CHAPTER XXXII.
ON THE MIDLAND CIRCUIT.
"That's Orkins hover there," said a burly-looking sportsman as I arrived one day at Newmarket Heath—"'im a-torkin' to Corlett. See 'im? Nice bernevolent old cove to look at, ain't 'e? Yus. That didn't stop 'is guvin' me five of his wery best, simply becorze by accident I mistook someb'dy else's 'ouse and plate-chest for my own. Sorter mistake which might 'appen a'most to henybody. There 'e is; see 'im? That's Orkins!"
I need not say I was frequently spoken of in this complimentary manner by persons who had been introduced to me at the Bar. I was once leading a little fox terrier with a string, because on several occasions he had given me the slip and caused me to be a little late in court. I led him, therefore, in the leash until he knew his duty.
On this day, however, as the crowd was waiting for me on the little platform of a country station, my fox terrier jumped out in front of me while I was holding him by the string.
"Good ——!" cried a voice from a gentleman to whom I had previously given a situation under Government, livery and all found; "why, blow me if the old bloke ain't blind! Lookee there, 'is dawg's a-leadin' 'im; wot d'ye think o' that?"
But persons in much higher station were no less at times fond of chaff, which I always took good-humouredly. A story of Lord Grimthorpe, who, many years after, had some fun with me at times over my little Jack, will appear in his reminiscences a little farther on. I used to lead Jack with a string in the same manner as I had done the other, for educational purposes, and Lord Grimthorpe jocularly called me Jack's prisoner. But I must let him tell his own story in his own way when his turn comes.
The Midland Circuit was always famous for its ill accommodation of her Majesty's Judges, and of late years even in the supply of prisoners to keep them from loitering away their days in idleness or lonely diversions.
I always loved work and comfortable lodgings, and may say from the first to the last of my judicial days set myself to the improvement of both the work and the accommodation.
Some Judges in their charges used to discourse with the grand jury of our foreign relations, turnips, or the state of trade; but I took a more humble theme at Aylesbury, when I informed that august body that the quarters assigned to her Majesty's Judges were such that an officer would hardly think them good enough to billet soldiers in.
"My rest, gentlemen, has been rudely disturbed," said I, "in the lodgings assigned to me. My bedroom was hardly accessible, on account of what appeared to be a dense fog which was difficult to struggle through. I sought refuge in the dressing-room. Being a bitterly cold night and a very draughty room, some one had lighted a fire in it; but, unfortunately, all the smoke came down the chimney after going up a little way, bringing down as much soot as it could manage to lay hold of. All this is the fault of the antiquated chimneys and ill-contrived building generally. My marshal was the subject of equal discomfort; and I think I may congratulate you, gentlemen, not only on there being very few prisoners, but also on the fact that you are not holding an inquest on our bodies."
The grand jury were good enough to say that there was "an institution called the Standing Joint Committee, who will, no doubt, inquire into your lordship's subject of complaint." The "Standing Joint Committee" sounded powerfully, but I believe no further notice was taken, and the question dropped.
"That's a nice un," said one of the javelin-men at the door when a friend of his came out. "Did yer 'ear that, Jimmy? Orkins is a nice un to talk about lodgings. Let him look to his own cirkit—the 'Orne Cirkit—where my brother told me as at a trial at Guildford the tenant of that there house wouldn't pay his rent. For why? Because they was so pestered wi' wermin. And what do you think Orkins told the jury?—He was counsel for the tenant.—'Why,' he says, 'gentlemen, you heard what one of the witnesses said, how that the fleas was so outrageous that they ackshally stood on the backs o' the 'all chairs and barked at 'em as they come in.' That's Orkins on his own circuit; and 'ere he is finding fault with our lodgings."
It was not long after my arrival at Lincoln, on the first occasion of my visiting that drowsy old ecclesiastical city, that I was waited upon, first by one benevolent body of gentlemen, and then another, all philanthropists seeking subscriptions for charitable objects.
One bitterly cold morning I was standing in my robes with my back to the fire at my lodgings, waiting to step into the carriage on my way to court, when a very polite gentleman, who headed quite a body of other polite gentlemen, asked "if his lordship would do them the honour of receiving a deputation from the L. and B. Skating Club." I assented—nothing would give me more pleasure; and in filed the deputation, arranging themselves, hats in hand, round me in a semicircle.
"We have the honour, my lord, to call upon your lordship in pursuance of a resolution passed last night at a special meeting of our club—"
"What is the name of your club?"
"The L. and B. Skating Club, my lord."
"What is its object?"
"Our object, my lord?"
"No, the object of your society. I can guess your object."
The leader answered with a smile of the greatest satisfaction,—
"Er—skating, my lord."
"Your own amusement?"
The head of the deputation bowed.
"Do you want me to skate?"
"No, my lord; but we take the liberty of asking your lordship to kindly support our club with a subscription."
"When I see," I replied, "so much poverty and misery around me which needs actual relief, and when I look at this inclement weather and think how these poor creatures must suffer from the cold, it seems to me that they are the people who should apply to those who have anything to bestow in charity; not those who are the only people, as it would appear, who can take pleasure in this excruciating weather. See if your club cannot do something for these poor sufferers instead of collecting merely for your own personal amusement; contribute to their necessities, and then come and see me again. I shall be here till Monday."
The head of the deputation stared, but it did not lose its presence of mind or forget its duty. The deputation made a little speech "thanking me heartily for the kind manner in which they had been received."
I never saw anything more of them from that day to this.
[In a case at Devizes Sir Henry showed in a striking manner the character he always bore as a humane Judge. He was not humane where cruelty was any part of the culprit's misdeeds, for he visited that with the punishment he thought it deserved, and his idea of that was on a somewhat considerable scale.]
I was down upon cruelty, and always lenient where there were any mitigating circumstances whatever, either of mental weakness, great temptation, provocation, or unhappy surroundings.
A woman was brought up before me who had been committed to take her trial on a charge of concealing the birth of a child. For prisoners in these circumstances I always felt great sympathy, and regarded the moral guilt as altogether unworthy of punishment. The law, however, was bound to be vindicated so far as the legal offence was concerned. She had already been in prison for three months, because she was too poor and too friendless to find bail. I am always pointing out that if magistrates would send more cases to the Judges than they do, they would get some precedents as to the appropriate measure of punishment, which they seem badly to need. This woman had already been punished, without being found guilty, with three times the punishment she ought to have received had she been found guilty. A month's imprisonment would have been excessive.
Prisoners should always be released on their own recognizances where there is a reasonable expectation that they will appear.
The result was that the unhappy woman, who had been punished severely while in the eye of the law she was innocent, was discharged when she was found to be guilty.
We have seen how Mr. Justice Maule examined a little boy as to his understanding the nature of an oath. I once examined a little girl upon a preliminary point of this kind, before she had arrived at that period of mental acuteness which enables one to understand exactly the meaning of the words uttered in the administration of the oath. The child was called, and after allowing the form of "the evidence you shall give," etc., and "kiss the book," to be gabbled over, I said, before the Testament could reach the child's lips,—
"Stop! Do you understand what that gentleman has been saying?"
"No, sir."
I think it is a great farce to let little children be sworn who cannot be expected to understand even the language in which the oath is administered, to say nothing of the oath itself. How can they comprehend the meaning of the phrases employed? And many grown-up uneducated people are in the same situation. Surely a simple form, such as, "You swear to God to speak the truth"—or, even better still, to make false evidence punishable without any oath at all—would be far better.