“I did, indeed, Mr. West,” replied Coleridge in his silkiest manner. “Very unfavourably; indeed, I regretted to feel compelled to make such strictures on the conduct of counsel.”
“I feel sure your lordship would, and it is with equal regret, and only because it is my duty to the prisoners and your lordship, that I must call your lordship’s attention to the case of the Queen against Holmes, reported in 1871 in the first volume of the Law Reports Crown Cases Reserved, at page 334. This case overruled the case of the Queen against Robinson, which doubtless your lordship remembers.”
“And what does the Queen against Holmes decide, Mr. West?”
“It decides that such witnesses cannot be called,”
said West, handing up the volume with a grave bow. “Your lordship will find that the Court of Crown Cases Reserved had exactly the same point before them, and overruled your lordship’s learned father for the same error that your lordship has fallen into this morning.”
Coleridge did not lose his head, but replied with a charming bow and a sweet smile, “I am much indebted to you, Mr. West.”
West bowed low, and the duel was over.
Coleridge had to send for the jury and tell them his mistake, which he did, of course, amply and thoroughly, and the men were acquitted.
To my thinking West was a valuable asset to Manchester citizens, and they should have accounted it a privilege to have the constant example of a righteous aristocrat before them, if only to remind them that the Manchester ideal of men and manners is not the only ideal in the world. In nothing did these two ideals clash with greater sound and fury than in relation to commission cases, many of which came before the Court of Record. The commission sought to be recovered in that court was generally about as mean and low a commercial transaction as could be well imagined. On the sale of the goodwill of a public-house or a business some tout would get hold of seller or buyer, and if he refused to be squeezed into paying a commission there would be a speculative action.
In one of these cases relating to a public-house I was addressing the jury, and our best point, I