THE JUNIOR OF THE CIRCUIT
When I first joined the Northern circuit in the year 1872, it covered a wider area than is now allotted to it. We used at that time to begin operations at Appleby, journeying thence from Durham to Newcastle, Carlisle, Lancaster, Manchester, and Liverpool. The members of the Local Bar in the two last-named cities were already strong and powerful, but they had not yet absorbed so large a share of the business of the assizes as they now enjoy. It was Charles Crompton—with whom I had read in chambers—who secured for me the coveted position of Junior of the circuit, and the first occasion on which I set out to discharge the somewhat anomalous duties of my office I shared rooms at Durham with the present Mr. Justice Kennedy, who, I think, had himself been a candidate for the post.
I have referred to the duties of the Junior of the circuit as being somewhat anomalous, because although, as his title would imply, he is always chosen from the newest of its recruits, tradition dowers him with a figment of authority which is altogether out of proportion to any personal qualifications he may chance to possess. He disputes the leadership of the circuit with the leader himself, and is assumed to hold specially in his keeping the interests of the Junior Bar as opposed to whatever arrogant claims may be put forward by the more fortunate wearers of the silken gown. To this defiant attitude, where the opportunity for defiance was in any sense possible, I was constantly urged by the members of the Junior Bar, whose cause I was supposed to champion; and it was deemed a duty, which no Junior of spirit could safely ignore, that on any public occasion when he had to stand up as spokesman of the circuit, he should depreciate, with all the resources at his disposal, both the intellectual prowess and the professional bearing of the eminent Queen’s counsel who were assembled at assize. The dignity thus assigned to him was, of course, only half-humorously entertained by his comrades of both ranks, but so much of reality still attached to the office that the holder of it, if he chose to take advantage of the situation, found ample opportunity for the trial and exercise of such gifts of oratory as he might be fortunate enough to possess. Wherever and whenever the members of the circuit were entertained, the Junior had to brace himself to his allotted task; and although at the time I had been assigned no opportunity of airing my powers of speech in open court, these festive gatherings, which occurred in nearly every separate county we visited, left me free for the crude practice of an art that had always profoundly attracted me.
The leaders of the Northern circuit, whose virtues I was called upon to assail, numbered at that time some of the most distinguished representatives at the Bar. Herschell, Russell, Holker, and Sam Pope had all either attained or were nearing the zenith of their fame; while among the Junior Bar it may suffice to cite the names of the late Lord Selby (then Mr. Gully), Mr. Henn Collins (the late Master of the Rolls), Lord Mersey, and Mr. Justice Kennedy. It was a privilege to watch the work in court in which the powers of some of these giants of the profession were daily called into exercise. I used to hear some of my contemporaries sigh over the weary ordeal of having to sit and listen to cases in which they were not concerned; a little later, in the courts at Westminster, I sometimes shared that feeling of fatigue; but my experience of two years of circuit life yields few dull memories. The proceedings on circuit are perhaps more concentrated in their interest than can, in the nature of things, be claimed for the more scattered and diversified arena of the metropolis; one is brought more nearly into touch with the chief actors in the drama, and the incidents of the day are renewed and discussed at the Bar mess in the evening. It is possible there to gauge and to measure the social qualities of the men whose public performances in court are still under consideration, and to link the more human side of this or that great advocate, as it was frankly and freely exhibited in those hours when we sat at wine after dinner, with the purely intellectual gifts that had been set in action during the day. No one, for instance, who knew Mr. Russell (afterwards Lord Russell of Killowen) only by his conduct of a case in court, where the qualities of an imperious temper joined to an unrelenting gravity of manner coloured and dominated the impression which even his most eloquent speeches produced, could have readily divined that he possessed at the same time a vein of genuine sentiment that, in his more sympathetic moods, showed itself as being no less clearly an integral part of his nature. And yet this softer side of his character was often shown at the circuit mess, and I have more than once seen his eyes moistened with tears as he would sing, without any great pretence of art, one or more of Moore’s sentimental Irish melodies.
Nor could it have been readily guessed that, beneath the look of slumbering power which marked Holker’s personality, there lurked a quickened sense of humour of which he could make agile display when the needs of the social occasion called it into being. The almost daily contest between these two men, so differently equipped, and yet often so equally matched, formed one of the most interesting subjects of study to the youngster whose idle days were passed in court; for down the length of the circuit, from Durham to Liverpool, there were few causes of any magnitude or importance in which they were not both engaged, and their divergent personalities and varying methods remain to me now as an unfading recollection. It was sometimes difficult to realise that Holker owned any real claims to eloquence until the cumulative effect of his untiring insistence found its reflex in the favourable verdict of the jury. That, at any rate, was the first impression.
