Not long after he had ascended the Bench Mr. Justice Hawkins was hearing a case in which a man was being tried for murder. The counsel for the prosecution observed the prisoner say something earnestly to the policeman seated by his side in the dock, and asked that the constable should be made to disclose what had passed. "Yes," said his lordship, "I think you may demand that. Constable, inform the Court what passed between you and the prisoner."—"I—I would rather not, your lordship. I was—."—"Never mind what you would rather not do. Inform the Court what the prisoner said."—"He asked me, your lordship, who that hoary heathen with the sheepskin was, as he had often seen him at the race-course."—"That will do," said his lordship. "Proceed with the case."
An action for damages against a fire insurance company, brought by some Jews, was heard before Chief Justice Cockburn, which clearly was a fraudulent claim. The plaintiffs claimed for loss of ready-made clothes in the fire. Hawkins, who appeared for the defendant company, elicited the fact that ready-made clothes in this firm had all brass buttons as a rule; and, further, that after sifting the debris of the fire no buttons had been found. The trial was not concluded on that day, but on the following morning hundreds of buttons partially burnt were brought into Court by the Jew plaintiffs. Cockburn was not long in appreciating this mode of furnishing evidence after its necessity had been pointed out, and he asked: "How do you account for these buttons, Mr. Hawkins? You said none were found."—"Up to last night none had been found," replied Hawkins. "But," said the Chief Justice—"but these buttons have evidently been burnt in the fire. How do they come here?"—"On their own shanks," was Hawkins' smart and ready reply. Verdict for defendants.
The alibi has come in for its fair share of jests. Sir Henry Hawkins relates in his Reminiscences how he once found the following in his brief: "If the case is called on before 3.15, the defence is left to the ingenuity of the counsel; if after that hour, the defence is an alibi, as by then the usual alibi witnesses will have returned from Norwich, where they are at present professionally engaged."
Sitting as a vacation judge, Sir Walter Phillimore, whose views on the law of divorce are well known, protested against being called on to make absolute a number of decrees nisi granted in the Divorce Division. This fact is said to have called forth a witty pronouncement by a late president of that Division of the Courts. "Here is my brother Phillimore, who objects to making decrees nisi absolute because he believes in the sanctity of the marriage tie. By and by we may be having a Unitarian appointed to the Bench, and he will refuse to try Admiralty suits, as he would have to sit with Trinity Masters."
In sentencing a burglar recently, the judge referred to him as a "professional," to which the prisoner strongly protested from the dock. "Here," he exclaimed, "I dunno wot you mean by callin' me a professional burglar. I've only done it once before, an' I've been nabbed both times." The judge, in the most suave manner, replied, "Oh, I did not mean to say that you had been very successful in your profession."
THE HON. MR JUSTICE GRANTHAM, JUDGE OF THE KING'S BENCH DIVISION.