alarmed ; but he was so zealous for his client, and so favourably received by the court, that he went on with great fluency to inform the bench that he humbly hoped they would not let the merit of the cause suffer by the youth and inexperience of the advocate ; that in all things he submitted to their candour, and he modestly desired that they would not conclude, that strength of argument and force of reason were inconsistent with grace of action and comeliness of person. " To me (who see people every day in the midst of crowds, talking only to themselves and of themselves), this orator was not so extravagant a man as another would have thought him ; and I took part in his success, and was very glad to find he had in his favour judgment and costs, without any manner of opposition," ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, ETC. 151 COXmSEL'S VOLUBILITY FOR HIS CLIENT. Lord Jeffrey, when at the bar, was a very rapid speaker. A worthy man from Glasgow, on whom he poured out a long torrent of vituperation in an action for libel, after listening complacently till he had done, said, " Well, he has spoken the whole English language thrice over in two hours ! " A CLIENT NOT KNOWING HOW ILL HE HAD BEEN USED. Eufus Choate, the American lawyer, defended a black- smith whose creditor had seized some iron that a friend had lent him to assist in the business after a bankruptcy. The seizure of the iron was said to have been made harshly. Choate thus described it : " He arrested the arm of industry as it fell towards the anvil ; he put out the breath of his bellows ; he extinguished the fire upon his hearthstone. Like pirates in a gale at sea, his enemies swept everything by the board, leaving, gentle- men of the jury, not so much — not so much as a horseshoe to nail upon the door-post to keep the witches off." The blacksmith, sitting behind, was seen to have tears in his eyes at this description, and a friend noticing it, said, " Why, Tom, what's the matter with you ? What are you blubbering about ? " "I had no idea," said Tom in a whisper, "that I had been so abominably ab-ab-bused.' DEPOSITING MONET WITHOUT A WITNESS OE RECEIPT. An Irish farmer at a fair, not wishing to carry £100 in his pocket, left it in charge of the landlord of the public- house. When he returned soon after, the landlord denied he had ever received any such money. Curran was con- sulted as to the best remedy. He told the farmer to take a friend with him, and go and speak very civilly to the landlord, and say he was convinced he must have left the £100 with some other person, and leave another £100 with him. The farmer did so, but could not see what use this could be. On further consultation, Curran advised him to go by himself to the landlord and ask for the £100; and the farmer did so, and received the 162 orEiosiTiBs OP law and lawyers. money. But he said he was no better off, for that did not bring back the first £100. Curran then advised the farmer to go again with his fiiend who witnessed the deposit of the second £100, and ask him for the £100 he saw him leave. The wily landlord saw he was taken off his guard, and gave up the first £100, so that the farmer joyfully went and thanked his counsel for the success of this stratagem. IMPOETUNATB LAffDLOEDS PBESSING FOR THEIR RENT. One Harman, a rich man, having some bad tenants, and being informed that one of them, which owed him money, had furnished himself to go to a fair, walked, as if by accident, to meet him in the way thither. When he saw his tenant he asked him for the rent ; the man, willing to dispose of his money otherwise, denied he had any. "Yes, I know thou hast money," said Harman, calling him by his name; "I prithee let me have my rent," and with much importunity the man pulled out his money, and gave all, or the most part of it, to his landlord. This coming to some pragmatical knowledge, the poor man was advised to indict his landlord lor robbing him on the highway, which he did. And Harman, for his sordid carriage being ill-beloved in the country, was found guilty, but reprieved by the judges. And hearing the Lord Treasurer had a secretary of his name, applied himself to him, promising to give him all his estate, having no children, if his lord would bring him out of the danger he was in; which, by his power with King James I., he did. And the secretary within a short time after, by the other's death, enjoyed an ample estate. — Wilson's Jas. L PUTTING THE CONVERSE CASE TO A LITIGIOUS CLIENT. Sir Walter Scott had promised a friend that he would write a book for his benefit. The fiiend died before the promise was fulfilled, and his executors insisted that Sir Walter should write a book for the benefit of the widow and children of the deceased. This Sir Walter refused to do. The executors sought the advice of Scarlett, who, ABOtTT ADVOCATES, PLEADBBS, ETC. 163 having listened to their case in consultation, said, " Let us suppose the position to be reversed : if Sir Walter Scott had died, should you have required his executors to write a book for the benefit of your clients ? " " Oh, no ! " exclaimed the executors, convinced at once by this apt hypothesis that they had no case against Sir Walter Scott. . ■ AN UNKNOWN CLIENT EEOOGNISINQ COUNSEL. One night walking through St. Giles's, by way of a short cut towards home, an Irish woman came up to Mr. Adolphus, the Old Bailey counsel. " 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 !"— Adolphus' Mem. 158. COUNSEL KEMONSTKATING WITH A CLIENT. A Westminster Hall anecdote is given of Mr. Clarke, leader of the Midland Circuit — a very worthy lawyer of the old school. His 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 my lord'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, Mr. Clarke, 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. "Hard- ship ! " said the zealous churchman, " no hardship at all ! Let him become a Christian, and be d — d to him 1 " A GRATEFUL CLIENT'S LEGACY. A gentleman in Derbyshire, from admiration of Erskine's public character, had left him by will a considerable landed estate, but the will was defeated by the ignorance of a 154 OUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYEES. country attorney, who recommended that the testatoi should " suffer a recovery " to confirm it, whereby it was rendered invahd. Erskine used to give an amusing account of the attorney who came to him after the testator's death to announce the intelligence of his being now owner of a great estate, concluding thus : " And your lordship need have no doubt as to the validity of the will ; for, after it was made, we suffered a recovery to confirm it." This legal absurdity is corrected by a bill afterwards introduced into Parliament. — 6 Camp. Chanc. 663. A GRATEFUL CLIENT ERECTING A JUDGES MONUMENT. Lord Mansfield, having died at the age of eighty-nine, by his will expressed a wish to be buried in Westminster Abbey, giving as a reason the attachment he felt for the place of his early education, but directing that his funeral should only be attended by his relations and private friends. Accordingly, his remains, attended by all the judges and the bar in a body, were deposited in Westminster Abbey, in the same grave with his deceased wife, between the tombs of Lord Chatham and Lord Robert Manners. And there a splendid monument was erected to his memory — the workmanship of Flaxman — the expense being defrayed by a legacy of £1,500 grate- fully bequeathed for this purpose by a client, for whom, when at the bar, by an extraordinary display of his eloquence, he had recovered a great estate. — 2 Camp. Ch. JJs. 561. A GRATEFUL CLIENT CONFIDING SECRETS. O'Connell said he was once counsel for a cow-stealer, who was clearly convicted, the sentence being trans- portation for fourteen years. At the end of that time he returned, and meeting O'Connell, began to talk of the trial. O'Connell asked him how he always contrived to steal the fat cows : to which he gravely replied, " Why, then, I'll tell your honour the whole secret of that, sir. Whenever your honour goes to steal a cow, always go on the worst night you can, for if the weather is very bad. ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADERS, ETC. 155 the chances are that nobody will be up to see your honour. The way you'll always know the fat cattle in the dark is by this token — that the fat cows always stand out in the more exposed places, but the lean ones always go into the ditch for shelter." " So," said O'Connell, " I got that lesson in cow-stealing gratis from my worthy client." counsel's opinion whether an action will lib. A case was laid bofore Erskine by his veteran friend the Duke of Queensberry — better known as " old Q." — as to whether he could sue a tradesman for a breach of contract about the painting of his house ? and all the evidence he had to adduce was detailed, which was wholly insufficient. Whereupon Erskine wrote, "I am of opinion, that this action will not lie, unless the witnesses do." PAKTIES SHOWING WHEEB THEIR PROPERTY LIES. When presiding in the Court of Chancery, Lord Chancellor Hatton disarmed his censurers by courtesy and good humour, and he occasionally ventured on a joke. At one time, when there was a case before him respecting the boundaries of an estate, a plan being produced, the counsel on one part said, " We lie on this side, my Lord ; " and the counsel on the other part said, " And we lie on this side, my Lord : " whereupon the Lord Chancellor Hatton stood up and said, " If you lie on both sides, whom will you have me to believe ? " — Bac. Apopth. THE VILLAGE HAMPDEN AND THE EIGHT OF HIGHWAY. In the reign of George II., when a footway in Rich- mond Park to Wimbledon, East Sheen, and Kingston, was shut up by the ranger, and none allowed to pass without a ticket, John Lewis, of Richmond, took a friend with him and demanded entry. On refusal, he laid an indict- ment for obstruction of the highway, which was tried at the Surrey Assizes, before Sir M. Foster, who over- ruled many quibbling objections of the Crown counsel. 166 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. The court, at the suggestion of the prosecutor, ordered a ladder to be put over the wall; but, in cariying this out, the steps were made so high as to be inaccessible. Lewis complained to the court, and said they had made the steps so wide that neither old men nor children could get over. " The judge said he saw that it was so, and he ordered it to be so constructed that not only children and old men but old women too should be able to get up." Soon afterwards the king wished a lane to be stopped up, and the steward gave a feast to the chief inhabitants, and after all were in good humour proposed that they should oblige the king by consenting to the alteration ; at the same time he urged that it must be unanimous. John Lewis again rose and said that it would be to betray their posterity if they were to give up this right, which was a trust they were bound to maintain, and which their forefathers had handed down to them. The scheme was abandoned, but an Act of Parliament was afterwards passed to shut up the lane. Another champion named Timothy Bennett, a shoe- maker, said he would spend his little (awl) all, which was £700, in fighting for the public rights, for he was un- willing to leave the world worse than he found it ! A CLIENT SEEKING EBDEESS FOR BEING SWORN AT. A client went to consult Rufus Choate, the great American lawyer, as to the proper redress for an intoler- able insult and wrong he had just suffered. He had been in a dispute with a waiter at the hotel, who in a paroxysm of rage and contempt told the client " to go to h— 11." " Now," said the client, " I ask you, Mr. Choate, as one learned in the law, and as my legal adviser, what course under these circumstances I ought to take to punish this outrageous insult." Choate looked grave, and told the client to repeat slowly all the incidents preceding this outburst, telling him to be careful not to omit anything, and when this was done Choate stood for awhile as if in deep thought and revolving an abstruse subject ; he then gravely said : " I have been running over in my head all the statutes of the United States, ABOUT ADVOCATES, PLEADEES, ETC. 157 and all the statutes of the commonwealth of Massa- chusetts, and all the decisiqns of all the judges in our courts therein, and I may say that I am thoroughly satisfied that there is nothing in any of them that will require you to go to the place you have mentioned. And if you will take my advice then I say decidedly — don't go." — Choate's EecoUect. 