Lord Shand's shortness of stature has been a theme of several stories. When he left Edinburgh after sitting as a judge of the Court of Session for eighteen years, one of his colleagues suggested that a statue ought to be erected to him. "Or shall we say a statuette?" was the remark of another friend. His lordship lived at Newhailes—the property of one of the Dalrymple family, several members of which were eminent judges in the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries—and travelled to town by rail. The guard was a pawky Aberdonian, and had evidently been greatly struck by Lord Shand's appearance, for his customary salutation to him, delivered no doubt in a parental and patronising fashion, was: "And fu (how) are ye the day, ma lordie?" His lordship's manner of receiving this greeting is not recorded. Still another anecdote on the same subject is that when still an advocate, it was proposed to make Mr. Shand a Judge of Assize. On the proposal being mentioned to a colleague famous for his caustic wit, the latter with a good-humoured sneer which raised a hearty laugh at the expense of his genial friend, remarked: "Ah, a judge of a size, indeed."
GEORGE YOUNG, LORD YOUNG.
Lord Young's wit was of this caustic turn and not infrequently was intended to sting the person to whom it was addressed. An advocate was wending his weary way through a case one day, and in the course of making a point he referred to a witness who had deponed that he had seen two different things at one time and consequently contradicted himself. Lord Young gave vent to the feelings of his colleagues in the Second Division of the Court, when he interrupted thus:
"Oh, Mr. B——, I can see more than two things at one time. I can see your paper, and beyond your paper I can see you, and beyond you I can see the clock, and I can see that you have been labouring for an hour over a point that is capable of being expressed in a sentence."
In the course of an argument in the same division, counsel had occasion to refer to "Fraser" (a brother judge) "on Husband and Wife." Lord Young, interrupting, asked: 'Hasn't Fraser another book?'—'Yes, my lord, 'Master and Servant!''—'Well,' said Lord Young, 'isn't that the same thing?'
Owing to a vacancy on the Bench having been kept open for a long period, Lord Young's roll had become very heavy. Hearing that a new colleague had been appointed, and like the late judge had adopted a title ending in "hill," he gratefully quoted the lines of the one hundred and twenty-first psalm:
"I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
From whence doth come mine aid."