“I’m telling yer. Yer see we wor ’aving rabbit for supper, an’ my wife ’ad got a noo kettle, an’ we don’t ’ave rabbit every——”
“Oh, come, come,” I said impatiently, “just tell me about the rent.”
He looked at me rather contemptuously, and began again at the very beginning.
“I’m telling yer, if yer’ll only listen. We wor ’aving rabbit for supper, an’ my wife ’ad got a noo kettle, an’ we don’t ’ave rabbit every neet for supper, an’ my wife ’ad just put the kettle, the noo kettle——”
“Oh, never mind about the kettle, do please get to the rent,” I said, and was immediately sorry I had spoken.
“I’m getting to it, ain’t I?” he asked, rather angrily. “We wor ’aving rabbit for supper”—I groaned inwardly and resolved to sit it out without another word—“an’ my wife ’ad got a noo kettle, an’ we don’t ’ave rabbit every neet for supper, an’ my wife ’ad just put the kettle—the noo kettle with the rabbit—on to th’ fire, when down coom chimley an’ aw into middle o’ room. Was I going to pay rent for that week? Not laikely!”
It turned out that I was wholly in the wrong, and that the destruction of the rabbit was a kind of equitable plea in defence to the action for rent. When I am tempted now to burst in too soon upon an irrelevant story, I think of the rabbit and am patient. Of course all rabbit stories are not even equitable defences, but the diagnosis of what is purely domestic and dilatory and of what is apparently anecdotal but in reality relevant gives a distinct charm to one’s daily work.
One day of my life every month is given up to the trial of Yiddish cases. The Yiddisher is a litigious person, and his best friend would not describe him as a very accurate witness. One ought to remember, however, that he has not had generations of justice administered to him, that he is a child and beginner in a court of law, and that the idea of a judge listening to his story and deciding for him upon the evidence is, in some cases from personal experience and in all cases from hereditary instinct, an utterly unfamiliar thing. The fact, too, that he speaks Yiddish, or very broken English, and never answers a question except by asking another, always gives his evidence an indirect flavour. One strong point about a Yiddisher is his family affection, and he swears in tribes, so to speak. A Christian in a family dispute will too often swear anything against his brother, and is often wickedly reckless in his sworn aspersions. A Yiddisher, on the other hand, will swear anything for his brother, and most Yiddish evidence could be discounted by an accurate percentage according to the exact relationship by blood or marriage of the witness to the Plaintiff or Defendant.
It is needless to say a foreign-speaking race such as this gives one some anxiety and trouble in a small-debt court. One of my earliest Yiddish experiences was a case in which two Yiddishers each brought his own interpreter. A small scrap of paper cropped up in the case with some Hebrew writing on it. One interpreter swore it was a receipt, the other that it was an order for a new pair of boots. Without knowing anything of Hebrew, it occurred to me that these divergent readings were improbable. The case was adjourned. I applied to some of my friends on that excellent body, the Jewish Board of Guardians, a respectable interpreter was obtained, and the Hebrew document properly translated. There is now an official interpreter attached to the Manchester Court, and I think I can safely congratulate the Yiddish community on a distinct improvement in their education in the proper use of English law courts.