158 CUBIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWXEES. CHAPTEE Y. ABOUT COUNSEL, CIRCUITS, INNS OF COURT, AND ATTORNEY GENERAL. JUDGE THREATENING TO COMMIT COUNSEL. The jury in the Dean of St. Asaph's case withdrew, and in about half an hour returned into court. When their names had been called over, the following scene was enacted. Clerk. " Gentlemen of the jury, do you find the defendant guilty or not guilty ? " Foreman. "Guilty of publishing only." Erskine. "You find him guilty of publishing only ? " A Juror. " Guilty only of publishing." Buller J. " 1 believe that is a verdict not quite correct. You must explain that one way or the other. The indictment has stated that G. means ' Gentle- man,' F. ' Parmer,' the King, ' the King of Great Britain,' and the Parlia7)ient, 'the Parliament of Great Britain.'" Juror. " We have no doubt about that." Bailer J. " If you find him guilty of publishing, you must not say the word 'only.'" Erskine. "By that they mean to find there was no sedition." Juror. "We only find him guilty of publishing. We do not find anything else." Erskine. " I beg your lordship's pardon, with great submission, I am sure I mean nothing that is irregular. I understand they say, ' we only find him guilty of publishing.' " Juror. " Certainly, that is all we do find." Buller J. " If you only attend to what is said, there is no question or doubt." Erskine. " Gentlemen, I desire to know whether you mean the word, ' only,' to stand in your verdict." Jurymen. " Certainly." Buller J. " Gentlemen, if you add the word ' only ' it will be negativing the inuendoes." Erskine. "I desire your lordship, sitting here as judge, to record the verdict as given by the jury." Buller J. " You say he is guil' \ ABOUT COUNSEL, CIRCUITS, ETC. 169 of pul'lisliing the pamphlet, and that the meaning of the inuendoes is as stated in the indictment." Juror. "Certainly." Erskine. "Is the word 'only' to stand part of the verdict ? " Juror. " Certainly." Erskine. " Then I insist it shall be recorded." Bailer J. " Then the verdict must be misunderstood. Let me understand the jury." Erskine "The jury do understand their verdict." Buller J. " Sir, I will not be interrupted." Erskine. " I stand here as an advocate for a brother citizen, and I desire that the word ' only ' may be recorded." Buller J. " Sit down, sir, remember your duty, or I shall be obliged to proceed in another manner." Erskine. "Your lord- ship may proceed in what manner you think fit. I know my duty as well as your lordship knows yours. I shall not alter my conduct." The judge succumbed to Erskine, who had been his old pupil, and the verdict was recorded as given, and it led to further arguments before the full court. — Ersk. Speeches. A JUDGE THREATENING TO COMMIT C0EEAN. Curran, the Irish counsel, offended Justice Robinson. "Sir," exclaimed the judge, in a furious tone, "you are forgetting the respect that you owe to the dignity of the judicial character." " Dignity, my lord," retorted Curran ; "upon that point I shall cite you a case from a book of some authority with which you are perhaps not un- acquainted. A poor Scotchman, upon his arrival in London, thinking himself insulted by a stranger, and imagining that he was the stronger man, resolved to resent the afiiront, and taking off his coat, delivered it to a bystander to hold ; but, having lost the battle, he turned to resume his garment, when he discovered that he had unfortunately lost that also — that the trustee of his habiliments had decamped during the affray. So, my lord, when the person who is invested with the dignity of the judgment-seat, lays it aside for a moment, to enter into a disgraceful personal contest, it is vain, when he has been worsted in the encounter, that he seeks to resume it — it is in vain that he endeavours to shelter himself behind an authority which he has abandoned." The judge cried out, " If you say another 160 CUETOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYERS. word, sir, I'll commit you." " Then, my lord, it will be the best thing you'll have committed this year." " The judge did not keep his threat; he applied, however, to his brethren to unfrock the daring advocate, but they refused to interfere, and so the matter ended. — Philip's Curran, A SERJEANT INCAPABLB OF PUTTING A WRONG QUESTION TO WITNESS. In the court of Common Pleas, on the trial of Thirtell V. Beams, Mr. Sergeant Taddy was examining a witness, and asked him a question respecting some event "that had happened since the plaintiff had disappeared from that neighbourhood." Mr. Justice Parke immediately observed, " That's a very improper question, and ought not to have been asked." " That is an imputation," replied the Serjeant, " to which I will not submit. I am incapable of putting an improper question to a witness." " What imputation, sir ? " inquired the judge, angrily ? " I desire that you will not charge me with casting imputations. I say that the question was not properly put, for the expression ' disappear ' means ' to leave clandestinely.' " " I say," retorted Sergeant Taddy, " that it means no such thing." " I hope," rejoined the judge, " that I have some understanding left, and as far as that goes, the word certainly bore that interpretation, and therefore was improper." " I never will submit to a rebuke of this kind." "That is a very improper manner, sir, for a counsel to address the court in" "And that is a very improper manner for a judge to address a counsel in." The judge rose and said with great warmth, " I protest, sir, you will compel me to do what is disagreeable to me." "Do what you like, my Lord." "Well," said Mr. Justice Parke, resuming his seat, " I hope I shall manifest the indulgence of a Christian judge." "You may exercise your indulgence or your power in any way your lordship's discretion may suggest; it is a matter of perfect indifference to me." "I have the functions of a judge to discharge, and in doing so I must not be reproved in this sort of way." " And I," replied the undaunted sergeant, " have a duty to discharge as counsel which I shall discharge ABOUT COUNSEL, CIECUITS, ETC. 161 as I think proper, without submitting to a rebuke from any quarter." Anxious to terminate this dispute, in which the dignity of the court was compromised, Mr. Sergeant Lens rose to interfere. " No ! Brother Lens," exclaimed Mr. Sergeant Taddy, " I must protest against any interference." Sergeant Lens, however, was not to be deterred from effecting his intention, and addressing the bench, said, " My brother Taddy, my lord, has been betrayed into some warmth ; " here he was stopped by Sergeant Taddy seizing him and pulling him back into his place. " I again," he exclaimed, " protest against any interference on my account, — I am quite prepared to answer for my own conduct." "My brother Lens, sir," said Judge Parke, "has a right to be heard." "Not on my account : I am fully capable of answering for myself." " Has he not a right to possess the court on any subject he pleases ? " " Not while I am in possession of it," retorted the undaunted advocate, "and am examining a witness." Mr. Justice Parke, then seeing evidently that the altercation could not be advisably prolonged, threw himself back into his chair and was silent. — 2 Law and Lawyers, 357. COiraSEL RULUSTG THE COUET. Many remember how Mr. Scarlett used to govern the court of King's Bench. It was marvellous to see how such judges as Abbott, Bayley, Holroyd, and Littledale, submitted to the dictation of the great Nisi Prius leader. On one occasion in the King's Bench, when Scarlett and Adolphus were on opposite sides, the former, after snubbing the counsel and overruling the court, inquired, " Are you aware, Mr. Adolphus, you are not at the Old Bailey ? " "I am, sir," retorted Adolphus, " for there the judge presides, not the counsel." COUNSEL COMPLAINING OF A DIABOLICAL PROSECUTION. Adolphus, the criminal lawyer, said that an indictment for a libel was tried before Justice Maule, and the learned counsel for the prosecution ended by saying to the jury : " This, gentlemen, is a shameful, an infamous, I may say 11 162 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. a diabolical prosecution." " Gentlemen of the jury," said Justice Maule, in summing up, " you are told that this iit a diabolical prosecution ; but, gentlemen, you must give the devil his due, and find the defendant guilty," — which happened accordingly. PBIVT COTJNCILLOK SHOULD NOT BE PEACTISINa BAEBISTER. \Vhen the name of Mr. Nagle was inserted in the list of Privy Councillors of Ireland, in Cromwell's time, the Lord Lieutenant remonstrated to the Lord President in England. His Excellency admitted him to be " a very learned and an honest man, but he was a practising barrister, and it was not etiquette for such to be of the Council. It will not look well that a man who has the honour to be of the King's Privy Council, should be crowding at the bar of the courts of justice bareheaded, and his bag in his hand. I have not heard it was ever yet done but to Sir Francis Bacon, when he was attorney- general, and to satisfy his ambition by the credit he had with the Duke of Buckingham ; or rather by importunity he was made a privy councillor, but he never appeared afterwards in Westminster Hall, unless the king's busi- ness called him." — 2 Campb. Chanc, 348. A WESTMINSTER HALL CHICKEN. On some point of law which arose in the House of Commons, Mr. Michae' Angelo Taylor had answered the great lawyer, Bearcroft, but not without an apology, " that he himself, who was then but a young practitioner, and, as he might phrase it, a chicken in the law, should venture on a fight with the cock of Westminster Hall ! " He then acquired, and he never lost the name of " Chicken Taylor." Although very short in stature, he was of athletic proportions, and Lord Ellenborough said that his father, who was a great artist, had produced him as a " pocket Hercules." But he was more celebrated as an Amphytrion, and Lord Campbell could testify that he gave the best dinners of any man in London. One of these was the ruin of a great motion for Parliamentary ABOUT COUNSEL, CmCUITS, ETC. 163 Reform ; for while the leading patriots were partaking of it, the House of Commons was counted out. The occur- rence gave rise to a very scurrilous, but very witty song in John Ball, written by Sir Alexander BosweU, after- wards kiUed in a duel for a similar production. THE EAGLE OF THE BAR. Normand, who became a French advocate in 1707, was called the Eagle of the Bar, from the dignity and rapidity of his rise. His countenance was handsome, his gestures graceful, and voice soft and clear. All Paris flocked to hear him, and he had a house and equipage of the finest, and entertained men of the highest rank. His scrupulous accuracy was such that it became a proverb that " it was a fact because Normand said it." He once said of his great rival, Cochin, that he had never heard a finer speech than one delivered by Cochin, whereupon the latter replied : " It is evident you are not one of those who hear themselves." MR. COUNSELLOR THEREFORE. Serjeant Kelly, of the Irish bar, had an inveterate habit of drawing conclusions directly at variance with his premises. In consequence of this peculiarity he was called " Counsellor Therefore." Curran said he was a perfect human personitication of a non sequitur. One day, meeting Curran near St. Patrick's, he said : " The Archbishop gave us an excellent discourse this morning. It was well written and weU delivered. Therefore I shall make a point of being at the Four Courts to-morrow at ten." His speeches to the jury were interminable. He would say : " This is so clear a point, gentlemen, that it is paying your understandings but a poor compliment to dwell on it even for a moment. Therefore I shall now proceed to explain it to you at greater length." While the court tittered, the serjeant was wholly unconscious of these feats of his own genius for inconsecutiveness. THE PICKLOCK OF THE LAW. Judge Rumsey, a Welsh judge, was, according to Aubrey, " so excellent a lawyer that he was called ' the Picklock of 164 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. the Law.' He was an ingenious man, and had a philoso- phical head. He was most curious for grafting, inocu- lating, and planting, and ponds. If he had any old dead plum-tree or apple-tree he let them stand, and. planted vines at the bottom, and let them climb up and they would bear very well. He was one of my counsel in my law suits in Breconshire. He had a kindness for me, and invited me to his house, and told me a great many fine things both natural and antiquarian. He was very face- tious and a good musician, played on the organ and lute. He could compose. He was much troubled with phlegm, and being so one winter at the court at Ludlow (where he was one of the counsellors), sitting by the fire spitting and. spewling, he took a fine tender sprig and tied a rag at the end, and conceived he might put it down his throat and fetch up the phlegm, and he did so. Afterwards be made the instrument of whalebone. I have oftentimes seen him use it. I could never make it go down my throat, but for those that can it is a most incomparable engine. If troubled with the wind it cures you immedi- ately. It makes you vomit without any pain. It is no pain when down your throat. He would touch the bottom of his stomach with it." LEADING COUNSEL EKrCTG OUT AN INCOME. In ancient Rome, in the first century, some unscrupulous advocates had an ingenious way of making money. Pliny the younger tells this story of his rival Eegulus, who was a prosy and fawning time-server, but enjoyed a large practice. This Regulus, hearing that Verania, the wife of Piso, was on her death-bed, went and called upon her, though he knew she hated him, and that her husband had been badly used by him. Regulus professed to be greatly concerned, asked her the day and hour of her birth, and with many contortions and grimaces of sym- pathy said he would calculate her nativity. He told her she was in a critical state, but he would consult a sooth- sayer for her — one he could really trust. He soon re- turned with the best of news, so that the poor lady in her joy called for her tablets to put down this kind friend for a large legacy. Of course she soon got worse, and ABOUT COUNSEIi, OIECUITS, ETO. 165 with her dying breath she charged him with perjury, but the legacy held good. This Regulus knew another dying person, of consular rank, whose case he pretended to interest himself in, and after working on the invalid's credulity, and beseeching the doctors to prolong his life, also got a legacy put down to him ; immediately after- wards he told the doctors it was useless to prolong life, and an easy death was what they should now give him. Pliny says that this Regulus accumulated a fortune of nearly half a million by such dishonourable artifices. A COTOJSEL WHO WAS CALLED THE INDEX. Roger North says that Attorney- General Palmer was a very great book lawyer, owing to his great and distinct memory ; but yet not so great as some have had who have been so full of books and folios, that their understanding was kept truly under, and they knew nothing else. For this reason old Serjeant Waller was called Index; and people went for his opinion only to bring away a list of quotations to assist other counsel that understood better. COUNSEL m THE HUNTING FIELD. Curran never joined the hunt, except once, about twenty miles 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-exa- mined 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 j^ou ask, Mr. Maloney ? " replied Curran ; " it must be the Lex Tally-ho-nis, to be sure." COUNSEL AND JUDGES KEMEMBBRING THEIR CLIENTS* CASES. A counsel's