Part 6 (1/2)
Mr. Justice North: Go on.
Mr. Foote: I do not wish to occupy the time of the court unnecessarily, but really I think your lords.h.i.+p ought to remember the grave position in which I stand, and not stand in the way of anything which I consider to be of vital importance to my defence.
Mr. Justice North: I have pointed out to you what I consider to be the question the jury have got to decide. I hope you will not go outside the lines I have pointed out to you; but, with these remarks, I am very reluctant to interfere with any prisoner saying anything which he considers necessary, and I will not stop you. I hope you will not abuse the concession I consider I am making to you.
Mr. Foote: I should be very sorry, my lord. I am only stating what I consider necessary.”
This is a very fair specimen of his lords.h.i.+p's manners. Unfortunately, it is also a fair specimen of his lords.h.i.+p's law. When I read similar extracts in the Court of Queen's Bench, Lord Coleridge never interrupted me once; nay, he told the jury that I had very properly brought those pa.s.sages before their notice, that I had a perfect right to do so, and that it was a legitimate part of my defence. Since then I have conversed with many gentlemen who were present, some of them belonging to the legal profession, and I have heard but one opinion expressed as to Judge North's conduct. They all agree that it was utterly undignified, and a scandal to the bench. Perhaps it had something to do with his lords.h.i.+p's removal, a few weeks afterwards, to the Chancery Court, where his eccentricities, as the _Daily News_ remarked at the time, will no longer endanger the liberty and lives of his fellow-subjects.
When I cited Fox's Libel Act and asked that my copy, purchased from the Queen's printers, might be handed to the jury for their guidance, his lords.h.i.+p sharply ordered the officer not to pa.s.s it to them. ”I shall tell them,” he said, ”what points they have to decide,” as though I had no right to press my own view. He would never have dared to treat a defending counsel in that way, and he ought to have known that a defendant in person has all the rights of a counsel, the latter having absolutely no standing in court except so far as he represents a first party in a suit. ”May they not have a copy of the Act, my lord?” I inquired. ”No,” replied his lords.h.i.+p, ”they will take the law from the directions I give them; not from reading Acts of Parliament.” This is directly counter to the spirit and letter of Fox's Act; and I suspect that Judge North would have expressed himself more guardedly in a higher court. If juries have nothing to do with Acts of Parliament, why are statutes enacted? Judge North would be ashamed and afraid to speak in that way before his superior brother judges at the Law Courts; but at the Old Bailey he was absolute master of the situation, and he abused his power. He knew there was no court of criminal appeal, and no danger of his being checked by either of the fat aldermen on the bench. They were in fact our prosecutors, and they appeared to enjoy their paltry triumph.
As I have said, I began my address to the jury at one o'clock, and at half-past we adjourned for lunch. Mr. Wheeler ran across the road and ordered some refreshment for us, and pending its arrival we descended the dock-stairs and entered a subterranean pa.s.sage, which was lit by a single gas-jet. On each side there was a little den with an iron gate.
One of these was filled with prisoners awaiting trial or sentence, who gazed through the bars at us with mingled glee and astonishment. They were chatting merrily, and I imagine from their free and easy manner that most of them were old gaol-birds. Perhaps there were some forlorn, miserable creatures cowering in the darkness behind, with throbbing brows and hearts like lead, on whose ears the light laughter of their callous companions grated even more harshly than it did on ours.
The left-hand den was empty, and into it we were ushered by the aged janitor, who regarded us with looks of mute reproach. He was evidently subdued to what he worked in. His world consisted of two cla.s.ses--criminals and police; and without any further ceremony of trial and sentence, the very fact of our descending into his Inferno was clear evidence that we belonged to the former cla.s.s.
As the den was only illuminated by a few straggling gleams from the gas-jet outside, we were unable to discriminate any object until our eyes grew accustomed to the gloom. While we were in this state of semi-blindness, something stirred. I wondered whether it was a dog or a rat. The doubt was soon resolved. A human form reared itself up from the bench against the wall, where it had been lying, not asleep indeed, but half unconscious; and to our great surprise, it turned out to be Mr.
Cattell, who had surrendered to his bail at the same time as we did, and had been s.h.i.+vering there ever since ten o'clock. After we left him he continued s.h.i.+vering for three or four hours longer in that black-hole of the Old Bailey, which struck a chill into our very bones even in the brief period of our tenancy, and which could hardly be warmed by any conflagration short of the last. It appeared damp as well as cold, and a sinister effluvium came from a place of necessity at the back. Six or seven hours' incarceration in such a place might injure a strong const.i.tution and seriously damage a weak one. Surely it is scandalous that unconvicted prisoners, some of whom are eventually acquitted, should suffer this unnecessary hards.h.i.+p and incur this unnecessary risk.
Presently our lunch arrived. The platefuls of meat and vegetables had a savory smell, our appet.i.tes were keen, and our stomachs empty. But a difficulty arose. There were forks, but no knives; those lethal instruments being forbidden lest prisoners should attempt to cut their throats. I subsequently had the use of a tin knife in Newgate, but even that, which used to be common in prisons, is now proscribed. The only carving instruments allowed the guests in her Majesty's hotels is a wooden spoon, although the tin knife still lingers in the Houses of Detention. Among other elaborate precautions against suicide, I found that the prisoners awaiting trial were furnished with quill pens. Steel pens had been banished after the desperate exploit of one poor wretch, who had stabbed away at his windpipe with one, and inflicted such grave injuries that the officials had great difficulty in saying his life.
