An old woman in the witness-box had been rattling on in the most voluble manner, until it was impossible to make head or tail of her evidence. Mr. Justice Hawkins, thinking he would try his hand, began with a soothing question, but the old woman would not have it at any price. She replied testily, "It's no use you bothering me. I have told you all I know."—"That may be," replied his lordship, "but the question rather is, do you know all you have told us?"

When Sir Henry (then Mr.) Hawkins was prosecuting counsel in the Tichborne trial, over which Lord Chief Justice Cockburn presided, an amusing incident is recorded by Mr. Plowden. The antecedents of a man who had given sensational evidence for the claimant were being inquired into, and in answer to Sir Henry the witness under examination said he knew the man to be married, but his wife passed under another name. "What name?" asked Mr. Hawkins. "Mrs. Hawkins," replied the witness. "What was her maiden name?" added Mr. Hawkins. "Cockburn." Such a coincident of names naturally caused hearty and prolonged laughter.

In the course of this celebrated trial another amusing incident occurred which Sir Henry used to tell against himself. One morning as the claimant came into Court, a lady dressed in deep mourning presented Orton with a tract. After a few minutes he wrote something on it, and had it passed on to the prosecuting counsel. The tract was boldly headed in black type, "Sinner—Repent," and the claimant had written upon it, "Surely this must have been meant for Hawkins."

Not long after he had ascended the Bench Mr. Justice Hawkins was hearing a case in which a man was being tried for murder. The counsel for the prosecution observed the prisoner say something earnestly to the policeman seated by his side in the dock, and asked that the constable should be made to disclose what had passed. "Yes," said his lordship, "I think you may demand that. Constable, inform the Court what passed between you and the prisoner."—"I—I would rather not, your lordship. I was—."—"Never mind what you would rather not do. Inform the Court what the prisoner said."—"He asked me, your lordship, who that hoary heathen with the sheepskin was, as he had often seen him at the race-course."—"That will do," said his lordship. "Proceed with the case."

An action for damages against a fire insurance company, brought by some Jews, was heard before Chief Justice Cockburn, which clearly was a fraudulent claim. The plaintiffs claimed for loss of ready-made clothes in the fire. Hawkins, who appeared for the defendant company, elicited the fact that ready-made clothes in this firm had all brass buttons as a rule; and, further, that after sifting the debris of the fire no buttons had been found. The trial was not concluded on that day, but on the following morning hundreds of buttons partially burnt were brought into Court by the Jew plaintiffs. Cockburn was not long in appreciating this mode of furnishing evidence after its necessity had been pointed out, and he asked: "How do you account for these buttons, Mr. Hawkins? You said none were found."—"Up to last night none had been found," replied Hawkins. "But," said the Chief Justice—"but these buttons have evidently been burnt in the fire. How do they come here?"—"On their own shanks," was Hawkins' smart and ready reply. Verdict for defendants.

The alibi has come in for its fair share of jests. Sir Henry Hawkins relates in his Reminiscences how he once found the following in his brief: "If the case is called on before 3.15, the defence is left to the ingenuity of the counsel; if after that hour, the defence is an alibi, as by then the usual alibi witnesses will have returned from Norwich, where they are at present professionally engaged."

Sitting as a vacation judge, Sir Walter Phillimore, whose views on the law of divorce are well known, protested against being called on to make absolute a number of decrees nisi granted in the Divorce Division. This fact is said to have called forth a witty pronouncement by a late president of that Division of the Courts. "Here is my brother Phillimore, who objects to making decrees nisi absolute because he believes in the sanctity of the marriage tie. By and by we may be having a Unitarian appointed to the Bench, and he will refuse to try Admiralty suits, as he would have to sit with Trinity Masters."

In sentencing a burglar recently, the judge referred to him as a "professional," to which the prisoner strongly protested from the dock. "Here," he exclaimed, "I dunno wot you mean by callin' me a professional burglar. I've only done it once before, an' I've been nabbed both times." The judge, in the most suave manner, replied, "Oh, I did not mean to say that you had been very successful in your profession."