head is very much like a caravanserai. It is fuU for a day or two of the minute details of the cases in which he is concerned on the one side or the other, so 166 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYERS. that during an argument all these particulars are in full view, and at the finger's end, whenever the turns of the case require them to be made available. But after the case is decided, a clean sweep is made, and both counsel and judge utterly forget in a few days the whole budget of facts they were so familiar with for the while, and fresh cases and particulars displace the preceding ones. One day, in arguing a case in the House of Lords before the Lord Chancellor Cranworth, Lord Brougham, and Lord St. Leonards, a counsel in answering a difficulty put by the court exclaimed : "That point was settled in the case of ' Jones v Smith.' One of your lordships (Lord Brougham, who decided it) will no doubt very well recol- lect how that very point was raised and decided two years ago." Lord Brougham at once retorted : " God forbid that my head should be filled with such rubbish ! I remember nothing at all about it. Let us hear what it was ! " Mr. Bethell and Sir F. Kelly were fighting a case before a Vice-Chancellor, and discussing what was thought at the moment to be quite a new point, but which had in fact been settled by the House of Lords only the previous year, and in which also both of those counsel had been engaged, and which was so remarkable that both might be expected to have recollected it. But neither counsel ever referred to the prior case. After the argument was over, Mr. BetheU being reminded of the former case, and how thoroughly it would have borne out his argument if he had remembered it, exclaimed ; " Well, no doubt that case was just in point ! It only shows what a rogue that Kelly was not to allude to it, and what a fool I was not to think of it ! " "I HAVE JXrST ONE WORD MORE." Sir Fitzroy KeUy, the last of the chief barons, when at the bar, though an advocate of a most deferential and winning address, was often obliged to continue his argu- ment rather longer than some of the bystanders wished. One favourite little artifice when he was just expected to conclude was this : " I have just one word more to add ABOUT COUNSEL, GIKCUITS, ETC. 167 as to the last point." When he used this expression the one word almost invariably extended to half an hour, and sometimes half of that again. The youngdr Pliny, who was a leading advocate at Rome towards the end of the first century, plumed" him- self on once making an adroit hit on the abuse of the above phrase. He was defending Varenus, who was ac- cused of peculation ; and Julius Atiicanus, the prosecuting counsel, who professed to have discovered fresh evidence, was more than usually tedious. After being told the time allowed him was " up," he added : " I beg your lordship to permit me to add just one word." He was permitted, and used a good many empty words, and then Pliny was expected by an excited audience to make a long reply. He merely said : " I should have replied if my learned friend had added just that ' one word,' which no doubt, would have contained all his new matter, but as he did not add it, I have nothing to answer." Pliny says, all in court thought this an admirable apology for holding his tongue, and it benefited his client greatly. A GRATUITOUS OPINION BY COUNSEL. Mr. Fazakerly, an eminent counsel, was once stopped by a country gentleman, a neighbour, who a^ked him about some point then very important to him, and got the opinion verbally. Some time after the gentleman called on the counsel and said he had lost £5000 by his advice, as it was a wrong opinion. The counsel said he had never given any opinion, and, turning up his books, said he was confident of that. Being reminded that it was given during a ride the neighbours had some sum- mer's day, near Preston, the lawyer replied, " Oh, I re- member now, but that was only my travelling opinion : and to tell the truth, neighbour, my opinion is never to be relied upon unless the case appears in my fee book." COUNSEL DrSTINGUISHING HIMSELF AS AMICUS CUKI^. It is related that Lord Chancellor Ellesmere first gave earnest of his future eminence by interposing as Amicus Gurice, while yet a student, when a verdict was about to 168 CUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYEES. be pronounced which would have ruined a worthy old lady who kept a house of public entertainment in Smith- field. Three graziers had deposited a sum of money with her, to be returned to them on their joint application. One of them, fraudulently pretending that he had autho- rity to receive it, induced her to give him the whole of the money, and absconded with it. The other two brought their action against her ; and (as the story goes) were about to recover, when young Egerton begged per- mission to befriend the court, by pointing out a fatal objection which had escaped her counsel as well as my Lord Judge. Said he : " This money, by the contract, was to be returned to three, but two only sue. Where is the third ? let him appear with the others : till then the money cannot be demanded from her." This turned the fortune of the day ; the plaintiffs were non-suited, and our young student was from that day considered to be of great mark and likelihood. This "traditionary story," although the law of it be unexceptionable, Lord Campbell considered an invention, as much as Miss Edgeworth's anecdote of the young barrister who, being junior in a case at nisi prius to try the validity of a will of personal property, when it came to his turn to address the jury, made his foitune by bringing out an objection which he had carefully con- cealed from his leader. But the fair writer had an undoubted right to dispense both with the forms of legal process and with professional etiquette. — 2 Camp. Lives of Chanc, 175. COUNSEL MAKING THINGS TOO LONG. A counsel in making a motion to enter a nolle prosequi, on the last day of term, pronounced prosequi long in the middle syllable. Baron Alderson, the presiding judge, addressed the counsel : " Pray, sir, consider that this is the last day of term, and don't make things unnecessarily long." COURT GIVING TIME TO PAT. In a case before Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More, a poor woman was claiming a sum of money from a ABOUT COUNSEL, CIECUITS, ETC. 169 gentleman defendant, who had grievously wronged her. When a decree against him seemed inevitable, the de- fendant said, " At least I hope your lordship will grant me a long day to pay it." The chancellor said, "I will grant you till Monday next, which is St. Barnabas' Day. It is the longest in the year. If you do not pay the money to the plaintiff on that day, I will commit you to the Fleet prison." TOUR LOEDSHIPS' PLEASUKB TO ADJOURN. Mr. Preston once argued a long and dreary case of real property law. Having not yet exhausted the Year Books when the shades of evening were closing upon him, he applied to know when it would be their lord- ships' pleasure to hear the remainder of his argument. Lord Ellenborough said, " Mr. Preston, we are bound to hear you out, and I hope we shall do so on Friday; but alas ! pleasure has been long out of the question." Another tiresome conveyancer having, towards the end of Easter Term, occupied the court a whole day about " the merger of a term," the Chief Justice said to him, "I am afraid, sir, the term, although a long one, will merge in your argument," AN ADVOCATE WITH A LONG NOSE. Sergeant Prime was described in Miss Hawkins' " Anecdotes " as famous for his long nose. One day he was thrown from his horse, and a countryman coming up looked earnestly at him as he helped him to rise, and inquired if he was not hurt. On being answered in the negative, the fellow grinned, and said, " Then your ploughshare has saved you." COUNSEL LAYING TRAPS FOR JUDGES. Lord Chief Justice North, according to his brother Roger, " was very good at waylaying and disappointing the craft of counsel ; for he, as they say, had been in the oven himself, and knew where to look for the past}'. Sergeant Maynard was a very able practiser, and used 170 CURIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWTEES. to lay traps for the judges, and very cunning ones ; for, if he discerned that he was observed, he straight gave it up, and contended not upon a fallacy, which he foresaw would be resolved. Sir W. Jones sometimes came before his lordship at the nisi prius, and used art enough, and was very angry when it did not succeed. As, for instance, by such forms as these : ' If, my lord, we prove so and so, then so and so, etc.,' and after that wait for the judge's answer. If the judge said, ' Aye, if you prove that, indeed, then etc.,' the lawyer concluded, the jury was prepared so far. And if in the course of his evidence he could charm them to think he had proved that matter, although not sufficiently, he carried the cause; at least in the proceeding he so entangled the judge that he could scarce get clear. His lordship in such cases always declined answering anything, but said only : ' Call the witnesses and prove what you can. I will tell you what I think when you have done so, and not before." A POPULAR LEADINa OOUNSBL. Chief Justice Saunders, when on the bench and at the bar, lodged at a tailor's house. Roger North says that he " was a fetid mass, that offended his neighbours at the bar in the sharpest degree. Yet none had more lively parts than he. Wit and repartee in an affected rusticity were natural to him. He was ever ready and never at a loss ; and none came so near as he to be a match for Sergeant Maynard. His great dexterity was in the art of special pleading, and he would lay snares that often caught his superiors, who were not aware of his traps. And he was so fond of success for his clients, that rather than fail he would set the court hard with a trick, for which he met sometimes with a reprimand, which he would wittily ward off, so that no one was much offended with him. Sir M. Hale, it is true, could not bear his irregularities. He had a goodness of nature and disposition in so great a degree, that he may be deservedly styled a philanthrope. He was a very Silenus to the boys, as in this place I may. term the students of the law, to make them merry whenever they ABOUT COUNSEL, CIBCUITS, ETC. 171 had a mind to it. In the Temple he seldom moved with- out a parcel of youths hanging about him, and he merry and jesting with them." AS EMINENT COTJNSELS MENTAL AND PHYSIOAX PECULIARITIES. Mr. Dunning and Mi-. Murphy were great friends. The latter said that if there was a natural logician, it was Mr. Dunning. When he was in his happiest mood, a speech of his that took only half an hour would embrace aU the arguments contained in his opponent's speech of two hours. But yet it required the utmost attention to follow him. His mind laboured. He had all the while a movement of his head, a grinding of his lower jaw, and a certain singular cast of countenance. There was besides a huskiness in his throat which constantly moved him to endeavour to clear it. This was first produced under a mental excitement; but afterwards became a habit, whenever his subject com- manded any extraordinary exertion. Soon after he was made Lord Ashburton, one morning he desired his servant to draw the curtains and let in the light, which she said had been done; and it was then found he had by a paralytic stroke been deprived of his eyesight without the least sensation of pain. Once, on his way from the west, he met by appointment at an inn his old friend Wallace, late attorney-general; both were in a dying state, and knew it; and they took a final parting on that occasion, both dying within a few months afterwards. A DRUNKEN ADVOCATE LAID OUT FOR DEAD. Mr. Doddridge, an eminent American advocate, had given himself to intoxication. One day he was suddenly seized with an apoplexy, palsy, catalepsy, or some disease of that nature, and the powers of life seemed entirely suspended. The physicians declared him dead, his wife supposed him dead, and the persons in the house pro- ceeded to lay out his corpse. During all this time, as he said afterwards, he was perfectly in his senses, heard all 172 CUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWTEBS. that was said, but was totally unable to move a muscle, or to make the slightest exertion. While these things were going on, his wife thought she perceived a slight motion in one of his legs, the knee being drawn up. She supposed it an involuntary muscular motion, but being struck by the circumstance, she raised his head high on the pillow, rubbed him with brandy, and soon perceived signs of returning life. He slowly revived, and in a few weeks resumed his practice. — Judge Stoiy's Life. KEEPING A SEAT IN COURT FOR AN ABSENT COUNSEL. John Manningham, in his Diary, says, " Mr. Prideaux, a great practiser in the Exchequer, and one that usurpes upon a place certaine at the bar, left his man one day to keepe his place for him ; but Lancaster, of Gray's Inn, coming in the meantime, would needs have the place though the man had kept it. 'For,' said Lancaster, ' knowest thou not that I believe nothing but the real presence ' — meaning that he was a papist — and ' besides could not think it to be corpus mewm except Mr. Prideaux himself were there.' " ONE COUNSEL CUTTING ANOTHER. Jekyll was asked why he no longer spoke to a lawyer of the name of Peat. Jekyll said, " I choose to give up his acquaintance. I have common of turbary, and have a right to cut peat I " COUNSEL DROPPING HIS tfS. A barrister who notoriously disregarded the letter H, was making a motion in the Court of Exchequer one day, and spoke of " 'igh-bailiff." Baron Alderson said, " I have often heard of a bum-bailiff, but never heard of an eye-bailiff before." On another occasion, a leading counsel, who was notorious for his cockney dialect, had been arguing at great length, when his junior rose and said, " My lords, considering the length of my learned leader's address, I will not weary the court with any remarks except only to add the H's 1 " ABOUT COUNSEL, CIRCUITS, ETC. 173 COUNSELS TOEKSHIEB DIALECT. There was an old bar joke about Tom Barrow moving with his Yorkshire dialect for a rule to shoe cows (show cause), and Justice Lawrence answering, " Mr. Barrow, we shoe horses in this country, not cows." A LAWYER TOO FREE WITH HIS BARBER. In 1710, Hearne, the antiquary, relates this incident : " A barrister went to one Mr. Tonson, a barber's, to have some superfluous hairs taken off, and the barber (according to the usual custom of those people) entering into the subject of the present addresses, the barrister was so imprudent as to say that the hereditary right was in the Prince of Wales (or the Pretender), which put the barber into a ferment, and he was seconded by his wife, both of them maintaining with great zeal, in opposition to the lawyer, that the Queen's was the hereditary title, and that not a parliamentary one. After the lawyer left tbem, Tonson makes information against him, and he was for.