Of Lord Chief Justice Tenterden, Lord Campbell asserts that he once, and only once, uttered a pun. A learned gentleman, who had lectured on the law and was too much addicted to oratory came to argue a special demurrer before him. "My client's opponent," said the figurative advocate, "worked like a mole under ground, clam et secretè." His figures only elicited a grunt from the Chief Justice. "It is asserted in Aristotle's Rhetoric—."—"I don't want to hear what is asserted in Aristotle's Rhetoric," interposed Lord Tenterden. The advocate shifted his ground and took up, as he thought, a safe position. "It is laid down in the Pandects of Justinian—." "Where are you got now?" "It is a principle of the civil law—." "Oh sir," exclaimed the judge, with a tone and voice which abundantly justified his assertion, "we have nothing to do with the civil law in this Court."
Judges sometimes stray into humour without intending it. At an election petition trial one allegation was, that a number of rosettes, or "marks of distinction," had been kept in a table drawer in the central committee-room. To meet this charge it was thought desirable to call witnesses to swear that the only table in the room consisted of planks laid on trestles. "So that the table had no proper legs," said counsel cheerfully. "Never mind whether it had proper legs," said one of the learned judges. "The more important question is: Had it drawers?"
And in The Story of Crime the author recalls an instance of a judge unconsciously furnishing material for laughter in Court. "At the beginning of the session at the Old Baily a good deal of work is got through by the judge who takes the small cases, and it may be this fact that accounted for the confusion of thought which he describes. One of the prisoners was charged with stealing a camera, and after all the evidence had been taken his lordship proceeded to sum up to the jury. He began by correctly describing the stolen article as a camera, but had not gone very far before the camera had become a concertina, and by the time he had finished the concertina had become an accordion. And he never once saw his mistake. The usher noticed it at the first trip, and kept repeating in a kind of hoarse stage-whisper, 'Camera! Camera!' but his voice did not reach the Bench, and so the complicated article remained on record."
Mr. Andrews in his book, The Lawyer in History, Literature, and Humour, relates that a leader of the Bar on rising to address the drowsy jury after a ponderous oration by Sir Samuel Prime, said: "Gentlemen, after the long speech of the learned serjeant—" "Sir, I beg your pardon," interrupted Mr. Justice Nares, "you might say—you might say—after the long soliloquy, for my brother Prime has been talking an hour to himself."
THOMAS ERSKINE, BARON ERSKINE, LORD CHANCELLOR.
Thomas, Lord Erskine was the youngest of three brothers, who were all distinguished men. The eldest was the well-known Earl of Buchan, one of the founders of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, whose eccentricities formed the subject of much gossip in the Scottish capital. To an English nobleman he declared: "My brothers Harry and Tom are certainly remarkable men, but they owe everything to me." Seeing a look of surprise upon his friend's face he added: "Yes, it is true; they owe everything to me. On my father's death they pressed me for an annual allowance. I knew this would have been their ruin, by relaxing their industry. So making a sacrifice of my inclinations to gratify them I refused to give them a farthing, and they have thriven ever since—owing everything to me."