Hardly a case of any importance comes into Mr. Justice Darling's Court without attracting a large attendance of the public, as much from expectation of being entertained by the repartees between Bench and Bar as from interest in the proceedings before the Court. In a recent turf libel case his lordship gave a free rein to his proclivity to give an amusing turn to statements of both counsel and witnesses. At one point he intervened by remarking that other witnesses than the one under examination had said that a horse is made fit by running on the course before he is expected to win a position, and added, "That is so, not only on the race-course. You can never make a good lawyer by putting him to read in the library." To which the defendant, who conducted his own case, replied, "But I take it a barrister does try."—"You have no notion how he tries the judge," responded Mr. Justice Darling. In the same case a question arose as to whether the stewards of the Jockey Club had the power to check riding "short," as it is termed, and the Justice inquired if the stewards could say, "You must ride with a leather of a prescribed length," and got the answer, "Yes; they could say if you don't ride longer we won't give you a license."—"Which means," said the judge, "if you don't ride longer you won't ride long."

"Who made the translation from the German?" asked the same judge, regarding a document to which counsel had referred. "God knows; I don't," was the reply of Mr. Danckwerts. "Are you sure," responded the Justice, "that what is not known to you is known at all?"

Perhaps Mr. Justice Darling never raised heartier laughter than in an action some years ago where the issue was whether the plaintiff, who had been engaged by the defendant to sing in "potted opera" at a music-hall, was competent to fulfil his contract.

"Well, he could not sing like the archangel Gabriel," a witness had said, in reply to Mr. Duke, K. C.

"I have never heard the archangel Gabriel," commented the eminent counsel.

"That, Mr. Duke, is a pleasure to come," was his lordship's swift, if gently sarcastic, rejoinder.

If witnesses occasionally undergo severe handling in cross-examination by counsel, there are also occasions when their ready reply has rather nonplussed the judge.

A case was being tried at York before Mr. Justice Gould. When it had proceeded for upwards of two hours the judge observed that there were only eleven jurymen in the box, and inquired where the twelfth man was. "Please you, my lord," said one of them, "he has gone away about some business, but he has left his verdict with me."

"How old are you?" asked the judge of a lady witness. "Thirty."—"Thirty!" said the judge; "I have heard you give the same age in this Court for the last three years."—"Yes," responded the lady; "I am not one of those persons who say one thing to-day and another to-morrow."

Mr. Justice Keating one day had occasion to examine a witness who stuttered very much in giving his evidence. "I believe," said his lordship, "you are a very great rogue."—"Not so great a rogue as you, my lord—t—t—t—t—take me to be," was the reply.

Judge: "Is this your signature?"

Witness: "I don't know."

Judge: "Look at it carefully."

Witness: "I can't say for certain."

Judge: "Is it anything like your writing?"

Witness: "I don't think it is."

Judge: "Can't you identify it?"

Witness: "Not quite."

Judge: "Well, let me see, just write your name here and I will examine the two signatures."

Witness: "I can't write, sir."

Medical men are not as a rule the best witnesses, being too fond of using technical words peculiar to them in their own profession. In an action for assault tried by a Derbyshire common jury before Mr. Justice Patteson, a surgical witness was asked to describe the injuries the plaintiff had received; he stated he had "ecchymosis" of the left eye. Upon the judge inquiring whether that did not mean what was commonly understood by a black eye, the witness answered: "Yes."—"Then why did you not say so, sir? What do the jury know of 'ecchymosis'? They might think, as the farmer did of the word 'felicity,' used by a clergyman in his sermon, that it meant something in the inside of a pig."

A notorious thief, being tried for his life, confessed the robbery he was charged with. The judge thereupon directed the jury to find him guilty upon his own confession. The jury having consulted together brought him in "Not guilty." The judge bade them consider their verdict again, but still they brought in a verdict of "Not guilty." The judge asking the reason, the foreman replied: "There is reason enough, for we all know him to be one of the greatest liars in the country."

"Have you committed all these crimes?" asked the judge of a hoary old sinner. "Yes, my lord, and worse." "Worse, I should have thought it impossible. What have you done then?"—"My lord, I allowed myself to be caught."

