‘GRAND DAY.’
To the majority of people, the surroundings of the legal profession, to say nothing of the law itself, are subjects fraught with no inconsiderable amount of the mysterious. For instance, what a variety of conceptions have been formed by the uninitiated with respect to one ceremony alone connected with the ‘upper branch’ of the legal profession; we mean that known as ‘Call to the Bar.’ The very expression itself has often proved a puzzle to the lay outsider, and perhaps not unnaturally, because there can be no doubt that it is one of those out-of-the-way phrases the signification of which sets anything like mere conjecture on that point at defiance. There is a hazy notion abroad that ‘Call to the Bar’ involves proceedings of a somewhat imposing character, especially as there is just a smack of the grandiloquent about the term. Accordingly, it may be disappointing to many persons to learn that, in the first place, there is no ‘calling’ at all connected with the ceremony, except the calling over the names of the gentlemen who present themselves for admission to the profession known as the Bar. And in the next place, it may be a little surprising to learn that there is no semblance even of a ‘bar’ of any description employed in the performance of the ceremony alluded to.
Again, people appear to have a somewhat indistinct notion about legal festivities, the traditional fun of a circuit mess, the precise share which ‘eating dinners’ has in qualifying a student for the Bar, and so forth. Often, too, they wonder how it is that men addicted to such grave pursuits as those followed by the working members of the Bar, are so much given to mirth and jollity and costly festivity. The answer to this is that, just in proportion to the mental tension superinduced by the demands of their calling, is the recoil of their minds in an exactly opposite direction after that tension.
Well, then, assuming that barristers are not only a learned and laborious but also at suitable times a convivial body of men, we will endeavour to describe the proceedings in the Hall of an Inn of Court on the evening of a day when barristerial conviviality is supposed to reach its culminating point—namely, on what is termed ‘Grand Day.’
We may observe that during each of the four legal terms or sittings there is one Grand Day, but the Grand Day of Trinity Term is the grandest of them all, and is accordingly styled ‘Great Grand Day.’ Also, that these days are observed in each of the four Inns of Court—namely, the Inner and Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and Gray’s Inn. For present purposes, however, we shall suppose our Grand Day to be in Trinity Term, and at an Inn which we shall for certain proper reasons call Mansfield’s Inn.
It is a glorious summer evening, and as we approach our noble old Hall, we soon perceive that something ‘out of the common’ is going on. There is the crimson cloth laid down for the noble and distinguished guests who are always invited on these occasions; and near the entrance there is a little knot of spectators of all kinds, from the elderly respectable gentleman down to the shoeless ‘arab’ from the streets. The carriages are beginning to arrive; and the sooner we are inside the Hall the better. But there is something to be done before we get thither. We must first enter one of the anterooms. Here there is a great crush owing to the invariable preliminary to every dinner in Hall—the ‘robing,’ as it is called; for benchers, barristers, and students all dine in gowns. There are two men now busily engaged at this work of robing, selecting from a great black mountain of gown-stuff the attire suited to each member. On they go, asking all the time the question, ‘Barrister or student, sir?’ of those with whom they are unacquainted, until the last man is served. But who is that portly looking personage, wearing a gorgeous scarlet gown, who ever and anon appears on the scene and gives directions? Nonsense! Did you say the head-porter? Certainly; and he is so called, after the lucus a non lucendo fashion, because he is never employed to carry anything except perhaps letters and messages. In like manner the women called ‘laundresses’ who attend to the chambers in the Inns of Court, are so termed because they never wash anything at all, which in some instances is but too painfully true. But the ‘head-porter’ is carrying something this evening, in the shape of an enormous baton with a silver knob big enough to produce five pounds-worth of shillings. Then there is another important-looking gentleman, of graver and more anxious demeanour, wearing a black gown, who seems to be the life and soul of the preparations generally, and who moves about with such alacrity as to suggest an approach to the ubiquitous. This individual is the head-butler, and of course his position is one of serious responsibility, especially on the present occasion.
Being now robed, we enter the Hall. What a babel of tongues is here also! ‘Have you got a mess?’ is the question asked by friend of friend. (An Inn of Court mess consists of four persons, the first of whom is called the ‘Captain.’) ‘Come and join our mess,’ says another. ‘I have a capital place up here,’ shouts a joyous young student. ‘Oh, but you’ll be turned down,’ replies his friend, with a slightly consequential air; and we see that the latter, by his sleeved and otherwise more flowing robe, is a barrister, although as juvenile as his hopeful friend; hence the tone of importance.
‘We sit by seniority on Grand Day,’ our learned young friend goes on to state, and languidly falls into a seat.
‘When were you called, sir?’ says a voice to the languid but consequential one. The voice proceeds from a form which might easily be that of the other’s father, if not grandfather; but the question is put pro formâ.