An urban County Court is a wholly different thing from the same institution in a country town. Here in Manchester we have to deal with a large number of bankruptcy cases, proceedings under special Acts of Parliament, cases remitted from the High Court, and litigation similar in character to, but smaller in importance than the ordinary civil list of an Assize Court. Cases such as these are contested in much the same way as they are in the High Court, counsel and solicitors appear—the latter having a right of audience in the County Court—and all things are done in legal decency and order. The litigants very seldom desire a jury, having perhaps the idea that a common judge is as a good tribunal as a common jury, whereas a special judge wants a common jury to find out the everyday facts of his case for him. I could never see why juries are divided into two classes, special and common, and judges are not. It is a fruitful idea for the legal reformer to follow out.
The practice in Manchester is to have special days for the bigger class of cases, and to try to give clear days for the smaller matters where most of the parties appear in person. The former are printed in red on the Court Calendar, and the latter in black, and locally the days are known as red-letter days and black-letter days. On a black-letter day counsel and solicitors indeed often appear—for it is a practical impossibility to sort out the cases into two exact classes—but the professions know that on a black-letter day they have no precedence, and very cheerfully acquiesce in the arrangement, since it is obvious that to the community at large it is at least as important that a working woman should be home in time to give her children their dinner as that a solicitor should return to his office or a barrister lunch at his club.
Let me try, then, to bring home to your mind what happens on a black-letter day.
We are early risers in Manchester, and the Court sits at ten. I used to get down to my Court about twenty minutes earlier, as on a black-letter day there are sure to be several letters from debtors who are unable to be at Court, and these are always addressed to me personally. Having disposed of the correspondence there is generally an “application in chambers” consisting of one or more widows whose compensation under the Workman’s Compensation Act remains in Court to be dealt with for their benefit. I am rather proud of the interest and industry the chief clerks of my Court have shown in the affairs of these poor women and children, and the general “liberty to apply” is largely made use of that I may discuss with the widows or the guardians of orphans plans for the maintenance and education of the children, and the best way to make the most of their money.
You would expect to find the Court buildings geographically in the centre of Manchester, but they are placed almost on the boundary. Turning out of Deansgate down Quay Street, which, as its name implies, leads towards the river Irwell, you come across a street with an historic name, Byrom Street. The name recalls to us the worthy Manchester doctor and the days when even Manchester was on the fringe of a world of romance, and John Byrom made his clever epigram:
God bless the King, I mean the faith’s defender,
God bless—no harm in blessing—the Pretender.
But who Pretender is, and who the King,
God bless us all—that’s quite another thing.
It is a far cry from Jacobites to judgment debtors, but it is a pleasant thought to know that one lives in an historic neighbourhood, even if the building you work in is not exactly fitted for the modern purpose for which it is used.