But _revenons a nos moutons_, or rather our forks. We disposed of the vegetables somehow, and as for the meat, we were obliged to split and gnaw it after the fas.h.i.+on of our primitive ancestors. We drank out of the mouth of the claret bottle, pa.s.sing it round till it was emptied. It was probably a good honest bottle, but in the circ.u.mstances it seemed a despicable fraud. We tried hard for another supply, but we failed. Being anxious to prevent a display of inebriety in the dock, or desirous to repress rather than stimulate our audacity, the venerable janitor interposed the most effectual obstacles, and we were constrained to reason down the remnant of our thirst, which, if I may infer from my own case, was almost as insensible to argument as the judge himself.
Feeling very cold, we essayed a little exercise. The dimensions of our den, which were three steps each way, did not allow much play for individuality. Erratic pedestrianism was clearly dangerous, so we rushed round in Indian file, like braves on the warpath; and, by way of relieving the tedium, we speculated on the number of laps in a mile.
Our proceedings seemed to strike the wild beasts in the opposite den as unaccountable imbecility. They grinned at us through the bars with as much delight as children might evince in the Zoological Gardens at a performance of insane monkeys. But their amus.e.m.e.nt was suddenly arrested. St. Peter appeared at the gate, flouris.h.i.+ng his keys. It was two o'clock.
What a strange sensation it was, mounting those dock stairs! More loudly than my experiences below, it said--”You are a prisoner.” The court was densely crowded, and as I emerged into it, the sea of faces, suddenly caught _en ma.s.se_, seemed cold and alien. The feeling was only momentary, but I fancy it resembled the weird thrill that must have swept through the ancient captive as he entered the Roman arena from his dark lair, and confronted the vague host of indifferent faces that were to watch his fight for life.
I resumed my address to the jury at two o'clock, and concluded it at four. A considerable portion of that time was spent in altercations with the judge, of which I have already given some striking specimens. Let me now give another. It excited great laughter in court, and I confess the situation was so comic that I could scarcely preserve my own gravity.
After quoting a number of ”blasphemous” pa.s.sages from the writings of Professor Clifford, Lord Amberley, Matthew Arnold, the author of ”The Evolution of Christianity,” Swinburne, Byron and Sh.e.l.ley, I proceeded thus: ”Now, gentlemen, I have given you a few ill.u.s.trations of permitted blasphemy in expensive books, and I will now trouble you with a few instances of permitted blasphemy in cheap publications, which are unmolested because they call themselves Christian, and because those who conduct them are patronised by ecclesiastical dignitaries.” Here I produced a copy of the _War Cry_, in which I had marked a piece of idiotic ”blasphemy.” Judge North scented mischief, and gestured to the officer behind me. But that functionary was too deeply interested in the case to make much haste, and, not wis.h.i.+ng to be frustrated, I read as rapidly as I could. Before he could arrest me I had finished the extract. My auditors were all convulsed with laughter, except the judge, who was convulsed with rage. As soon as he could articulate he addressed me as follows:
Mr. Justice North: Now, Foote, I am going to put a stop to this.
I will not allow any more of these ill.u.s.trations of what you call permitted blasphemy in cheap publications. I decline to have any more of them put before me.
Mr. Foote: My Lord, I will use them for another purpose, if you will allow me.
Mr. Justice North: You will not use them here at all, sir.
Mr. Foote: May they not be used, my lord to show that an equally free use of religious symbols, and religious language, prevails widely in all cla.s.ses of literature and society?
Mr. Justice North: No they may not. I decline to hear them read. They are not in evidence, and I refuse to allow you to quote from such doc.u.ments as part of your speech.
Mr. Foote: Well, gentlemen, I will now ask your attention very briefly to another branch of the subject.
The fact is, I was perfectly satisfied. I had purposely kept the _War Cry_ till the last. It naturally ended my list of citations, and his lords.h.i.+p's victory was entirely specious.
Those who may wish to read my address in its entirety will find it in ”The Three Trials for Blasphemy.” For those, however, who are not so curious or so painstaking, I give here the peroration only, to show what sentiments I appealed to in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the jury, and how far my defence was from boastfulness or servility:
”Gentlemen,--I told you at the outset that you, are the last Court of Appeal on all questions affecting the liberty of the press and the right of free speech and Freethought. When I say Freethought, I do not refer to specific doctrines that may pa.s.s under that name: I refer to the great right of Freethought, that Freethought which is neither so low as a cottage nor so lofty as a pyramid, but is like the soaring azure vault of heaven, which over-arches both with equal case. I ask you to affirm the liberty of the press, to show by your verdict that you are prepared to give to others the same freedom that you claim for yourselves. I ask you not to be misled by the statements that have been thrown out by the prosecution, nor by the authority and influence of the mighty and rich Corporation which commenced this action, has found the money for it, and whose very solicitor was bound over to prosecute. I ask you not to be influenced by these considerations, but rather to remember that this present attack is made upon us probably because we are connected with those who have been struck at again and again by some of the very persons who are engaged in this prosecution; to remember that England is growing day by day in its humanity and love of freedom; and that, as blasphemy has been an offence less and less proceeded against during the past century, so there will probably be fewer and fewer proceedings against it in the next.