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?"