-'ed to do penance, but was dismissed at last, though not without considerable damages, which may be a warning to honest men not to enter into topics of this nature with barbers 1 " THE LAWYER AND THE ARTIST. Alonzo Cano, a Spanish sculptor, being employed by a lawyer of Grenada to make a statue of St. Antonio de Padua, and having mentioned how much it would cost, the lawyer began to reckon how many pistoles per day the artist had earned. " You have," said he, " been five- and-twenty days carving this statue, and your exorbi- tant demand makes you charge the rate of four pistoles per day, while I who am your superior in a profession, do not make half your profits by my talents." " Wretch ! " exclaimed the artist; " do you talk to me of your talents ? I have been five-and-twenty years learning to make this statue in five-and-twenty days." So saying, he dashed it on the pavement. 174 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYERS. THE ElSma BAREISTBR ASB THEATRICAL MANAGER DINING TOGETHER. Colman junior says ; " My father often met Lord, then Mr., Erskine, in the street and invited him to dinner on the same day. On these occasions Mr. Erskine was then young at the bar, flushed with success and enthusiastic in his profession. He would therefore repeat his speeches in each paiticular case. This I thouglit dull enough. But when my father observed that the arguments were unanswerable, ' By no means, my dear sir,' would Erskine say : * had I been counsel for A. instead of B., you shall hear what I would have advanced on the other side.' Then we did liear, and I wished him at the forum ! No two companions could have been worse coupled than Lord Erskine and my father, for the lawyer delighted in talking of himself and the bar, and the manager of himself and the theatre. Erskine was a gifted man, and what is better, a good man. In the early part of his career he was considered a great man, but, as John Moody says of Sir Francis Wronghead, ' he could no' hawld it.' " — Peake's Colman Family. THE barrister's HORSE THAT WOULD NOT GO CIRCUIT. Lord Alvanley, Chief Justice, when presiding at a trial of a horse cause, in 1804, told the following story to the counsel and jury : " Some years ago, an action was brought by a gentleman at the bar respecting a horse which he had bought to go the circuit upon. The horse was taken home, and his servant mounted him to show his paces. When he was on the animal's back, he would not stir a step ; he tried to turn him round and round, but he was determined not to go the circuit. The horse dealer was informed of the animal's obstinacy, and asked by the purchaser how he came to sell him such a horse. ' Well,' said the dealer, ' it can't be helped ; give me back the horse, allow me five pounds, and we'll settle the affair.' The barrister refused, and advised him to send the horse to be broke in by a rough rider. ' Rough rider! ' said the dealer, ' he has been to rough riders enough ABOUT COUNSEL, CIRCUITS, ETC. 175 ' How came you to sell me a horse that would not go ? ' rejoined the barrister. The dealer answered, ' I sold you a horse warranted sound, and sound he is ; but as to his going, I never thought he would go.' " OUK OWN OLD HORSE CAREERING ON CIRCUIT. When Sir Elijah Impey was a barrister, and rode the western circuit, being second to Dunning in fame, he used to take the same nag, and was vain of his horse- manship. This nag would come at his call, and follow him about like a dog. The horse was as well known as his rider, and the old people all along the line, for half a century afterwards, used to tell to the youngsters how Lawyer Impey 's horse would follow him into the town, and even walk after him into the inn, where some of the great lawyers would be sitting, with a solemnity which made them all roar with laughter. Sir Elijah was appointed Chief Justice at Calcutta, and being a schoolfellow of Warren Hastings, and having incurred the enmity of Sir P. Francis (Junius), was recalled for alleged illegal conduct, which he satisfactorily explained; but he did not return to India, and lived a country life in England, and- his favourite dog. Hector, died in grief a day or two after his master. A COUNSEL WHO COULD NEITHER WRITE NOR SPEAK. The King was reported to have inquired as to the fittest person for judge in a certain vacancy caused by Vice-Chancellor Hart being made Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and His Majesty was told that the soundest lawyer practising in any of the courts was a gentleman who unfortunately could neither write, nor walk, nor speak. This was said in allusion to Mr. John Bell's peculiar handwriting, his lameness, and his northern accent. Sir L. Shadwell was appointed on that occasion, on account of his politics being suitable. A PROSING COUNSEL FALSE IN HIS QUANTITIES. A Chancery, counsel, who had not been a double first class man at Oxford, in the couirse of a long and dry argument, quoted the legal maxim — expressio unius est exclusio 176 OUBIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEBS. alterius, — and he pronounced the i in unius as short instead of long. This roused Lord Justice Knight Bruce from a half slumber into which he had been lulled, and he at once exclaimed, " Unyus ! Mr. ? We always pronounced that unius at school." " Oh yes, my lord," replied Mr. , " but some of the poets use it short for the sake of the metre." " You foi-get, Mr. ," rejoined the judge, " that we are prosing here." A COUNSEL ALWAYS HUMBLY CONCEIVING. Littleton Powys, a judge of the Queen's Bench, when at the bar had small abilities, and was laughed at by his contemporaries for beginning most of his sentences with " I humbly conceive," and interlarding his arguments with " Look, do you see." Philip Yorke, by way of making a butt of Littleton, told a company he was about to publish a poetical version of " Coke upon Littleton," and when pressed to give a specimen, he repeated the following verse : — He that holdeth his lands in fee Need neither to quake nor to shiver, I humbly conceive : for look, do you see, They are his and his heirs' for ever. A FOPPISH COUNSEL. Mr. Justice Yates had always had a great weakness for over-dressing, and used to tell with glee that once, on returning to his chambers in full dress, he met at the door an attorney with a large bundle of papers, who asked him if he could inform him which were Mr. Yates' chambers. He replied, " These are the chambers — I am Mr. Yates." The attorney then eyed him from head to foot, put his papers under his arm, and, wishing him good evening, walked away. Mr. Yates never saw him or his papers again. This peculiarity for fine dress was a topic of waggery on circuit; and his contemporaries invented a story, that he and another judge had been traced to an academy where young gentlemen were taught to dance, and that one of them was found under the hand of the master, practising the steps, and the other was sitting in the stocks. ABOUT COUNSEL, CIEOmTS, ETO. 177 A YOUNG COUNSEL OVER-PERT. A young counsel of great pretensions and high connec- tions, and whose manner was rather offensive to his neighbours and to the judge, was prosecuting a thief for a petty larceny, and after much pomp and many lordly airs, while addressing the jury and calling his witnesses, sat down with a consciousness of dignity rather dispropor- tionate to the occasion. The judge, Mr. Justice Maule, said, " Have you no more witnesses to call, sir ? " " No, my lord." " Your case is closed, then ? " " Certainly, my lord,' " answered the counsel, rather indignantly. The judge began, "Then, gentlemen of the jury, you have only to a:quit this prisoner, as no evidence has been given of the property in the article alleged to be stolen, and, for aught that appears, it may have been the prisoner's own." The judge did not think fit to go out of his way to assist the prosecution in so petty a case by offering to hear additional evidence, and so the prisoner was found not guilty, and discharged. A JUNIOR COUNSEL ASTONISHED AT A DECISION AGAINST HIM. One of the most effectual interpositiors in favour of a junior was by the Scotch advocate, John Clerk, after- wards Lord Eldin. A presumptuous youth to whom he was opposed, and against whom the court decided in a peremptory manner, having declared that " he was much astonished at such a decision," there was a threat of committing him to the tolbooth for his contempt, when Clerk caused a universal laugh, in which the reverend sages of the law joined the loudest, by saying, " My lords, if my young friend had known your lordships as long as I have 'done, he would long have ceased to be astonished at any decision of your lordships ! " YOUNG COUNSEL COMBINING TO PUT DOWN A SENIOR. Mr. Lockhart, the Scotch Dean of Faculty, being insolent to members of the bar, four junior advocates, 12 178 QUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYERS. of whom Wedderburn was one, entered into a mutual engagement that one of them, who first had the oppor- tunity, shor.ld resent the arrogance of the Dean, and publicly insult him. It was by mere accident that the opportunity occurred to Wedderburn, who certainly made good use of it. Wedderburn being opposed in the laner House, as counsel, to Lockhart, and being called by him a " presumptuous boy," experiencing from him even more than his wonted rudeness and superciliousness, thus began : " The learned Dean has confined himself on this occasion to vituperation ; I do not say that he is capable of reasoning, but if tears would have answered his purpose, I am sure tears would not have been wanting." Lockhart here started up and threatened him with ven- geance. Wedderburn went on : "I care little, my lords, for what may be said or done by a man who has been disgraced in his person and dishonoured in his bed." Lord President Carnegie, on being afterwards asked why he had not sooner interfered, answered, "Because Wedderburn made all the flesh creep on my bones." But at last his lordship declared in a firm tone that "this was language unbecoming an advocate, and unbecoming a gentleman." Wedderburn, now in a state of .such ex- citement as to have lost all sense of decorum and pro- priety, exclaimed that " his lordship had said as a judge what he could not justify as a gentleman." The President appealed to his brethren as to what was fit to be done, who unanimously resolved that Mr. Wedderburn should retract his words and make an humble apology, on pain of deprivation. All of a sudden, Wedderburn seemed to have subdued his passion and put on an air of deliberate coolness, when, instead of the expected retractation aud apology, he stripped ofi" his gown, and holding it in his hand before the judges, he said, "My lords, I neither retract nor apologize ; but I will save you the trouble of deprivation. There is my gown, and I wiil never wear it more; virtute me involvo." He then coolly laid his gown upon the bar, made a low bow to the judges, and before they had recovered from their amazement, he left the court, which he never again entered. — 6 Camp. Chanc, 48. ABOUT COUNSEL, CIBCtJITS, ETC. 179 A DOMINEERING LEADER HUMILIATED AT LAST. Lord Campbell, in his Autobiography, says : " Gibbs was at this time (1808) Attorney-General, and tyrannized over Westminster Hall. He had the greatest reputation of any barrister in my time, a reputation by no means sustained on the bench, as a puisne judge, as Chief Baron, and Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. He was the most conceited man of the age, and he was at no pains to conceal his opinion of his own superiority iu intellect and acquirements. Having paid an ironical compliment to Garrow, who said, • Ttiis is all very well as a sneer,' he rejoined, ' I meant it as a sneer.' Garrow, feeling himself so vulnerable from want of law, was afraid of him. Allan Park, next in business, licked his foot, and no one else for a long time ventured to resent his arrogance. At length Topping, a rough Yorkshireman, who had lately obtained a silk gown on the northern circuit, threw a stone at this Goliath, and laid him prostrate. Topping being by accident in a cause against him, and treated with more than usual superciliousness, when replying, ran at full tilt, inveighed against the air of superioritj' which was assumed, and introduced the quotation from Shakspeare : — " He doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus, and we petty men Walk under his huge legs and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves." The sensation was very great, and all in court, from the noble Chief Justice to the crier, relished Sir Vicary's wooden looks and ghastly smiles. The attorneys, to whom he used to be intolerably insolent, rejoiced in his humiliation, and showed their gratitude by showering briefs on Topping. This ' liberator ' was introduced into Parliament, and might have reached the high honours of his profession, had it not been for his intemperate habits." —1 Camp. Life, 219. COUNSEL CITING A HIGH AUTHORITY. Ourran, in a case involving ecclesiastical law, noticing behind him a very tall and slender gentleman who had 180 OUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYEES. once intended to go into the Church, but