Part 23 (2/2)

”Not when you were travelling? Did it not pa.s.s through your mind when you were in the train, for instance--'I wonder, now, what that property is worth?'”

”I dare say it did, sir.”

”But don't _dare say_ anything unless it's true.”

”I did, then, run it over in my mind.”

”And I dare say you made notes and can produce them. Did you make notes?” After a while I said, ”I see you did. You may as well let me have them.”

”I tore them up.”

”Why? What became of the pieces?”

”I threw them away.”

”Do you remember what price you had arrived at when you reached Peterborough, for instance?”

The expert thought I was some one whom we never mention except when in a bad temper, and he was more and more puzzled when he found that at every stoppage I knew how much his price had increased.

As the case was tried by an arbitrator and not a jury, my task was easy, arbitrators not being so likely to be befooled as the other form of tribunal. This arbitrator, especially, knew the elasticity of an expert's opinion, and therefore I was not alarmed for my client. The amount was soon arrived at by reducing the sum claimed by no less than 90,000. Thus vanished the visionary claim and the expert. He evidently had not been trained by the cunning old surveyor whose experience taught him to be moderate, and ask only twice as much as you ought to get.

In another claim, which was no less than 10,000, the jury gave 300.

This was a state of things that had to be stopped, and it could only be accomplished at that time by counsel who appeared on behalf of the companies.

Sir Henry Hunt was one of the best of arbitrators, and it was difficult to deceive him. It took a clever expert to convince him that a piece of land whose actual value would be 100 was worth 20,000.

Sir Henry once paid me a compliment--of course, I was not present.

”Hawkins,” said he, ”is the very best advocate of the day, and, strange to say, his initials are the same as mine. You may turn them upside down and they will still stand on their legs” (H.H.).

Sir Henry was sometimes a witness, and as such always dangerous to the side against whom he was called, because he was a judge of value and a man of honour.

One instance in which I took a somewhat novel course in demolis.h.i.+ng a fict.i.tious claim is, perhaps, worth while to relate, although so many years have pa.s.sed since it occurred.

It was so far back as the time of the old Hungerford Market, which the railway company was taking for their present Charing Cross terminus.

The question was as to the value of a business for the sale of medical appliances.

Mr. Lloyd, as usual, was for the business, while I appeared for the company. My excellent friend proceeded on the good old lines of compensation advocacy with the same comfortable routine that one plays the old family rubber of threepenny points. I occasionally finessed, however, and put my opponent off his play. He held good hands, but if I had an occasionally bad one, I sometimes managed to save the odd trick.

Lloyd had expatiated on the value of the situation, the highroad between Waterloo Station and the Strand, immense traffic and grand frontage. To prove all this he called a mult.i.tude of witnesses, who kissed the same book and swore the same thing almost in the same words. But to his great surprise I did not cross-examine. Lloyd was bewildered, and said I had admitted the value by not cross-examining, and he should not call any more witnesses.

I then addressed the jury, and said, ”A mult.i.tude of witnesses may prove anything they like, but my friend has started with an entirely erroneous view of the situation. The compensation for disturbance of a business must depend a great deal on the nature of the business. If you can carry it on elsewhere with the same facility and profit, the compensation you are ent.i.tled to is very little. I will ill.u.s.trate my meaning. Let us suppose that in this thoroughfare there is a good public-house--for such a business it would indeed be an excellent situation; you may easily imagine a couple of burly farmers coming up from Farnham or Windlesham to the Cattle Show, and walking over the bridge, hot and thirsty. 'Hallo!' says one; 'I say, Jim, here's a nice public; what d'ye say to goin' in and havin' a gla.s.s o' bitter? It's a goodish pull over this 'ere bridge.”

”'With all my heart,' says Jim; and in they go.

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