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

by Sir Edward Abbott Parry

The Pharisee within me was rampant, and I prepared to dress down the ex-mayor and make him play his best for only half-a-crown.

At 10.30 he was on the tee, and I walked out to meet him. He looked a short, thick-set, commonplace citizen with nothing of the gambler about him. But appearances are often deceitful. After a few words of greeting, I thought I would get to work, and said with some emphasis, “I will play you for half-a-crown, sir, and not a penny more.”

He looked up astounded, and gasped out, “I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Half-a-crown,” I repeated, and to ease his disappointment I added, “I don’t mind a shilling on the bye.”

“Sir!” he said, drawing himself up to what height he could and speaking with scornful dignity, “This is a very unseemly joke. I have never made a bet in my life, and I have a poor opinion, sir, of

anyone who wishes to make so fine a game as golf the subject of betting. I am president of our Anti-Gambling League.”

With that he drove off a fine drive, and I topped the ball feebly into the rough. From the club-house came the congratulatory laughter of many Publicans at the discomfiture of the Pharisee.

It would be wrong indeed if I were to picture Manchester as a city where the most eminent citizens were kill-joys, and where the men wore broad phylacteries in their buttonholes when they went on ‘Change. On the contrary, I speak of the Pharisees as merely a small but powerful element in the community. For in no city were there more men of the world who loved to do good with a merry heart and enjoy the give and take of hospitality with their comrades and brother sinners. Manchester men know how to work hard and play hard. They are early risers, early closers, and early diners. If you were a stranger wandering through the streets after 8 o’clock in the evening, you would think you were in a deserted city; but put your head into the Free Trade Hall, and it will be packed for a concert; ask for a seat in one of the popular music-halls or a cinematograph show, and you may not get one; you will even find people at the theatre—​quite a throng if it is a musical comedy—​such a varied taste has Manchester in entertainment.

But if you want a really delightful evening go and dine with one of the societies or clubs whose annual dinner is being held at one of Manchester’s best inns.

It may be the Statistical Society or the Playgoers Club or the Edinburgh Academicals, but it will not really matter. For whether it be statistics or drama or scholarship, I can promise you both fun and good fellowship. And I say this with honest certainty, that there never was a more hospitable place than Manchester, and there never were public dinners with less dulness and boredom about them. I don’t know that the after-dinner speaking was any better than it is in other places, but there was a jollity and abandon about it difficult to convey in writing, though pleasant enough to remember.