What the Judge Saw: Being Twenty-Five Years in Manchester by One Who Has Done It

by Sir Edward Abbott Parry

I had a real reverence for Parnell, but to undertakers

and journalists death is indeed the reaper, and the poor gleaners cannot be blamed that they are thankful when the season brings them their only harvest. In truth I never wrote with greater sense of responsibility nor with a more eager desire that every word and sound should toll the message of his life into the hearts of my readers. Heaven knows how far I succeeded. It was enough for me that Spencer nodded approval. And to the quiet homage for the statesman that most of us have to-day there comes into my heart a thrill of grateful emotion whenever I hear the name of Parnell.

I wrote those Sunday Chronicle articles for some time, but it was a worrying task, and my work at the Bar began to creep into the overtime, and ultimately, like Aaron’s rod, swallowed up all other pursuits. But I look back to the task with pleasure, because it enabled me to write an article to the glory of Charles Hopwood and his policy, and I still possess a faded letter, full of hope for the future and thanks for the help that had been given to the cause he had so much at heart. Of course, I had known Hopwood as a leader on circuit for some years, but after the Chronicle article he began to talk to me about his various views and plans of reform in a way that was deeply interesting.

And to go back to my earliest recollection of Hopwood I must go back to when I first joined the circuit, and recount an early journey to Lancaster Assizes with Falkner Blair. He had been retained to defend a wretched man who, in a fit of

despair, had taken the lives of his three children. It was a very sad case, and the only line of defence was insanity. When the train stopped at Wigan a gentleman got into our carriage for a smoke. He got into conversation with Blair, and hearing of the murder case expressed his desire to attend the trial. He turned out to be the Reverend E. Burnaby, a brother of the celebrated Captain Burnaby, hero of the “Ride to Khiva,” and we invited him to join us at Bar mess. He was on his way to the Lake District, but his interest in trials made him gladly accept our invitation, and we appointed him a sort of honorary chaplain to the mess during the three or four days he was with us.

That chance meeting saved the life of Blair’s client. Blair made an eloquent speech in defence of the murderer, but the medical evidence was conflicting, and Mr. Justice Cave did not sum up for a verdict of insanity. He left the matter to the mercies of the jury, who could not see far beyond the horrible fact and circumstances, and without long consideration brought in a verdict of guilty. Burnaby was strongly convinced that the man was insane, and expressed his intention of moving for a reprieve. The means of the man’s friends had been exhausted in preparing the defence, and had it not been for Burnaby’s energy nothing would have been done. Burnaby started a local petition, and later on, followed the circuit to Manchester, where he interviewed Cave, and there he met Hopwood. Hopwood made a most careful inquiry

into the facts of the case, and having satisfied himself that it was a case for the interference of the Home Office, assisted Burnaby with his counsel. Under his direction the matter was carried to a successful issue. A further examination of the prisoner was made, and he was pronounced to be insane, and sent to Broadmoor.

This was my first experience of Hopwood, and as I grew to know him better I came to the conclusion that not only was he a very kind-hearted and merciful man, but he was also one of the wisest and most sensible of judges in a criminal court that I ever appeared before. People were very apt in those days to look upon him as a visionary and enthusiast, but the fact is the administrators of the criminal law in all its harshness were the real visionaries, for they kept their eyes straining after a set of affairs fast passing away instead of keeping a brave, healthy outlook on the actual facts before them.

Nowadays, with our Criminal Court of Appeal and our humaner rendering of the criminal code, it is difficult to understand what horrible things were done twenty-five years ago. But by no means let us believe that the judges who did these things were themselves cruel and harsh. It is so difficult when you have grown up with a system to see that there is anything fundamentally wrong in it. It seems so dangerous to reform or to alter existing laws that have apparently worked so well for years. I do not think the judges who sentenced young men and

women to be hanged for theft, nor the later judges who transported hundreds of small offenders to the Antipodes, were cruel men. Certainly I know that some of those judges who were harshest in their sentences in the earlier eighties were kind-hearted gentlemen in action and sentiment. They believed in the system. They thought it was a good and just system. It was Charles Hopwood, with his deeper insight, who showed them they were wrong.