It was only afterwards that the student was able to realise what a wealth of intellectual resource and unsleeping vigilance lay masked beneath the somewhat uncouth exterior in which the immobile and unresponsive features gave scarcely a hint of the quick insight into human nature, and the swift grasp of what was essential either in the strength or the weakness of his cause. Grace of oratory he certainly could never boast, but his very disability in this respect seemed sometimes to serve him as a source of power. His humble and deprecating manner, as though he were struggling with a task too great for him, made an irresistible appeal to the sympathies of a Northern jury, who would seem silently bidden to come to the aid of this giant in distress, and who were never, I think, aware that in leaning towards what they deemed the weaker side, they were, in fact, the victims of the most consummate art which cloaked itself in almost blundering simplicity of phrase. Russell’s more brilliant gifts as an orator often beat in vain against what seemed at first sight to be the ill-adjusted and cumbrous methods of his adversary; while at other times the superior grace and vehemence of his style carried him safely to victory. Even at that date it seemed to me clear that he was destined to take his place as the most distinguished advocate at the Bar, and those who had the privilege of watching his career at that time had not long to wait to witness the fulfilment of their prophecy. I think of him always as an advocate, for although his natural gift of speech might have fitted him to win renown in almost any arena, it may nevertheless be justly said of him that it was the office of advocacy alone which furnished the needed impulse for the display of his highest gifts as an orator. It is possibly for that reason that his career in Parliament never quite justified his commanding reputation at the Bar, and it is certainly true—as I myself have witnessed more than once—that in the discharge of those lighter duties that fall to a speaker on festal occasions he moved with little ease of style and with far inferior effect.
It was the concrete issue, carrying with it a full sense of responsibility, that was needed to set in motion the great forces of character and intellect that were his by right. It was the sense of the duel that pricked him forward to the display of his powers at their best; and it is, I think, this same sense of the duel that forms the supreme element of interest to those who are called upon to watch the conduct of a great trial in which grave issues are at stake. To the trained mind of the lawyer an intricate case, in which only civil interests are involved, provides perhaps the fullest opportunity for watching the expert sword-play between two leaders who are fitly armed for their task; but from the more human and dramatic point of view it is the criminal court in an assize town that more often attracts the presence of the younger student. A murder trial, where the man whose life is in the balance stands before you in the dock during the long hours of a protracted hearing, becomes, as the case advances, absorbing, and even oppressive, in its interest. The very air of the crowded court seems charged with the message of this one human story; it is difficult, as the sordid and pitiable facts are gradually revealed, to conceive that there is any other drama than that which is being enacted within those four walls. And as the trial drags its course, with each new link in the evidence seeming to forge a chain that is gradually drawing closer around the wretched being who stands before you in the dock, the intensity of the situation becomes so great and so strained that one is almost tempted to believe that the whole world is awaiting that one word from the lips of the jury which shall set him free once more or send him to his doom.
I can recall many such trials during my brief service on the Northern circuit, and sometimes when the hearing outran the hours commonly allotted for the sittings of the court, and when judge and jury, by mutual consent, had agreed that the end should be reached before the end of the day, the inherent solemnity of the scene would receive an added sense of awe and terror as the fading daylight gradually deserted the building, and the creeping shadows half-shrouded the faces of the spectators eagerly and silently intent upon every word that fell from the judge in his summing-up—whose grave countenance, only partly illumined by the candles that had been set upon his desk, stood in dreadful contrast with that of the prisoner who confronted him with ashen face like that of a spectre in the darkness. And once I remember, when the fatal verdict had been given, and the judge had passed to the dread task of pronouncing sentence—a task never in my experience discharged without the signs of visible emotion—the terror of the scene was still further heightened as the prisoner, shrieking for mercy, held fast to the bar of the dock, and was only at last removed by force to the cells below.
Such memories count among the sadder experiences of circuit life, and were relieved by much else in the ordinary work of the day that leaves a happier recollection. I believe the circuit mess has now greatly fallen from its former estate; in my time it flourished exceedingly. At each of the great towns we kept a well-stocked cellar of our own, and it was the business of the junior to see that the members dining were kept well supplied with the wine of their choice. The increase of the Local Bar in many of the great centres has no doubt considerably changed all this—with some loss, as it must be, of the sense of good-fellowship which then bound us together. But at that time those nightly gatherings, at which nearly every member of the circuit dined, kept alive a kind of schoolboy feeling that infected the graver leaders no less than the Junior Bar. The dinner-hour brought with it always something of a festal spirit, and there were special occasions, such as grand nights, that were wholly given over to a frolic mood. We had our accredited Poet Laureate, poor Hugh Shield, who has now joined the majority, and whose duty it was to provide the fitting doggerel to be recited at the mess. Nor were these effusions too strictly judged, from a purely literary point of view, if they were sufficiently besprinkled with pungent personal references to such members as were deemed to afford fitting material for the exercise of the poet’s humour. Another of those who was a prodigal contributor to the humours of the evening was M‘Connell, who afterwards became judge of the Middlesex Sessions. And even the leader was not allowed to escape his contribution, although it was sometimes hinted that his lighter essays in prose and verse were supplied to him by some one of his friends whose professional services were not so fully employed.
Though the barrister’s calling did not long hold me in its service, I have always retained the keenest interest in the triumphs of its distinguished representatives. Perhaps of no other profession can it be so truly said that it is fitted to claim the undivided allegiance of the strongest character and the keenest intellect; possibly, for that reason it leaves the most indelible mark upon its followers. A great lawyer, in whatever arena he may be encountered, never quite divests himself of the habit of the law; just as there are some men who, by a natural academic inclination, remain always and obviously members of their University, no matter how far removed may be the ultimate field of their activity. But if a lawyer is always a lawyer, it is perhaps for that very reason that he is often such excellent company, and this, I think, applies especially to members of the Common Law Bar, who do not incur the same danger of becoming enmeshed in the enclosing net of legal subtleties. With them the study and knowledge of character becomes often a greater element of strength, than a profound knowledge of legal principles.