Part 14 (1/2)
Lord President Campbell, after the fas.h.i.+on of those times, was somewhat addicted to browbeating young counsel; and as bearding a judge on the Bench is not a likely way to rise in favour, his lords.h.i.+p generally got it all his own way. Upon one occasion, however, he caught a tartar. His lords.h.i.+p had what are termed pig's eyes, and his voice was thin and weak. Corbet, a bold and sarcastic counsel in his younger days, had been pleading before the Inner House, and as usual the President commenced his attack, when his intended victim thus addressed him: ”My lord, it is not for me to enter into any altercation with your lords.h.i.+p, for no one knows better than I do the great difference between us; you occupy the highest place on the Bench, and I the lowest at the Bar; and then, my lord, I have not your lords.h.i.+p's voice of thunder--I have not your lords.h.i.+p's rolling eye of command.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBERT MACQUEEN, LORD BRAXFIELD.]
Robert Macqueen (Lord Braxfield), the prototype of Stevenson's ”Weir of Hermiston,” was known as the ”hanging judge”--the Judge Jeffreys of Scotland; but he was a sound judge. He argued a point in a colloquial style, asking a question, and himself supplying the answer in his clear, abrupt manner. But he was illiterate, and without the least desire for refined enjoyment, holding in disdain natures less coa.r.s.e than his own; he shocked the feelings of those even of an age which had less decorum than prevailed in that which succeeded, and would not be tolerated by the working cla.s.ses of to-day. Playing whist with a lady, he exclaimed, ”What are ye doin', ye d.a.m.ned auld ...,” and then recollecting himself, ”Your pardon's begged, madam; I took ye for my wife.” When his butler gave up his place because his lords.h.i.+p's wife was always scolding him: ”Lord,” he exclaimed, ”ye've little to complain o'; ye may be thankfu'
ye're no mairred to her.”
His most notorious sayings from the Bench were uttered during the trials for sedition towards the end of the eighteenth century, and even some of these are too coa.r.s.e for repet.i.tion. ”Ye're a very clever chiel,” he said to one of the prisoners; ”but ye wad be nane the waur o' a hangin'.” And to a juror arriving late in Court he said, ”Come awa, Maister Horner, come awa and help us to hang ane o' they d.a.m.ned sc.o.o.ndrels.” Hanging was his term for all kinds of punishment.
To Margarot, a Baptist minister of Dundee--another of the political prisoners of that time--he said, ”Hae ye ony c.o.o.nsel, man?”--”No,”
replied Margarot. ”Dae ye want tae hae ony appointed?” continued the Justice-Clerk. ”No,” replied the prisoner, ”I only want an interpreter to make me understand what your lords.h.i.+p says.”
We have already referred to Lord Moncreiff's piety, and to it must be added his great simplicity of nature. Like many of his predecessors, he had a habit of making long speeches to prisoners on their conviction; but his intention was to help them to a better mode of life, not to aggravate their feelings by silly or coa.r.s.e remarks. This habit, however, led him occasionally into enunciating principles which rather astonished his friends. In a murder case he found that the woman killed was not the wife of the prisoner but his mistress, which led his lords.h.i.+p to explain to the prisoner that it might have been some apology for his crime had the woman been his wife, because there was difficulty in getting rid of her any other way. But the victim being only his a.s.sociate he could have left her at any time, and consequently there were absolutely no ameliorating circ.u.mstances in the case. From this point of view it would seem to have been (in Lord Moncreiff's eyes) less criminal to murder a wife than a mistress. In another, a bigamy case, after referring to the perfidy and cruelty to the women and their relations, Lord c.o.c.kburn reports him to have said: ”All this is bad; but your true iniquity consists in this, that you degraded that holy ceremony which our blessed Saviour _condescended_ to select as the type of the connection between him and His redeemed Church.”
In the Court of Session, the judges who do not attend or give a proper excuse for their absence are (or were) liable to a fine. This, however, is never enforced: but it is customary on the first day of the session for the absentee to send an excuse to the Lord President. Lord Stonefield having sent an excuse, and the Lord President mentioning that he had done so, the Lord Justice-Clerk said: ”What excuse can a stout fellow like him hae?”--”My lord,” said the President, ”he has lost his wife.” To which the Justice-Clerk replied: ”Has he? That is a gude excuse indeed, I wish we had a' the same.”
Lord c.o.c.kburn's looks, tones, language, and manner were always such as to make one think that he believed every word he said. On one occasion, before he was raised to the Bench, when defending a murderer, although he failed to convince the judge and jurymen of the innocence of his client, yet he convinced the murderer himself that he was innocent.
Sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced, and the day of execution fixed for the 3rd of March. As Lord c.o.c.kburn was pa.s.sing the condemned man, the latter seized him by the gown, saying: ”I have not got justice!” To this the advocate coolly replied: ”Perhaps not; but you'll get it on the 3rd of March.”
c.o.c.kburn's racy humour displayed itself in another serious case; one in which a farm-servant was charged with maiming his master's cattle by cutting off their tails. A consultation was held on the question of the man's mental condition at which the farmer was present, and at the close of it some conversation took place about the disposal of the cattle.
