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

by Sir Edward Abbott Parry

CHAPTER VIII

JUDGES OF YESTERDAY

“You did, sir,” replied the judge with a severe frown. “How could I have got Daniel on my notes unless you told me so, sir?”

Dickens: “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club.”

Peter considered those bad bold ones who spoke evil of dignities were merely “presumptuous,” but I am on the side of Jude, who roundly assessed them to be “filthy dreamers.” Happily, to an Englishman, evil speaking of judges is impossible. Indeed, the English attitude of mind towards the Bench, if one can conceive the English mind capable of finding itself in an incorrect attitude, has a tendency towards idolatry. The infallibility of the Pope we smile at as a superstition, but the infallibility of the Court of Appeal is an article of faith upon which we issue execution, unless, of course, it is surpassed and overruled by the more infallible infallibility of the House of Lords. Only the will of the people and the great inquest of the nation can alter a decision of the House of Lords, unless there happens to be a Government in office with a will of its own and the capacity to act upon it—​and you never know what may occur some day. And really we so love and worship our judges that when we tell stories of

their quaint humours we do so much as a good Italian Catholic will scold his patron saint or tell some anecdote of the holy ones more lively than respectful. For we know that judges are only human, and we have seen many grow froward from age, their faculties become dim, their qualities rust, until at length they lose the one essential attribute of judicality, they are no longer able to suffer fools gladly, and the public and the Bar become uneasy of their continuance. And, on the other hand, what patience and loving-kindness are shown by the advocate towards the judge. No hours are too long, no time is misspent in preventing him from error, or leading him thereto, as the case may be. I love to hear that phrase trundled out with unblushing sycophancy, “Your lordship will remember the case of Crocks and the Wapping Corporation, in fourteen ‘Meeson and Welsby.’” Every one in court—​except perhaps some loafer in the gallery—​knows that his lordship never heard of the case before, and if he had would have forgotten it. Indeed, the learned Counsel himself only had it shoved into his hand an hour ago by little Smithson, who devils for him, and it was I who met the disconsolate little man in the Middle Temple Library and told him—​but that is outside the frame of the picture. You have the whole subject-matter set out in one phrase “Contempt of Court.” This is a feeling that must be closeted strictly within the heart—​otherwise seven days.

I remember an irate Scotch draper saying quite

seriously to me at the end of a case, “I have an utter contempt for this court.”

“My good man,” I said thankfully, “you have saved me from a most painful duty. Had you expressed a mere contempt of court I must have sent you to Knutsford Gaol, but an utter contempt seems to me to save you. But do not say it again, I may be wrong. Go outside as quickly as you can.”