preferred the law, said he could refer his lordship to a very high authority behind him, who was once intended for the Church, though perhaps he was fitter for the steeple I COUNSEL S FEES. I should be sorry to see the honorary character of fees of barristers and physicians done away with. Though it seems a shadowy distinction, I believe it to be beneficial in effect. It contributes to preserve the idea of a pro- fession to a class which belongs to the public, in the employment and remuneration of which no law interferes : but the citizen acts as he likes in foro conscientice. — Coleridge's Table Talk. counsel's SPECL4.L RETAINERS. According to the etiquette of the profession, no barrister may go to plead a cause on a different circuit from that which he usually attends, except on a special retainer ; and if he wears a silk gown, he cannot take a fee less than 300 guineas. This is to prevent the unseemly scramble for business which might otherwise take place. Some say that special retainers began with Erskine ; but this is doubted. ' From 1783 till he left the bar, Erskine had, upon an average, twelve special retainers a year. Serjeant Davy once had a very large brief delivered to him with a fee of two guineas only marked on the back of it. His client asked him if he had read the brief "Yes," said the serjeant, pointing to the words on the back, " ' Mr. Serjeant Davy, Two Guineas.' As far as that I have read, and for the life of me I can read no farther ! " Mr. Serjeant Hill once had a case for his opinion delivered, upon which a fee of OTie guinea was paid to his' clerk in his absence. The serjeant kept the fee and wrote the following opinion : " I do not answer cases for a fee of one guinea." (Signed and dated in the ordinary way.) ABOUT COUNSEL, CIEOUITS, ETC. 181 A CASE FOE OPINION STICKING IN THE THROAT. A client wrote a letter to Parsons, the American advocate, stating a ease, requesting his opinion upon it, and enclosing twenty dollars. After the lapse of some time, receiviug no answer, he wrote a second letter, informing him of his first communication. Parsons replied that he had received both letters, had examined the case, and formed his opinion, bat somehow or other "it stuck in his throat." The client understood this hint, sent him 100 dollars, and received the opinion. Twenty dollars for the legal opinion of Parsons, the greatest lawyer of his time I — Judge Story's Life. COUNSEL TAKING HIS FEES IN SILVER AND COPPER. When Serjeant Davy was called to account at the circuit mess for taking silver from a client, and so disgracing the profession, he replied, " I took silver because I could not get gold, but I took every farthing the fellow had in the world, and I hope you don't call that disgracing the profession." Another serjeant was accused, once upon a time, by his brethren of the court, of having degraded their order by taking from a client a fee in copper, and on being solemnly arraigned for this oflFence in their common hall, it appears from the unwritten reports of the Court of Common Pleas, that he defended himself by the following plea of confession and avoidance : " I fully admit that I took a fee from the man in copper, and not one, but several, and not only fees in copper, but fees in silver ; but I pledge my honour as a serjeant, that I never took a single fee from him in silver until I had got all his gold, and that I never took a fee from him in copper until I had got all his silver, and you don't call that a degradation of our order I " — 2 Woolrych Serj., 632. COUNSEL ATTENDING TO PRIVATE BUSINESS. It is almost proverbial that a lawyer never does any- thing well for which he does not receive a fee. Lord Mansfield used to tell the story, that feeling this influence 182 CUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYERS. once upon liim, when about to attend to some professional business of his own, he took some guineas out of a purse and put them in his waistcoat pocket, so as to keep up the real professional stimulus ! Sir Anthony Malone, the Irish Attorney- General, was very skilful in conveyancing, and nobody had the least doubt of the validity of his title to landed estates when it had been certified by him ; so that he was generally consulted. Yet when he bought some property himself, he was so inattentive that he lost an estate worth £3,C00 a year. This so annoyed him that he oidered his clerk in future to take the title-deeds of any property he bought, and to make a con-ect abstract, and lay this before him with a fee of five guineas properly indorsed, and which the clerk was to charge to him scrupuloubly. By this formality Sir Anthony felt that he could go through the papers with his usual care, and he lost no more money in this way. THE LEARNED ARGUMENTS OF "LITTLE FROG MORGAN." Croke's reports are usually quoted according to the reigns to which they refer — Elizabeth, James I., Charles I. A little barrister named Morgan, in arguing a case in the King's Bench, quoted so frequently from Croke Charles, Croke James, and Croke Elizabeth, that the whole bar became convulsed with laughter, and he, in consequence, obtained the sobriquet of " Frog Morgan." This worthy advocate was remarkable for his diminutive stature. The following anecdote has been related of him, as of many others. Before he was much known at the bar, he was beginning to open a case, when Lord Mans- field, in a tone of grave rebuke, addressed him, " Sir, it is usual for counsel when they address the court to stand up." '' I am standing, my lord," screamed Frog Morgan ; " I have been standing these five minutes 1 " LONGS AND SHORTS AT THE BAS. When Lord Redesdale was Lord Chancellor of Ireland, a very tall counsel, Mahaffy, was with a very httle counsel, ABOUT COUNSEL, CIECUITS, ETC. 183 Mr. CoUis, in the same case. Mr. CoUis began to argue, when the judge said, " Mr. Collis, it is usual for counsel to stand when addi'essing the court." " I am standing, my lord, on the bench," was the answer. His_lordship said, " Oh then, Mr. Mahaffy, I must ask you to sit down till your turn comes." ■ "I am sitting down, my lord." His lordship was confounded at this state of things. In Scotland, an advocate named John Erskine was of very diminutive size, and used to stand on a stool when he was addressing the court ; which made Henry Erskine remark, " that that was certainly one way of rising at the bar." A COUNSELLOR S CLERK HANGING HIMSELF. When Mr. Justice John Williams was an eminent counsel at the bar, he went one night late into his chambers, and on going to his room, was caught by two legs hanging overhead, which turned out to be those of his clerk, who had executed on himself, in the passage, the sentence susp. per coll. On engaging another clerk the eminent counsel, with much gravity, said, "I have one more stipulation to make with you : should you hang yourself, which you can do or not as you think fit, pray do not hang yourself in my chambers." COUNSEL COMPLIMENTING HIS OPPONENT. When Lord Westbury was at the bar, he was for defendant in a case at the Rolls Court, in which a leading counsel, afterwards Lord Chancellor, was on the other side. The latter counsel, after a long and animated argument, had. concluded, his voice being rather tumultuous and excited towards the end. Mr. Bethell then rose serene, effulgent, and calm, amid breathless silence, and after a suitable pause, thus began : "Now that all this noise has ceased I will call your honour's attention in a very few words to the point in the case, and I venture to think it scarcely requires a moment to make it self-evident." He then went on and filled up many moments in the usual way. 184 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYBBS Counsellor Lamb was in a case against Mr. Erskine, then at the height of his reputation. The former, being timid and nervous, often prefaced his argument with an apology, and an allusion to his humility, and once added that he felt himself growing more and more timid as he grew older. Erskine could not resist retorting: "Every one knows the older a la/nib grows the more sheepish he becomes." A counsel's eloquence called an extinquishbb. Curran was describing to the jury a speech made by Serjeant Hewitt, his opponent, and said, "My learned friend's speech put me exactly in mind of a familiar utensil in domestic use, commonly called an extinguisher. It began at a point, and on it went widening and widen- ing, until at last it fairly put the question out altogether." counsel exchanging hats. When Chief Justice Parsons, the American judge, was a leading advocate, he was engaged in a heavy case, which gave rise to many encounters between himself and the opposing leader, Mr. Sullivan. During Parsons' harangue, Sullivan picked up Parsons' laige black hat, and wrote with a piece of chalk upon it, " This is the hat of a d d rascal." The lawyers sitting round began to titter, which called attention to the hat, and the inscription soon caught the eye of Parsons, who at once said : " May it please your honour, I crave the protection of the court. Brother Sullivan has been stealing my hat, and writing his own name upon it." This ready wit squared accounts for the time. THE COUNSEL WHO KEPRESENTED THE POOE WIDOW. Lord Cockburn, the Scotch judge, was sitting alone in the Oater House, when a very heavy case was commenced, in which there were several counsel, representing many parties. One young counsel, Mr. MacTurk, had a very squeaky voice, and was noted for some qualities that too ABOUT COUNSEL, CIRCUITS, J5T0. 185 frequently made the court laugh. The judge seeing this junior standing as if interested, said, " Whom do you appear for, Mr. MacTurk ? " That gentleman replied, with a pleasing smirk, " I'm for the widow, Mrs. Brown, my lord." The judge, who was a great master of the pathetic, turned aside and very audibly ejaculated, "The Lord help her 1" AS OBSTINATE COUNSEL. Crosby, the Scotch advocate (the original of Counsellor Pleydelljin " Guy Mannering," and who met Dr. Johnson in the company of Boswell), when he once took up an idea, retained it most obstinately, even after there was convincing evidence against it. On occasion of the great cause of Nabob FuUerton v. Orangefield, where he and Boswell were on opposite sides, Crosby persisted in thinking his client, Fullerton, was right, when everybody in court was clear against him. Boswell said, " Crosby's head is like a money-box with a slit in the top of it. If once a thing has got into it, you cannot get it again but by breaking the box. We must break your head, Crosby!" AN UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN TWO COUNSEL, A counsel at the Chancery bar, by way of denying collusion suspected to exist between him and the counsel representing another party, having said, " My lord, I assure your lordship there is no understanding between us." Lord Chancellor Eldon observed, " I once heard a squire in the House of Commons say of himself and another squire, 'We have never, through life, had but one idea between us j ' but I tremble for the suitors when I am told that two eminent practitioners at my bar have no understanding between them ! " When the Welsh jurisdiction was about to be abolished, two judges were appointed, with an understanding that if it was abolished they should not be entitled to a pension ; but it was said that aU the others had pensions granted to them because they had been appointed " without any understanding " — Twiss's Eldon. 186 OUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LA"WTEES. A CONSULTATION WITH AN EMINENT COUNSEL. Mr. Espinasse mentions his accompanying a client one evening to Erskine's chambers. In the room into which they were shown were between thirty and forty phials, each containing a slip of geranium. When Erskine came, he said, " Espinasse, do you know how many sorts of geraniums there are ? " " Not I, truly," was the reply. " There are above a hundred," said he, and then, much to the annoyance of the solicitor present, launched out into a long dissertation upon the various merits of each kind. At length he stopped, and said, "Espinasse, now state the case, for I have no time to read my brief." Mr. Espinasse did so, and there the consultation ended. The anxious attorney, however, had the pleasure next morn- ing of hearing his case admirably argued by Erskine; every point put with accuracy, and enforced with elo- quence. — 1 Law and Lawyers, 210. A DOG ATTENDING CONSULTATIONS. Erskine would often produce his leeches at consultation, under the name of " bottle conjurors," and argue the result of the cause according to the manner in which they swam or crawled ; and a still more favourite amusement with him was to make his large Newfoundland dog, Toss, personate the judge. He had taught this animal to sit with much gravity upon a chair, with his paws placed before him on the table, and occasionally he would put a lull-bottom wig on his head and a band round his neck, placing a black-letter folio before him. The clients, as we may suppose, were much startled by such exhibitions ; but then was the time when he took his amusement, and rising next morning at cock-crow, he read all his briefs before the court met, and won all the verdicts. — 6 Camp. Chanc, 698. When a Lord Chancellor was Attorney-General, and attended a consultation where there was considerable diiference of opinion between him and his brother counsel, he delivered his opinion with unusual and misplaced energy, and ended by striking his hand on the table, say- ABOUT COUNSEL, CIECUITS, ETC. 187 ing, " This, gentlemen, is my opinion." This peremptory tone and style so nettled the solicitor, who had frequently consulted him when a young counsel, that the former sarcastically observed : " Your opinion ! why I've often had your opinion for five shillings ! " Mr. Attorney, with great good humour, rejoined, " Very true, and I daresay that was then its full value 1 " WHY COUNSEL DRINK A POT OF POKTEK. A learned counsel (Mr. Brougham, as some say), when the judges had retired for a few minutes in the midst of his argument, in which, from their interruptions and objections, he did not seem likely to be successful, went