Turning to the farmer c.o.c.kburn said that they might be sold, but that he would have to dispose of them wholesale for he could not now _retail_ them.
He was walking on the hillside on his estate of Bonaly, near Edinburgh, talking to his shepherd, and speculating about the reasons why his sheep lay on what seemed to be the least sheltered and coldest situation on the hill. Said his lords.h.i.+p: ”John, if I were a sheep I would lie on the other side of the hill.” The shepherd answered: ”Ay, my lord; but if ye had been a sheep ye would have had mair sense.”
Sitting long after the usual hour listening to a prosy counsel, Lord c.o.c.kburn was commiserated by a friend as they left the Court together with the remark: ”Counsel has encroached very much on your time, my lord.”--”Time, time,” exclaimed his lords.h.i.+p; ”he has exhausted time and encroached on eternity.”
When a young advocate, c.o.c.kburn was a frequent visitor at Niddrie Marischal, near Edinburgh, the residence of Mr. Wauchope. This gentleman was very particular about church-going, but one Sunday he stayed at home and his young guest started for the parish church accompanied by one of his host's handsomest daughters. On their way they pa.s.sed through the garden, and were so beguiled by the gooseberry bushes that the time slipped away and they found themselves too late for the service. At dinner the laird inquired of his daughter what the text was, and when she failed to tell him he put the question to c.o.c.kburn, who at once replied: ”The woman whom thou gavest to be with me she gave me of the fruit and I did eat.”
Jeffrey and c.o.c.kburn were counsel together in a case in which it was sought to prove that the heir of an estate was of low capacity, and therefore incapable of administrating his affairs. Jeffrey had vainly attempted to make a country witness understand his meaning as he spoke of the mental imbecility and impaired intellect of the party. c.o.c.kburn rose to his relief, and was successful at once. ”D'ye ken young Sandy ----?”--”Brawly,” said the witness; ”I've kent him sin' he was a laddie.”--”An' is there onything in the cratur, d'ye think?”--”Deed,”
responded the witness, ”there's naething in him ava; he wadna ken a coo frae a cauf!”
When addressing the jury in a case in which an officer of the army was a witness, Jeffrey frequently referred to him as ”this soldier.” The witness, who was in Court, bore this for a time, but at last, exasperated, exclaimed, ”I am not a soldier, I'm an officer!”--”Well, gentlemen of the jury,” proceeded Jeffrey, ”this officer, who on his own statement is no soldier,” &c.
Patrick, Lord Robertson, one of the senators of the College of Justice, was a great humorist. He was on terms of intimacy with the late Mr.
Alexander Douglas, W.S., who, on account of the untidiness of his person, was known by the sobriquet of ”Dirty Douglas.” Lord Robertson invited his friend to accompany him to a ball. ”I would go,” said Mr.
Douglas, ”but I don't care about my friends knowing that I attend b.a.l.l.s.”--”Why, Douglas,” replied the senator, ”put on a well-brushed coat and a clean s.h.i.+rt, and n.o.body will know you.” When at the Bar, Robertson was frequently entrusted with cases by Mr. Douglas. Handing his learned friend a fee in Scottish notes, Mr. Douglas remarked: ”These notes, Robertson, are, like myself, getting old.”--”Yes, they're both old and dirty, Douglas,” rejoined Robertson.
When Robertson was attending an appeal case in the House of Lords he received great attention from Lord Brougham. This gave rise to a report in the Parliament House of Edinburgh that the popular Tory advocate had ”ratted” to the Liberal side in politics, which found expression in the following _jeu d'esprit_:
”When Brougham by Robertson was told He'd condescend a place to hold, The Chancellor said, with wondering eyes, Viewing the _Rat's_ tremendous size, 'That you a place would hold is true, But where's the place that would hold you?'”
Lord Rutherford when at the Bar put an ill.u.s.tration to the Bench in connection with a church case. ”Suppose the Justiciary Court condemned a man to be hanged, however unjustly, could that man come into this Court of Session and ask your lords.h.i.+ps to interfere?” and he turned round very majestically to Robertson opposing him. ”Oh, my lords,” said Robertson, ”a case of suspension, clearly.”
When a sheriff, Rutherford, dining with a number of members of the legal profession, had to reply to the toast, ”The Bench of Scotland.” In ill.u.s.tration of a trite remark that all litigants could not be expected to have the highest regard for the judges who have tried their cases, he told the following story: A worthy but unfortunate south-country farmer had fought his case in the teeth of adverse decisions in the Lower Courts to the bitter end in one of the divisions of the Court of Session. After the decision of this tribunal affirming the judgment he had appealed against, and thus finally blasting his fondest hopes, he was heard to mutter as he left the Court: ”They ca' themselves senators o' the College o' Justice, but it's ma opeenion they're a' the waur o'