Part 7 (1/2)
”The answer was immediate, unexpected, and, accompanied as it was by a dramatic glance at the outside of his brief, as if to refresh his memory, triumphant, 'Three and one, my lord!'”
”The following letter is to Mrs. Atkinson:
1 HARE COURT, TEMPLE, E.C., LONDON.
_September 18, '72._
MY DEAR LOO,--I trust it is well with yourself, John, and the childer.... It is an off-day. We are resting on our legal oars after a prolonged and determined struggle yesterday. Know!
that near our native hamlet is the level of Hatfield Chase, whereon are numerous drains. Our drain (speaking from the Corporation of Hatfield Chase point of view) we have stopped, for our own purposes. Consequently, the adjacent lands have been flooded, are flooded, and will continue to be flooded.
The landed gentry wish us to remove our dam, saying that if we don't they won't be worth a d--n. We answer that we don't care a d--n.
This interesting case has been simmering in the law-courts since 1820. The landed gentry got a verdict in their favour at the last Lincoln a.s.sizes, but find themselves little the better, as we have appealed, and our dam still reigns triumphant. Yesterday an application was made to the judge to order our dam to be removed. In the absence of Mellor, I donned my forensic armour and did battle for the Corporation.
After two hours' hard fighting, we adjourned for a week; in the meantime the floods may rise, and the winds blow. The farmers yelled with rage when they heard that the dam had got a week's respite. I rather fancy that they will yell louder on Tuesday, as I hope to win another bloodless victory. It is a pretty wanton sport, the cream of the joke being that the dam is no good to us or to anybody else, and we have no real objection to urge against its removal, excepting that such a measure would be informal, and contrary to the law as laid down some hundred years ago by an old gentleman who never heard of a steam-engine, and who would have fainted at the sight of a telegraph post. As we have the most money on our side, I trust we shall win in the end. None of this useful substance, however, comes my way, as it is Mellor's work. But I hope to reap some advantage from it, both as to experience and introduction. I make no apology for troubling you with this long narration. I wish it to sink into your mind, and into that of your good husband. Let it be a warning to you and yours. And never by any chance become involved in any difficulties which will bring you into a court of law of higher jurisdiction than a police court. An occasional 'drunk and disorderly' will do you no harm, and only cost you 5_s._ Beyond a little indulgence of this kind--beware! In all probability I shall be in the North in a few weeks. Sessions commence next month. I will write to the Mum this week.--With best love to all, I am, Your affectionate brother,
FRANK LOCKWOOD.”
”Mr. Mellor vouches for the following story, which, as it ill.u.s.trates Lockwood's humour and had gone the round of the newspapers, I will tell.
It is the ancient custom of the new Lord Mayor of London, attended by the Recorder and Sheriffs, to come into the law-courts and be introduced to the Lord Chief Justice or, if he is not there, to the senior judge to be found on the premises, and, after a little lecture from the Bench, to return good for evil by inviting the judges to dinner, only to receive the somewhat chilling answer, 'Some of their lords.h.i.+ps will attend.' On this occasion the ceremony was over, and the Lord Mayor and his retinue was retiring from the Court, when his lords.h.i.+p's eye rested on Lockwood, who in a new wig was one of the throng by the door. 'Ah, my young friend!' said the Lord Mayor in a pompous way (for in those days there was no London County Council to teach Lord Mayors humility); 'picking up a little law, I suppose?' Lockwood had his answer ready. With a profound bow, he replied: 'I shall be delighted to accept your lords.h.i.+p's hospitality. I think I heard your lords.h.i.+p name seven as the hour.' The Lord Mayor hurried out of Court, and even the policeman (and to the police Lord Mayors are almost divine) shook with laughter.”
Counsel sometimes find their position so weak that their only hope of damaging the other side lies in ridiculing their witnesses. Serjeant Parry on one occasion was defending a client against a claim for breach of promise of marriage made a few hours after a chance meeting in Regent Street. According to the lady's story the introduction had been effected through the gentleman offering to protect her from a dog. In course of cross-examination Parry said: ”You say you were alarmed at two dogs fighting, madam?”--”No, no, it was a single dog,” was the reply. ”What you mean, madam,” retorted Parry, ”is that there was only one dog; but whether it was a single dog or a married dog you are not in a position to say.” With this correction it need not be wondered that the lady had little more to say.