out of court too, and on his return stated he had been drinking a pot of porter. Being asked whether he was not afraid that this beverage might dull his intellect ? " That is just what I want it to do," said he, "to bring me down, if possible to the level of their lordships' under- standing." Another story to the same effect is told of Sir John Millicent, the judge, who, though a clever lawyer, was too fond of his cup. He used to explain that there was nothing for it but to drink himself down to the capacity of his colleagues. A LEADER WHO DREW THE LONG BOW. Lord Campbell, in his Autobiography, says: "Our leader, Jervis, was a very gentlemanly man in his manners and very honourably inclined, but famous for drawing the long bow. The stories he told were, and probably still are by tradition, a source of amusement to the Oxford circuit. As a specimen, he said ' he kept up a flock of above 1,000 turkeys at his place in Kent, which he fattened on grasshoppers.' That one morning he there saw twenty jays sitting on a tree, and was going to fire at them, when one of them said : ' Good morning to you, Mr. Jervis ; good morning, Tom Jervis,' and he allowed them all to fly away unhurt. I once mentioned that I had been reading the Iliad, with the help of an occasional 188 CURIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYERS. peep at the Latin translation; and he said: ' I make it a rule to read through the whole of Homer's ■works once a year' — the fact being, that he had never been at the university and did not know a word of Greek. We proposed that his epitaph thould be, ' Here ceaseth to lie Thomas Jervis ! ' " — 1 L. Camp. Life, 260. COUNSEL CALLED ON FOR HIS AUTHORITY. Serjeant Wilkins, 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 wet in a morning, to reduce himself to the level of the judges." Lord Denman, the judge, who had no love to Wilkine, 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. —2 Woolrych Serj., 876. SERJEANT BUZFCZ MISSING A POINT. Adolphus, the criminal lawyer, once said to Dickens, on meeting him at Barbam's, " I have often longed to tell you of a hit Serjeant Buzfuz missed in the trial oiBardell V. Pickwick. In the celebrated speech of Serjeant Buzfuz he reads Pickwick's letter : — " ' Garea way's, 12 o'clock. "•Dear Mrs. B., chops and tomato sauce, " ' Yours, Pickwick. "'Gentlemen,' says the learned serjeant, 'what does this mean? ' etc., etc. Now, here Buzfuz missed his trium- phant point, which was this, 'Gentlemen, I need not tell you the popular name for tomato is the love-apple 1 Is it not clear what this base deceiver meant ? The out- pouring of love and tender feelings implied by tomato sauce caimot be misunderstood.' "—Adolphus Mem., 246. ABOUT COUNSEL, CIBCUITS, ETC. 189 OOimSEL DKAWK ON TO PEODtlCB A DOCUMENT. Tlie Duke of Wellingtoa said of Scarlett, that when he was addressing a jury there were thirteen jurymen. Scarlett was not famed for eloquence, but for consummate tact and ease. Justice Patteson told a story of Scarlett's dexterity in the conduct of a cause. Scarlett and Patteson were on one side, and Brougham and Parke on the other. Scarlett told Patteson that he would manage to make Brougham produce in evidence a written instrument, the withholding of which, on account of the insufficiency of the stamp, was essential for the success of his case. On Patteson observing that, even if he could throw Brougham off his guard, he could not be so successful with Parke, Scarlett said he would try. He then conducted the case with such consummate dexterity, pretending to disbelieve the existence of the document referred to, that Brougham and Parke resolved to produce it ; not being aware that Scarlett had any suspicion of its invalidity. Patteson described the extreme surprise and mortification of Scarlett on its production by Brougham, with a flourish of trumpets about " the non-existence of which document his learned friend had reckoned on so confidently." The way in which Scarlett asked to look at the instrument, and his assumed astonishment at the discovery of the insufficiency of the stamp, were a masterpiece of acting, AN IRISH COUNSEL QTVENTING AN ADJECTIVE. Mr. Egan, an Irish barrister, in addressing a jury, having exhausted every ordinary epithet of the English language sounding in abuse, stopped for a word, and then added, " this naufrageous ruffian." When afterwards asked by his friends the meaning of this word, he confessed he did not know, but said he thought it sounded well. TICKLING A CLIENT. The Scotch advocate, Henry Erskine, was defending a client, a lady of the name of Tickell, before a Scotch judge, who was an intimate friend; and Erskine being a humourist, he chose to commence his address to the judge 190 CUBIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWTEES. in these terms : " Tickell, my client, my lord." The judge at once interrupted him by saying : " Tickle her yourself, Harry ; you are as able to do it as I am 1 " A YOUNG COUNSEL UNSKILLED IN INDORSEMENTS. A young barrister newly called to the bar, and not yet familiar with the contractions usual in legal documents, received a brief with this indorsement : " Nokes v. Sykes. Instructions to move for a common to examine witnesses." The young counsel, with great confidence, humbly moved their lordships for a common to examine witnesses. "A what, sir ? " asked the Chief Justice. " I humbly move for a common to examine witnesses." " Pray sir," said the chief, " are your witnesses numerous ? " " Yes, my lord." " Then take Salisbury Plain ! " The youth did not know that the word intended was comviission to examine wit- nesses : and hence the Chief Justice made a fair enough joke out of it. It is also said that a counsel, whose mastery of the Latin language was doubted, once moved the court of King's Bench for two vnandami, which greatly astonished their lordships, who had hitherto been quite contented with one mandamus at a time. SETTING UP A DEFENCE OF ROBBEKT BY PRESCBIPTION. Justice Man wood said, " When I was servant to Sir James Hales, a justice of the Common Pleas, one of his servants was robbed at Gadshill, near Gravesend, Kent, and he sued the men of the Hundred upon an old statute of Winton for the loss of the goods. Seijeant Harris was counsel for the inhabitants, and pleaded for them, that time out of mind felons had used to rob at Gadshill, and hence the Hundred was exempt by immemorial prescription. But the inhabitants lost the judgment notwithstanding this novel plea. A COUNSEL ARGUING DROLLY. A Scotch counsel named Rae was one day arguing a. case with much extravagant drollery. Mr. Swinton said of him, " He has been to-day not only Rae, but oatri!' ABOUT COUNSEL, OIECUITS, ETO. 191 COUNSEL ILLUSTEATINQ THE FOLLY OP CREDULITY. Serjeant Parry, in a case where extraordinary credulity and knavery were apparent, explained the situation to the jury by this apologue. An Eastern sovereign was waited on by some merchants who exhibited for sale several fine horses. The king ad mired them, bought them, and gave the merchants a lac of rupees to purchase more of the same and bring them. Afterwards, in a sportive humour, the king ordered his vizier to make out a list of all the fools in his dominions. He did so, and put his Majesty's name at the head of them. The king asked why, ^7hen the vizier replied, " Because you entrusted a lac of rupees to men you did not know, and who will never come back again." " Ay, but suppose they should come back again ? " " Then I shall erase your Majesty's name and insert theirs." COMMON SENSE THE SAME IN ALL LANGUAGES, Mr. John Clerk, an eminent Scotch counsel, was arguing at the bar of the House of Lords in a Scotch appeal, and turning his periods in the broadest Scotch, and after clinching a point, added, " That's the whole thing in plain English, ma lorrdds." Upon which Lord Eldon replied: "You mean in plain Scotch, Mr. Clerk." The advocate readily retorted, " Nae maitter ! in plain com- mon sense, ma lords, and that's the same in a' languages, we ken weel eneuch." COUNSEL MISTAKING HIS SIDE. Lord Eldon said, " I was once junior to Mr. Dunning, who began his argument and appeared to me to be reasoning very powerfully against our client. Waiting till I was quite convinced that he had mistaken for what party he was retained, I then touched his arm, and upon his turning his head towards me, I whispered to him that he must have misunderstood for whom he was employed, as he was reasoning against our cUent. He gave me a very rough and rude reprimand for not having sooner set him right, and then proceeded to state that what he ad- dressed to the court was all that could be stated against 192 OUBIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYERS. his client, and that he had put the ease as unfavourably as possible against him in order that the court might see how very satisfactorily the case against him could be answered. And, accordingly, Dunning very powerfully answered what he had before stated." — Twiss, Life of L. Eldon. COUNSEL FORGETTING WHICH SIDE HE IS ON. One day, in 1788, in court, Mr. Brown, a counsel, had been enlarging in support of a petition before the Master of the KoUs, and was followed by another counsel on the same side. Mr. Brown was horrified on discovering that he had mistaken his side, and asked the judge's pardon, and said he had instructions to oppose the petition. The judge goodnaturedly begged Mr. Brown to proceed, ob- serving that he knew no counsel who was better able to answer his own arguments than himself. The same ciicumstance happened once to Sugden, and to John Clerk, a Scotch advocate. A POMPOUS COUNSEL FALLING OVER A STILE. Andrew Balfour, one of the commissaries of Edinburgh, was a man of much pomposity of manner, appearance, and expression, Harry Erskine met him one morning coming into the court, and observing that he was lame, said to him, " What has happened, commissary ? I am sorry to see you limping." " I was visiting my brother in Fife," answered the commissary, " and I fell over his stile, and had nearly broken my leg." "'Twas lucky, commissary," replied Harry, "it was not your own style, for you would then have broken your neck." — Kay's Portraits. BORING IS MATTER OF SCIENCE. Mr. Caldecot, a great sessions lawyer, but known as a dreadful bore, was arguing in the King's Bench a question upon the ratability of certain lime quarries to the relief of the poor, and contended, at enormous length, that, " like lead and copper mines, they were not ratable, because the limestone in them could only be ABOUT COUNSEL, CIRCUITS, ETC. 193 reached by deep boring, which was matter of science." Lord Ellenborough, 0. J., said, " You will hardly succeed in convincing us, sir, that every species of boring is matter of science." THE PEERS CONSULTING ON A POINT RAISED BY COUNSEL. Serjeant Whitaker was conducting an examination at the bar of the House of Lords in a divorce case, and an objection being taken to some question, counsel were ordered to withdraw, and there was a deliberation of two hours. Nothing was resolved on, and when he was re-admitted, he was requested to put the question again. With great cleverness, he answered, " Upon my word, my lords, it is so long since I put the first ques- tion, that I entirely forget it, but with your leave, I'll now put another." — 2 Woolrych Serj., 564. COUNSEL CHALLENGED TO FIGHT. Once Serjeant Davy was called out by an infuriated party whom he slandered, and the challenger actually went on to Dorchester, and knocking at a very early hour at the door of the house where the lawyer lodged, upon its being opened, he walked into the house, and walked from room to room till he found himself in the room where the lawyer was in bed. He drew open the curtains, and said that the lawyer must well know what his errand was — that he came to demand satisfaction — that he too well knew that the person upon whom that demand was made was unwilling to comply with it ; but that satisfaction he must and would have. The Serjeant began to apologise. The gentleman said he was not to be appeased by apologies or words. His honour had been tarnished, and the satisfaction which one gentleman owed to another gentleman whom he had calumniated, he came to demand and to insist upon. "Well," said the serjeant; "surely you don't mean to faU upon a naked man unarmed and in bed ? " " Oh no, sir ! " said the gentleman ; " you can't but know in what way this sort of business is conducted between gentleman and gentleman ! " " Very right," says the Serjeant; "then i£ you give me your honour that you Xo 194 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEK3. don't mtan to fall upon me naked and unarmed in bed, I give you mine that I will not get out of bed tiU you are gone out of town, and I am in no danger of seeing you again." — 2 Woolrych Serj., 628. A SERJEANT WHO HAD BEEN AS ACCOUCHEUB. A learned serjeant had been bred an apothecary and accoucheur, and afterwards became a noted leader of the bar. Young Murphy, when beginning at the bar, had the curiosity to take down a speech of the Serjeant's, which consisted of little else than constant repetitions of " gemmen of the jury." This speech he afterwards showed to Chief Baron Skinner, who, instead of laughing at it with the rest of the company, very gravely remarked " that he thought the serjeant very ill treated, for though it was true he often delivered other people, it was never understood that he could deUver himself" A jtjdsb's son wandbking from the point. Justice Willes, the son of Chief Justice Willes, had been solicitor-general, and was made a justice of the King's Bench, but was always supposed to be of slender intellect. When at the bar and arguing a case, the court several times checked him for wandering from the point, till at last he said testily, " I wish you would remember that I am the son of a chief justice." Upon this old Justice Gould naoively answered, "Oh, we remember your father, but he was a sensible man ! " "have tou heard of mt son's eobbbet?" A tiresome friend met Parsons, the Irish barrister, one day, and said to him, " Mr. Parsons, have you heard of my son's robbery?" "No," said Parsons; "good