Part 32 (1/2)

[In ill.u.s.tration of this Mr. Cecil A. Coward has given an incident that occurred in an action for slander tried at the Guildhall many years ago, in which Mr. Hawkins, Q.C., was for the defendant, and Mr.

Joseph Brown, Q.C., for the plaintiff. The slander consisted in the defendant pointing his thumb over his shoulder and asking another man, ”Do you know him? That's Joe Smith.”

Mr. Joseph Brown, Q.C., had to rely upon his innuendo--”meaning thereby Joe Smith was a rogue”--and was very eloquent as to slander unspoken but expressed by signs and tone. After an exhausting speech he sat down and buried his head in his bandana, as his habit was.

Hawkins got up, and turned Mr. Joseph Brown's speech to ridicule in two or three sentences.

”Gentlemen,” he almost whispered, after a very small whistle which n.o.body could hear but those close around, at the same time pointing his thumb over his shoulder at his opponent, ”do you know him--do you know Joe Brown?” There was a roar of laughter. Joe looked up, saw nothing, and retired again into his bandana.

Again the performance was gone through. ”Do you know Joe Brown, the best fellow in the world?”

Brown looked up again, and was just in time to hear the jury say they had heard quite enough of the case. No slander--verdict for the defendant.

It was one of the best pieces of acting I ever saw him do.]

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

APPOINTED A JUDGE--MY FIRST TRIAL FOR MURDER,

No sooner was the Tichborne case finished than I was once more in the full run of work.

One brief was delivered with a fee marked twenty thousand guineas, which I declined. It would not in any way have answered my purpose to accept it. I was asked, however, to name my own fee, with the a.s.surance that whatever I named it would be forthcoming. I promised to consider a fee of fifty thousand guineas, and did so, but resolved not to accept the brief on any terms, as it involved my going to Indie, and I felt it would be unwise to do so.

In 1874 I was offered by Lord Cairns the honour of a judges.h.i.+p, which I respectfully declined. It was no hope of mine to step into a puisne judges.h.i.+p, or, for the matter of that, any other judicial position.

I was contented with my work and with my career. I did not wish to abandon my position at the Bar, and my friends at the Bar, and take up one on the Bench with no friends at all; for a Judge's position is one of almost isolation. This refusal gave great dissatisfaction to many, and a letter I have before me says, ”I got into a great row with my editor by your refusal.” Another said he lost a lot of money in consequence: ”I thought it was any odds upon your taking it.”

Sir Alexander c.o.c.kburn gave me a complimentary side-cut in a speech he made to some of his old const.i.tuents.

”The time comes,” said he, ”when men of the greatest eminence are called upon to give up their professional emoluments for the interests of their country. In my opinion they have no right to refuse their services; no man has this right when his country calls for them.”

But these animadversions did not affect me. I held on to the course which I had deliberately chosen, and which I thought my labours and sacrifices in the Tichborne case on behalf of my country ent.i.tled me to enjoy. Let any one who has the least knowledge of advocacy consider what it was to carry that case to a successful issue, and then condemn me for not taking a judges.h.i.+p if he will. I was ent.i.tled to freedom and rest. A judges.h.i.+p is neither, as one finds out when once he puts on the ermine. But it requires no argument to justify the course I took. I was ent.i.tled to decline, and I did. There is nothing else to be said; all other considerations are idle and irrelevant.

A judges.h.i.+p was, however, a second time offered by Lord Cairns in 1876. This, after due consideration, I accepted, and received my appointment as a Judge of the Exchequer Court on November 2 of that year.

The first and most sensational case that I was called upon to preside over was known as the Penge case. Sir Alexander c.o.c.kburn had appointed himself to try it, on account of its sensational character; but as it came for trial at a time when the Lord Chief Justice could not attend, it fell to the junior Judge on the Bench.

I am not going to relate the details of that extraordinary case,[A]

which are best left in the obscurity of the newspaper files; but I refer to it because it cannot well be pa.s.sed over in the reminiscences of my life. I shall, however, only touch upon one or two prominent points.

[Footnote A: The great sensation of the case was almost overpowered by the great sensation that ”a new power had come upon the Bench.” These are, as nearly as I can give them, the words of one of our most distinguished advocates, and one of the most brilliant who was in the Penge case:--

”We felt, and the Bar felt, that a great power had come upon the Bench; he summed up that case as no living man could have done. Every word told; every point was touched upon and made so clear that it was impossible not to see it.”

Another distinguished advocate said there was no other Judge on the Bench who could have summed that case up as Sir Henry Hawkins did.--R.H.]

”Every person,” I said in my summing up, ”who is under a legal duty, whether such duty was imposed by law or contract, to take charge of another person must provide that person with the necessaries of life.