"I knows yer," said a prisoner to the present Lord Chief Justice, "and many's the time I've given yer a hand when ye've been stepping it round the track like a greyhound. So let's down lightly, like a good cove as yer are."

The retort of a witness to Lord Avory was too good to be soon forgotten, and is still circulating among the juniors of the law-courts. "Let me see," said his lordship, "you have been convicted before, haven't you?"—"Yes, sir," answered the man; "but it was due to the incapacity of my counsel rather than to any fault on my part."—"It always is," said Lord Avory, with a grim smile, "and you have my sincere sympathy."—"And I deserve it," retorted the man, "seeing that you were my counsel on that occasion!"

CHAPTER TWO
THE BARRISTERS OF ENGLAND

CHAPTER TWO
THE BARRISTERS OF ENGLAND

From the middle of the thirteenth century the senior rank to which a barrister could attain at the Bar was that of serjeant-at-law, and from that body, which existed until 1875, the judges were selected. If a barrister below the rank of serjeant was invited to take a seat on the Bench he invariably conformed to the recognised custom and "took the coif"—became a serjeant-at-law—before he was sworn as one of his (or her) Majesty's judges. This explains the term "brother" applied by judges when addressing serjeants pleading before them in Court. "Taking the coif" had a curious origin. It was customary in very early times for the clergy to add to their clerical duties that of a legal practitioner, by which considerable fees were obtained, and when the Canon law forbade them engaging in all secular occupations the remuneration they had obtained from the law-courts proved too strong a temptation to evade the new law. They continued therefore to practise in the Courts, and to hide their clerical identity they concealed the tonsure by covering the upper part of their heads with a black cap or coif. When ultimately clerical barristers were driven from the law-courts, the "coif" or black patch on the crown of a barrister's wig became the symbol of the rank of serjeant-at-law. That this distinguishing mark has been, in later years, occasionally misunderstood is illustrated in the story of Serjeant Allen and Sir Henry Keating, Q.C., who were opposed to one another in a case before the Assize Court at Stafford. During the hearing of the case a violent altercation had taken place between them, but when the Court rose they left the building together, walking amicably to their lodgings. Two men who had been in Court and had heard their wrangle were following behind them, when one said to the other: "If you was in trouble, Bill, which o' them two tip-top 'uns would you have to defend you?"—"Well, Jim," was the reply, "I should pitch upon this 'un," pointing to the Q.C. "Then you'd be a fool," said his companion; "the fellow with the sore head is worth six of t'other 'un."

There used to be a student joke against the serjeants. "Why is a serjeant's speech like a tailor's goose?"—"Because it is hot and heavy."

"Taking silk," or becoming a K.C. and a senior at the Bar, originated at a much later date than that of serjeant-at-law. Lord Bacon was the first to be recognised as Queen's Counsel, but this distinction arose from his position as legal adviser to Queen Elizabeth, and did not indicate the existence of a senior body (as K.C. does now) among the barristers of that period. The institution of the rank dates from the days of Charles II, when Sir Francis North, Lord Guildford, was created King's Counsel by a writ issued under the Great Seal. As was customary in the case of a barrister proposing to "take the coif," so in that of one proposing to "take silk"; he intimates to the seniors already holding the rank that he intends to apply for admission to the body. A story is current in the Temple that when Mr. Justice Eve "took silk" the usual notification of his intention was sent to the seniors, and from one of them he received the following reply: "My dear Eve, whether you wear silk or a fig-leaf, I do not care.—A Dam."

Our selection of facetiæ of the English Bar, therefore, naturally opens with stories of the serjeants-at-law, and one of the best-known members of that body in early days was Serjeant Hill, a celebrated lawyer, who was also somewhat remarkable for absence of mind, which was attributed to the earnestness with which he devoted himself to his professional duties.

On the very day when he was married, he had an intricate case on hand, and forgot his engagement, until reminded of his waiting bride, and that the legal time for performing the ceremony had nearly elapsed. He then quitted law for the church; after the ceremony, the serjeant returned to his books and his papers, having forgotten the cause he had been engaged in during the morning, until again reminded by his clerk that the assembled company impatiently awaited his presence at dinner.