gracious ! — whom has he robbed ? " a noise outside the court. Parsons, the Irish barrister, was in a case on circuit before Lord Norbury ; and when his lordship was speak- ing, an ass outside brayed so loudly that no one could ABOUT COUNSEL, CIROUITS, ETC. 195 hear his lordship. He exclaimed testily, " Do stop that noise ! " Parsons said with much gravity, " My lord, there is a great echo in the court ! " WHAT IS A PERSONAL NARRATIVE. Lord Wellesley's aide-de-camp, Keppel, wrote a book of travels, and called it his personal narrative. Lord Wellesley was quizzing it, and said to Lord Plunket, " Personal narrative — what is a personal narrative, Lord Plunket ? What should you say a personal narrative meant ? " Plunket answered : " My lord, you know we lawyers always understand personal as contradistin- guished from real." LAWYERS AS VOLUNTEERS IN THE " DEVIL's OWN." Lord Keeper Littleton, in 1645, proposed to raise a volunteer corps, which he himself was to command, to consist of lawyers and gentlemen of the Inns of Court and Chancery, officers of the different courts of justice, and all who were willing to draw a weapon for Church and King under the auspices of the Lord Keeper. The offer was accepted, and a commission was granted to him. According to a statement by the editor of his " Reports," the Lord Keeper's military zeal was felt by all members of the profession of the law then at Oxford, the judges included. " He was colonel of a foot regi- ment, in which were listed all the judges, lawyers, and officers belonging to the general courts of justice." This reminded Lord Campbell of the gallant corps in which he himself served in his youth, " the B.I.C.A.," or " Bloonisbury and Inns of Court Association," consisting of barristers, attorneys, law students, and clerks, raised to repel the invasion threatened by Napoleon ; but none of the reverend sages of the law served in this or the rival legal corps, named the " Temple Light Infantry," or "The Devil's Own," commanded by Erskine, still at the bar. Lord Chancellor Eldon doubted the expediency of mixing in the ranks, and did not aspire to be an officer Law, the Attorney-General, was in the awkward squad. Lord Keeper Littleton had, therefore, the glory of being 196 OTJEIOSITIBS OF LAW AND LAWYBBS. recorded as the last successor of Turketel, Thomas-lt- Becket, and the Earl of Salisbury, who ever carried arms while head of the law. — 2 Camp. Lives of Chanc, 604. LAWTBES AS VOI-trNTEEES, In 1803, out of the 300,000 volunteers enrolled and disciplined, the lawyers in the metropolis raised two regiments — the " B.I.O.A.," or " Bloomsbury and Inns of Court Association," and the " Temple Corps," generally called " The Devil's Own." The command of the latter was conferred upon Erskine. Lord Campbell says, as to this : " Having myself served in the ranks of the former, I am not able, from personal observation, to criticise his military prowess ; but I well remember we heard many stories of the blunders which he committed, and we thought ourselves lucky to be under the orders of Lieutenant-Colonel Cox, a warlike Master in Chancery. Law, then the Attorney-General, afterwards Lord Chief Justice EUenborough, was reported to be a fair specimen of them ; for, even with the help of chalk, he never could be taught the difference between marching with his right or left foot foremost; and all the time he was in the service he continued in the awkward squad. There were likewise a good many attorneys belonging to us, who brought down many jests upon us ; among others, that upon the word given, ' prepare to charge,' they all pulled out pen, ink, and paper, and being ordered to ' charge,' they wrote down 6s. 8d. or 13s. id. The soul of our corps was the adjutant, my poor friend Will Harrison, who with us could talk of nothing but battles, and seemed to think himself as great a military genius as Napoleon, although he talked much law at regimental messes, which he was fond of dining at ; so that it was said he was ' a general among lawyers, and a lawyer among generals,'— 6 Camp. Chanc, 547. LAWYERS RESIGNING AS VOLUNTEERS. Erskine once came before the public with a military opinion. Other civilians, as well as the lawyers, were weary of military manoeuvres when the danger of invasion had ABOUT COUNSEL, CIRCUITS, BTO. 197 passed by, and longed to retire from the volunteers ; but the government wished to keep up the force on its present footing, and insisted they were bound to serve durmg the war. The Attorney and Solicitor-General having given an opinion to this effect, Erskine was consulted, and thus expressed himself respecting the nature and extent of the engagement of volunteers: "If the term volunteer is supposed to be satisfied by the original spontaneousness of the enrolment, leaving him afterwards indefinitely bound, then -every enlisted soldier must equally be con- sidered to be a volunteer, and, with difference of receiving money, and the local extent of service excepted, would be upon an equal footing, both as to merit and independence. Such a doctrine appears to me to be equally unjust and impolitic. Unjust, because for the volunteer's engagement there is no consideration but the sense of honour and duty, the reward of which is sullied if the service does not continue to be voluntary. Impolitic, because it is overlooking a motive of action infinitely more powerful than the force of any human Authority, to take no account of that invincible sensibility in the mind of man for the opinion of his fellow-creatures." He further examined the statutes upon the subject, and came to the clear conclusion that any member of a volunteer corps might resign at pleasure ; although, while he continued to serve, he was subject to military law. The conflicting opinions were published in all the newspapers, and caused general confusion, till the question was regularly brought before the Court of King's Bench, of which Lord Ellen- borough was now the distinguished head. The case having been elaborately argued by Percival, the Attorney- General, on the one side, and Erskine on the other, the judges unanimously determined in favour of the power of resignation ; and the champion of it was extolled as a great lawyer as well as advocate, if not as a great military commander. — 6 Camp. Chanc, 649. LAWYEB BAKGAINING FOB FIXTURES. Sir Fletcher Norton, Attorney-General in 1764 (after- wards the Speaker), and whose mother lived in a small house in Preston, resolved to buy a better house for her, 198 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEES. and bought one. And in that house were two pictures, which the proprietor valued at £60. The Attorney- General insisted on having them for nothing, as fixtures. The vendor would not agree to this, and so the bargain went off'. — Walpole's Letters. " THE CASE IS ALTERED, QUOTH PLOWDEN." This professional proverb arose out of the following incident. One day whilst residing on one of his estates, some persons came to Serjeant Plowden, with no goodwill, to inform him that mass was about to be celebrated in a certain house in the neighbourhood : he might wish to assist at it. Plowden hastened to the place, and was seen to make the sign of the cross and use his prayer-book. For this offence he was shortly afterwards summoned. He was suspicious of foul play somewhere, and cross- examined the witnesses, and amongst others the priest who had officiated. He demanded of this man whether he would swear that he was a priest. To this question the answer was in the negative. Wherefore Plowden exclaimed, " The case is altered : no priest, no man ; no man, no violation of the law," It became a common proverb afterwards to say, when a case broke down on the facts, " The case is altered, quoth Plowden." — 1 Woobych's Serjeants, 117. A PHYSICIAN SUFFEKING A EECOVERT. A physician who had a thorough hatred of lawyers, on whom he vented his bile, was in company with a barrister, when he reproached the latter for being in a profession which used phrases that were utterly unin- telligible. " For example," said he, " I never could under- stand what you lawyers mean by docking an entail." " That is very likely," answered the lawyer ; " but I will explain it to you : it is doing what you doctors never consent to, suffering a recovery." COMMITTINQ A CAUSE TO A MASTER. Lord Bacon has recorded two of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere's jests, which, although they appear among ABOUT COUNSEL, CIKOUITS, ETO. 199 many of infinite value in what Lord Macaulay considers "the best jest-book in the world," make us rather rejoice that no more of them have been preserved. They were wont to call "referring to the Master in Chancery," com- mitting. My Lord Keeper Egerton, when he was Master of the Rolls, was wont to ask, " What the cause had done, that it should be committed ? " ASKmG A JTJDGK TO SIGN AN OKDBK. My Lord Chancellor EUesmere, when he had read a petition which he disliked, would say, " What, would you have my hand to this now ? " And the party answering " Yes," he would say farther : " Well, j'ou shall; nay, you shall have both my hands to it." AJnd so would, with both his hands, tear it in pieces. — Bac. Apopth. A COUNSEL SEEKING AN APPOINTMBNT. A Welsh judge, famous both for his neglect of personal cleanliness and his insatiable desire for some good place, was once addressed by Mr. Jekyll : " My dear sir, as you have asked the minister for everything else, why have you never asked him for a piece of soap and a nail-brush ? " A little fellow at the bar, who had scarcely any business, was one day endeavouring to get the judge to attend to a motion he wanted to make, but it was no use ; he never could catch the judge's eye. Jekyll, looking at the bench, said in an inimitable tone, " Be minimis non curat lex." THE BAB AND ITS ETIQUETTE. Professional etiquette has been carried to a ridiculous extent at the English bar,— as in forbidding a barrister on the circuit to dine with an attorney, or to dance with an attorney's daughter; whereas the attorney is often a gentleman as well bom, as well educated, and as well mannered as the barrister. But the respectability of the order of the bar, and, consequently, the public good, peremptorily require that all solicitations of business by barristers should be forbidden, and that all indirect 200 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWTEES. means to obtain it should be considered discreditabla There is a useful surveillance exercised on the circuits by means of the grand court, whereby such practices are repressed. — 6 Camp. Chanc, 56. mVITINa A JUDGE ON CIRCUIT TO DINNEB. An old author relates the following anecdote, to illus- trate the purity and good humour of Chief Justice MarkLam. " A lady would traverse a suit of law against the will of her husband, who was contented to buy his quiet by giving her her will therein, though otherwise persuaded in his judgment the cause would go against her. This lady, dwelling in the shire town, invited the judge to dinner, and (though thrifty enough herself) treated him with sumptuous entertainment. Dinner being done, and the cause being called, the judge clearly gave it against her. And when, in passion, she vowed never to invite a judge again, ' Nay, wife,' said he, ' vow never to invite a just judge any more.' " JUDGES ON CIRCUIT OPENING THE ASSIZES. The judges now-a-days would be surprised to receive such circulars as were usually sent to them by the Lord Chancellors, and even so late as by Lord Cowper, Lord Chancellor in 1716. They are now left to their own discretion as to the topics they will enlarge upon, and are no longer lectured and advised as to their duties. It being contrary to etiquette for barristers to be present, so that " the sages of the law " may have greater licence, and may, without scruple, repeat the same fine sentencps in every county on the circuit. Lord Campbell said ii;;ifc he himself never heard any of these discourses, but he had been obliged in the House of Commons to censure some of them. Addresses to the grand ,''iry are best employed in commenting upon the cases in the calendar which are coming on for trial. Observations are some- times made on the general state of the country; but judges now usually altogether eschew party politics and questions of vexed political economy. A friend of Lord Campbell, who was foreman of the grand jury in a northern county, told him that having heard from a ABOUT COUNSEL, OIEOUITS, ETC. 201 judge of assize a panegyric on the corn laws,- he had a great inclination to answer him ; and a juryman who hears political nonsense from the bench, was, according to Lord Campbell, justified in refuting it on the spot. — 4 Camp. Chanc, 361. JUDGES DINING ON CIECDIT. Baron Graham related to Lord Campbell the following anecdote, to show that he had more firmness than Judge Hale. " There was a baronet of ancient family with whom the judges going the Western Circuit had always been accustomed to dine. When I went that circuit, I heard that a cause in which he was plaintiff" was coming on for trial ; but the usual invitation was received, and , lest the people might suppose that judges could be influenced by a dinner, I accepted it. The defendant, a neighbouring squire, being dreadfully alarmed by this intelligence, said to himself, 'Well, if Sir John enter- tains the judge hospitably, I do not see why I should not do the same by the jury.' 