A learned counsellor in the midst of an affecting appeal in Court on a slander case delivered himself of the following flight of genius.
”Slander, gentlemen, like a boa constrictor of gigantic size and immeasurable proportions, wraps the coil of its unwieldy body about its unfortunate victim, and, heedless of the shrieks of agony that come from the utmost depths of its victim's soul, loud and reverberating as the night thunder that rolls in the heavens, it finally breaks its unlucky neck upon the iron wheel of public opinion; forcing him first to desperation, then to madness, and finally crus.h.i.+ng him in the hideous jaws of mortal death.”
Talking of his early days at the Bar, Mr. Thomas Edward Crispe, in _Reminiscences of a K.C._, relates how on one occasion he was opposed by a somewhat eccentric counsel named Wharton, known in his day as the ”Poet of Pump Court.” The case was really a simple one, but Wharton made so much of it that when the luncheon half-hour came the judge, Mr.
Justice Archibald, with some emphasis, addressing Mr. Wharton, said: ”We will now adjourn, and, Mr. Wharton, I hope you will take the opportunity of conferring with your friend Mr. Crispe and settling the matter out of Court.”
But Wharton would not agree to this, and when at last he had to address the jury, he, in the course of his speech, made the following remarks, for every word of which Mr. Crispe vouches:
”Gentlemen, I think it only courteous to the learned judge to refer to the advice his lords.h.i.+p gave me to settle the matter out of Court. That reminds me of a case, tried in a country court, in an action for detention of a donkey. The plaintiff was a costermonger and the defendant a costermonger; they conducted the case in person. At one o'clock the judge said: 'Now, my men, I'm going to have my lunch, and before I come back I hope you'll settle your dispute out of Court.' When he returned the plaintiff came in with a black eye and the defendant with a bleeding nose, and the defendant said: 'Well, your honour, we've taken your honour's advice; Jim's given me a good hiding, and I've given him back his donkey.'”
Mr. F. E. Smith, M.P., tells a story of a County Court case he was once engaged in, in which the plaintiff's son, a lad of eight years, was to appear as a witness.
When the youngster entered the box he wore boots several sizes too large, a hat that almost hid his face, long trousers rolled up so that the baggy knees were at his ankles, and, to complete the picture, a swallow-tail coat that had to be held to keep it from sweeping the floor. This ludicrous picture was too much for the Court; but the judge, between his spasms of laughter, managed to ask the boy his reason for appearing in such garb.
With wondering look the lad fished in an inner pocket and hauled the summons from it, pointing out a sentence with solemn mien as he did so: ”To appear in his father's suit” it read.
There have been few readier men in retort than the late Mr. Francis Oswald, the author of _Oswald on Contempt of Court_. After a stiff breeze in a Chancery Court, the judge snapped out, ”Well, I can't teach you manners, Mr. Oswald.”--”That is so, m'lud, that is so,” replied the imperturbable one. On another occasion, an irascible judge observed, ”If you say another word, Mr. Oswald, I'll commit you.”--”That raises another point--as to your lords.h.i.+p's power to commit counsel engaged in arguing before you,” was the cool answer.
The author of _Pie Powder_ in his entertaining volume, tells us that he was once dining with a barrister who had just taken silk. In the course of after-dinner talk, the new K.C. invited his friend to tell him what he considered was his (the K.C.'s) chief fault in style. After some considerable hesitation his friend admitted that he thought the K.C.
erred occasionally in being too long. This apparently somewhat annoyed the K.C., and his friend feeling he had perhaps spoken too freely, thought he would smooth matters by inviting similar criticism of himself from the K.C., who at once replied, ”My dear boy, I don't think really you have any fault. _Except, you know, you are so d--d offensive._”
A judge and a facetious lawyer conversing on the subject of the transmigration of souls, the judge said, ”If you and I were turned into a horse and an a.s.s, which of them would you prefer to be?”--”The a.s.s, to be sure,” replied the lawyer.--”Why?”--”Because,” replied the lawyer, ”I have heard of an a.s.s being a judge, but of a horse, never.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: SERJEANT TALFOURD.]