“That’s dead easy,” flippantly said the culprit, “I’ve got it right here in my hip pocket.”
“—and six months in jail. Have you got that in your hip pocket, too?” came the ready amendment to the sentence, thus vindicating the dignity of the court and proclaiming to all and sundry that a British court of justice, even though held under a pine tree, was not to be trifled with.
This story has been told and retold, credited to magistrates and judges mostly in the southern States, but it really happened in Sir Mathew Begbie’s court in Cariboo in the early seventies. At least one man is living to-day who was present on the occasion and that is my old friend, Colonel Robert Stevenson, the pioneer prospector, of Similkameen, B.C.
Another characteristic incident is told of the Judge. A sandbagger, who was haled before him for assault and battery and against whom the evidence was pretty clear, was found “not guilty” by the jury—to the Judge’s utter disgust. In disposing of the case, he said to the prisoner:
“You are guilty, and I know you are guilty, but this precious jury has decided that you are not. You are free—free to go out and sandbag every blessed juryman that has let you off. Now go!”
Another story illustrating Judge Begbie’s ready resourcefulness and sense of justice, combined with a contempt for precedent, was a case where two partners in the ownership of a mining claim quarreled and then had a dispute over the division of their ground. After listening to a lot of tall swearing and contradictory evidence, Judge Begbie stopped the trial and turning to the litigants said:
“You, Jones and Brown”—that wasn’t their names but nobody remembers now who they were—“are agreed that you want to divide this ground?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But you can’t agree on how the lines are to be run.”
“No, sir—” but they got no further.