'So he invited to dinner the whole of the special jury summoned to try the cause. Thereupon the baronet's courage failed him, and he withdrew the record, so that the cause was not tried ; and, although I had my dinner, I escaped all suspicion of partiality," — 1 Camp. Ch. JJs. 555. COUNSEL CHANGING THEIR CIECUITS. Wedderburn had never gone any circuit before he got a silk gown ; and no rule can be better established than that a barrister is not for the first time to join a circuit with a great professional reputation already acquired, whereby he may at once step into full business, and suddenly disturb vested rights. For this reason a barrister may only change his circuit once, and this must be done (if at all) while he is still "clothed in stufi"." The penalty for the transgression of such a rule is, that the offender is excluded from the bar mess on the circuit, and although he cannot be prevented from appearing in court and pleading a cause for any client who may employ him, no other barrister will l^old a brief with him, and he is "sent to Coventry." The 202 CUEIOSITIES OP LAW AND LAWYERS. spirit, if not the letter of this law, was now flagrantly broken by Wedderburn. Sir Fletcher Norton, long "the cock of the walk," had just left the Northern Circuit on being made Attorney-General, and had given up an immense quantity of business to be struggled for. There were various speculations as to the manner in which it would be distributed among his juniors, who had long been impatient for his death or promotion, when the incredible report was spread, that Mr. Wedderburn, with his new silk gown, meant to join the Northern Circuit, in the hope of stepping into the lead. This was not believed till he actually made his appearance at York. The horror of the barristers was then much enhanced by the intelligence that he was attended as clerk by the late clerk of Sir Fletcher Norton, well acquainted with every attorney north of Trent. He did not boldly set professional etiquette entirely at defiance, but in vain tried to justify himself by contending "that never yet having gone any circuit, he could not be within the regulation against changing circuits; that every man called to the bar had a free right to choose a circuit ; and that no attempt had ever before been made to limit the time within which the choice must be exercised." An extraordinary meeting of the Northern Circuit bar was immediately called, when it was moved, that no member of it should hold a brief with the interloper. If this had been carried unanimously, he must have packed up his wig and his silk gown and instantly returned to London. But Wallace, afterwards Attorney- General, dissented. So Wedderburn was allowed to go on. — 6 Camp. Chanc, 62. AN OCULIST DINING WITH BAEKISTEES ON CIRCUIT. Taylor, the oculist, was invited to dine with the barris- ters of the Oxford Circuit, and in course of the evening he represented himself to have performed wonders upon wonders, so that Bearcroft, one of the leaders, was rather out of humour with so much self-conceit. At last Bear- croft said, " Pray, Chevalier, as you have told us of a great many things which you have done and can do, will you be so good as to try to tell us anything which you cannot ABOUT COUNSEL, CIEOUITS, ETC. 203 do?" " Nothing so easy," replied Taylor. "I cannot, for example, be so indecent as to pay my share of this excellent dinner bill, and that, sir, I must ask you kindly to do for me." A COUNSEL GETTING A BED ON CIRCUIT. Serjeant Whitaker was on the Norfolk Circuit. A friend at one of the assize towns oflfered him a bed. The next morning the lady of the house asked how he had slept, and hoped that he had found himself comfortable and warm. " Yes, madam, yes ; pretty well on the whole. At first, to be sure, I felt a little queer, for want of Mrs. Whitaker; but, recollecting that my pormanteau lay in the room, I threw it behind my back, and it did every bit as well. — 2 Woolrych Seij., 665. AN EMINENT COUNSEL PICKING UP BARGAINS ON CIRCUIT. Lord Campbell, in his Autobiography, says : " Taunton, a leader of our sessions and afterwards a judge of the Court of King's Bench, had gained great reputation at Christchurch under Dean Jackson. He was a fine scholar as well as a deep lawyer, and I think he would have made a greater figure in Ufe, had not the effect of his good qualities been impaired by the most unaccountable love of saving. I was once returning with him by the mail coach from the sessions, when he said, ' I think I have done rather a clever thing : I found that meat is a penny a pound cheaper at Gloucester than in London, and I have brought enough to serve my family for a week.' But as we were leaving the yard of the Golden Cross, Charing Cross, where we alighted, I found him in a violent altercation with the coachman, who insisted on detaining his trunk tiU he should pay twopence a pound for his extra luggage. He was famous for grumbling at his ill luck. He said if he had only two briefs at the assizes, one in the civil and one in the crown court, the two cases were sure to come on at the same moment. Hearing how the value of property near the river Thames had risen by the construction of Waterloo bridge, he observed, ' It will be long before they build such a bridge near my house in Chancery Lane ! ' " — 1 L. Camp. Life, 258. 204 CUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. JUDGE TAKING HIS WIFE ON CIRCUIT. Lord EUenborough was once about to go on the circuit, when Lady EUenborough said she would like to accom- pany him. He replied that he had no objection, provided she did not encumber the carriage with bandboxes, which were his utter abhorrence. During the first day's journey, Lord EUenborough, happening to stretch his legs, struck his foot against something below the seat. He discovered that it was a bandbox. Up went the window and out went the bandbox. The coachman stopped, and the footman, thinking that the bandbox had tumbled out of the window by some extraordinary chance, was going to pick it up, when Lord EUenborough furiously called out, " Drive on ! " The bandbox accordingly was left by the ditch-side. Having reached the county town where he was to officiate as judge. Lord EUenborough proceeded to array himself for his appearance in the Court-house. " Now," said he, " where's my wig, where is my wig ? " " My Lord," replied his attendant, "it was thrown out of the can-iage window." CHIEF JUSTICE HALE AND JOHN BUNTAN'S WIFE. John Bunyan's wife went to Lord Hale on circuit to ask if her husband could be discharged. The judges thus treated her : — Sir Matthew Hale : " Alas, poor woman ! " Judge Tiuisden: "Poverty is your cloak, for I hear your husband is better maintained by running up and down a preaching, than by following his calling." Sir Mattliew Sale : " What is his calhng ? " Elizabeth : " A tinker, please you, my lord ; and because he is a tinker, and a poor man, therefore he is despised, and cannot have justice." Sir Matthew Hale : " I am truly sorry we can do you no good. Sitting here, we can only act as the law gives us warrants ; and we have no power to reverse the sentence, although it may be erroneous. What your husband said was taken for a confession, and he stands convicted. There is, therefore, no course for you but to apply to the King for a pardon, or to sue out a writ of error, and the indictment, or subsequent proceedings, being shown to be contrary to law, the sentence shall be reversed, and your husband shall be set at liberty. I ABOUT COUNSEL, OIEOUITS, ETC. 205 am truly sorry for your pitiable case. I wish I could serve you, but I fear I can do you no good ! " — State Trials. A CONCISE counsel's STOET ON CIECUIT. Lord Brougham says that when George Wood, after- wards Baron Wood, was on the Northern Circuit, one of the great amusements after dinner at the circuit table was to hear that counsel tell his favourite concise story, or rather report, of a case that actually occurred. It was the only story he could tell, and he always told it in the same words, and with the same unbounded applause, though everybody knew it by heart. It was this : " A man having stolen a fish, one, seeing him carry it away half under his coat, said, ' Friend, when next you steal, take a shorter fish, or wear a longer coat.' " This narra- tive, consisting of thirty-one words, was admitted to give a very graphic report of the whole situation, and to allow scope to every one's imagination to fill up the outlines. The same eminent pleader, Mr. Wood, used to make very concise speeches to the jury. And when he used to be interrupted and set right as to some point, whether of fact or law, whatever it might be, he invariably retorted in the same style, " True, gentlemen, it is as the learned counsel says, but so much the worse for his argument." — 2 L. Brougham's Works, 371. A JUDGE SAVING A POINT ON CIKOUIT. When old Judge Henn was on circuit in 1789 at Wexford, 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 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," 206 CtJEIOSITlES OF LAW AHD LAWTEBS. 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 a great deal of pleasure ! " " Then," exclaimed the judge, " we'll save the point, Billy Harris 1 " COUNSEL ON CIKCUIT AT CONSULTATION. Serjeant Cockle's convivial powers were most remark- able, especially on circuit. He was once retained in a very important case to be tried at York, and attended a consultation the night previously, to determine on the line of defence. To the consternation of his client, the Serjeant entered the room in a state of intoxication, and plainly showed that he was in no condition to attend to any business. He assured the attorney, however, that " all would be right in the morning," an assurance which did not give him much comfort. Cockle then tied a wet napkin round his head, and desired his junior, Mr. Maude, to inform him of the principal points of the case.' After this he went to sleep for a few hours, and presented himself in the court next morning as fresh and ready as if he had passed the night in a very different manner. He cross-examined the witnesses with his usual tact and judgment, and his address to the court was as spirited and forcible as any he had ever delivered. Not only did he succeed in obtaining a verdict for his client, but is said to have distinguished himself in a greater degree than ever he had done before. A JUDGE INVITING HIMSELF TO BREAKFAST. Lord Kames, when holding a criminal court on the Perth Circuit, after a witness on a capital trial concluded his evidence, said to the witness, " Sir, I have one ques- tion more to ask you, and remember you are on your oath. You say you are from Brechin ? " " Yes, my lord." "When do you return thither?" "To-morrow, my lord." "Do you know Colin Gillies?" "Yes, my lord, I know him very well." "Then tell him that I shall breakfast with him on Tuesday morning." ABOUT COUNSEL, CIRCUITB, ETC. 207 SALARY OF QUEEN S COUNSEL. This salary of £40 a year, with an allowance of sta- tionery, was continued to all King's Counsel down to the reign of William IV., when it was very properly withdrawn. King's Counselship becoming a grade in the profession of the law instead of an ofBce. But the moderate salary of the Attorney-General was swept away at the same time, although he was still com-pelled to pay the land tax upon it. — 2 Camp. Chanc, 322. COXJNSEL BULLYING WITNESSES. The Attorney-General, Coke, at the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, stopped Raleigh in his defence, denounced him as an atheist, saying that he had an English face but a Spanish heart. Cecil, one of the commissioners, said, "Be not so impatient, Mr. Attorney; give him leave to speak." Coke. " If I may not be patiently heard, you will encourage traitors and discourage us. I am the King's sworn servant, and I must speak. If he be guilty, he is a traitor ; if not, deliver him." (Mote. Mr. Attorney sat down in a chafe, and would speak no more until the commissioners urged and entreated him. After much ado he went on, and made a long repetition of all the evidence for the direction of the jury ; and at the repeat- ing of some things Sir Walter Raleigh interrupted him, and said he did him wrong.) Coke. " Thou art the most vile and execrable traitor that ever lived." Raleigh. " You speak indiscreetly, barbarously, and uncivilly." Coke " I want words sufficient to express your viperous treasons." Raleigh. "I think you want words, indeed, for you have spoken one thing half a dozen times." Coke. "Thou art an odious fellow; thy name is hateful to all the realm of England for thy pride." Raleigh. " It will go near to prove a measuring cast between you' and me, Mr. Attorney." Coke. " Well, I will now make it appear to the world that there never lived a viler viper upon the face of the earth than thou." — 2. State Trials, 26. LEADING COUNSEL AND THEIK DEVILS. Lord Campbell says of Serjeant Copley (Lord Lynd- liurst) : "He was unscrupulous in his statement of facts 208 OUEIOSITIES OF LAW AND LAWYEES. when opening his case to the jury, more particularly when he knew that he was to leave the court at the conclusion of his address, on the plea of attending to public business elsewhere. I was often his junior, and on one of these occasions, when he was stating a triumphant defence, which we had no evidence to prove, I several times plucked him by the gown, and tried to check him. Hav- ing told the jury that they were bound to find a verdict in his favour, he was leaving the court ; but I said, ' No ! Mr. Attorney, you must stay and examine the witnesses. I cannot afford to bear the discredit of losing the verdict from my seeming incompetence. If you go, I go.' He then dexterously offered a reference, to which the other side, taken in by his bold opening, very readily assented." It was related that Clarke, the leader of the Midland Circuit (under whom Copley was reared), having in the middle of his opening speech observed a negotiation going on for the settlement of the cause, stated confidently an important fact which he had imagined at the moment. When all was over, his attorney afterwards said to him privately, " Sir, don't you think we have got very good teims ? But you rather went beyond my instructions." "You fool!" cried he, "how do you suppose you could have got such terms, if I had stuck to your instructions?" OFFICIAL COSTUME OF BAB. During the reign of Mary, the lawyers devoted much of their attention to the regulation of their own dress and personal appearance. To check the grievance of " long beards," an order was issued by the Inner Temple, " that no fellow of that house should wear his beard above three weeks' growth, on pain of forfeiting 20s." The Middle Temple enacted, " that none of that society should wear great breeches in their hose, made after the Dutch, Spanish or Almain fashion, or lawn upon their caps, or cut doub- lets, under a penalty of 3s. 4