A BARRISTER.
In some of the preceding pages I have mentioned several attorneys whose professional avocations were extensively connected with the police-courts, and whose conduct and character entitled them to our esteem and respect. Whilst they would endeavour to induce the magistrates to adopt the construction of a statute or by-law in the sense most favorable to their clients, they sedulously avoided the suppression or exaggeration of facts when seeking a mitigation of punishment, or applying for the acceptance of bail. There were, however, two or three professional men who occasionally subjected us to the very disagreeable, perhaps I may say the disgusting, duty of listening to statements subsequently ascertained to be totally false, and which they were undoubtedly aware of being unfounded. One gentleman, who was a member of my own profession, had a wonderful aptitude for citing cases purporting to have been decided in the English courts, and in complete accordance with the course which he was desirous we should pursue. We soon found that many of those cases were suppositious, and many others distorted and misrepresented. Our chief clerk, Mr. Cox, having assisted on a particular occasion in detecting several misquotations, observed, that if the learned counsel ever attained to the peerage his most appropriate title would be Lord Phibsborough.[18]