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

by Sir Edward Abbott Parry

And it is because the bulk of the people who come before the Court are so bewildered by the forms and ceremonies of litigation, and so rarely do themselves justice in the examination and cross-examinations as at present conducted, that I want to see all this replaced for small affairs by some simpler and more domestic procedure. We should lose some of the comedy, no doubt, if we had our Courts of Conciliation and the judge were to try to make peace instead of giving a legal verdict in matters where there is very little right and plenty of wrong on both sides, but we should gain greatly in utility. And if anyone is in doubt whether there is room for such a court, let him go down to Quay Street for himself and verify these quotations.

CHAPTER XVIII

DEALING IN FUTURES

Do I sleep? do I dream?

Do I wonder and doubt?

Are things what they seem?

Or is visions about?

Is our civilisation a failure?

Or is the Caucasian played out?