Part 3 (2/2)

H.H.

Oct. 14, 1844.

Transported for 7 years.

H.H.

_Cobliam_.

Ware.

These are my notes:--

_Sep_. 20.

Mr. Page.

Silk shawl.

Apprehension.

Various accounts.

Exam. before J---- J----.

Propy found.

Mrs. Stevens,} Mr. Johnson, } Witnesses.

I made a rule throughout my professional life to note my cases with the greatest care.

CHAPTER IV.

AT THE OLD BAILEY IN THE OLD TIMES.

It is a vast s.p.a.ce to look back over sixty years of labour, and yet there seems hardly a scene or an event of any consequence, that is not reproduced in my mind with a vividness that astonishes me.

In my earlier visits to her Majesty's Courts of Justice my princ.i.p.al business was to study the Queen's Counsel and Serjeants, and they were worthy the attention I bestowed on them. They all belonged to different schools of advocacy, and some knew very little about it.

I went to the Old Bailey, a den of infamy in those times not conceivable now, and I verily believe that no future time will produce its like--at least I hope not. Its a.s.sociations were enough to strike a chill of horror into you. It was the very cesspool for the offscourings of humanity. I had no taste for criminal practice in those days, except as a means of learning the art of advocacy. In these cases, presided over by a judge who knows his work, the rules of evidence are strictly observed, and you will learn more in six months of practical advocacy than in ten years elsewhere. The Criminal Court was the best school in which to learn your work of cross-examination and examination-in-chief, while the Courts of Equity were probably the worst. But I shall not dwell on my struggles in connection with the Old Bailey at that early period of my life. What will be more interesting, perhaps, are some curious arrangements which they had for the conduct of business and the entertainment of the Judges.

These are a too much neglected part of our history, and when referred to in reminiscences are generally referred to as matters for jocularity. They exercised, however, a serious influence on the minds and feelings of the people, as well as their manners; more so than a hundred subjects with which the historian or the novelist sometimes deals.

In all cases of unusual gravity three Judges sat together. Offences that would now be treated as not even deserving of a day's imprisonment in many cases were then invariably punished with death.

It was not, therefore, so much the nature of the offence as the importance of it in the eyes of the Judges that caused three of them to sit together and try the criminals.

They sat till five o'clock right through, and then went to a sumptuous dinner provided by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. They drank everybody's health but their own, thoroughly relieved their minds from the horrors of the court, and, having indulged in much festive wit, sometimes at an alderman's expense, and often at their own, returned into court in solemn procession, their gravity undisturbed by anything that had previously taken place, and looking the picture of contentment and virtue.

Another dinner was provided by the Sheriffs; this was for the Recorder, Common Serjeant, and others, who took their seats when their lords.h.i.+ps had arisen.

I ought to mention one important dignitary--namely, the chaplain of Newgate--whose fortunate position gave him the advantage over most persons: for he _dined at both these dinners_, and a.s.sisted in the circulation of the wit from one party to another; so that what my Lord Chief Justice had made the table roar with at five o'clock, the Recorder and the Common Serjeant roared with at six, and were able to retail at their family tables at a later period of the evening. It was in that way so many good things have come down to the present day.

The reverend gentleman alluded to of course attended the court in robes, and his only, but solemn, function was to say ”Amen” when the sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced by the Judge.

There were curious old stories, too, about my lords and old port at that time which are not of my own reminiscences, and therefore I shall do no more than mention them in order to pa.s.s on to what I heard and saw myself.

<script>