Being once on Circuit, and having occasion to refer to a law authority, he had recourse, as usual, to his bag; but, to the astonishment of the Court, instead of a volume of Viner's abridgment, he took out a specimen candlestick, the property of a Birmingham traveller, whose bag Serjeant Hill had brought into Court by mistake.

A learned serjeant kept the Court waiting one morning for a few minutes. The business of the Court commenced at nine. "Brother," said the judge, "you are behind your time this morning. The Court has been waiting for you."—"I beg your lordship's pardon," replied the serjeant; "I am afraid I was longer than usual in dressing."—"Oh," returned the judge, "I can dress in five minutes at any time."—"Indeed!" said the learned brother, a little surprised for the moment; "but in that my dog Shock beats your lordship hollow, for he has nothing to do but to shake his coat, and thinks himself fit for any company."

Serjeant Davy, when at the height of his professional career, once received a large brief on which a fee of two guineas only was marked on the back. His client asked him if he had read the brief. Pointing with his finger to the fee, Davy replied: "As far as that I have read, and for the life of me I can read no further." Of the same eminent serjeant in his earlier years an Old Baily story is told. Judge Gould, who presided, asked: "Who is concerned for the prisoner?"—"I am concerned for him, my lord," said Davy, "and very much concerned after what I have just heard."

If Serjeant Davy was concerned about his client, Serjeant Miller had no such scruple about the man charged with horse stealing whom he successfully defended, although the evidence convinced the judge and everybody in the Court that there ought to have been a conviction. When the trial was over and the prisoner had been acquitted, the judge said to him: "Prisoner, luckily for you, you have been found Not Guilty by the jury, but you know perfectly well you stole that horse. You may as well tell the truth, as no harm can happen to you now by a confession, for you cannot be tried again. Now tell me, did you not steal that horse?" "Well, my lord," replied the man, "I always thought I did, until I heard my counsel's speech, but now I begin to think I didn't."

In the days of "riding" and "driving circuit," and even later, the Circuit mess was a very popular institution with circuiteers, and was made the occasion of much merriment. After the table had been cleared a fictitious charge would be made against one of the barristers present, and a mock tribunal was immediately constituted before which he was arraigned and his case duly set forth with all solemnity. The victim was invariably fined—generally in wine, which had to be paid at once, and consumed before the company retired to bed. On one such occasion Serjeant Prime, who is represented as a good-natured but rather dull man, and as a barrister wearisome beyond comparison, was engaged in an important case in an over-crowded courtroom. He had been speaking for three hours, when a boy, seated on a beam above the heads of the audience, overcome by the heat and the serjeant's monotonous tones, fell asleep, and, losing his balance, tumbled down on the people below. The incident was made the subject of a charge against the serjeant at the mess, and he was duly sentenced to pay a fine of two dozen of wine, which he did with the greatest good humour.

Serjeant Wilkins, on one occasion, on defending a prisoner, said: "Drink has upon some an elevating, upon others a depressing, effect; indeed, there is a report, as we all know, that an eminent judge, when at the Bar, was obliged to resort to heavy drinking in the morning, to reduce himself to the level of the judges." Lord Denman, the judge, who had no love for Wilkins, bridled up instantly. His voice trembled with indignation as he uttered the words: "Where is the report, sir? Where is it?" There was a death-like silence. Wilkins calmly turned round to the judge and said: "It was burnt, my lord, in the Temple fire." The effect of this was considerable, and it was a long time before order could be restored, but Lord Denman was one of the first to acknowledge the wit of the answer.

Difference of manner or temperament sometimes gives point to the collisions which occasionally occur in Court between rival counsel. Serjeant Wilkins, who had an inflated style of oratory, was once opposed in a case to Serjeant Thomas, whose manner of delivery was lighter and more lively. On the conclusion of a heavy bombardment of ponderous Johnsonian sentences from the former, Thomas rose, and, with his eyes fixed on his opponent, prefaced his address to the jury with the words, delivered with much solemnity of manner and intonation: "And now the hurly-burly's done."

Dunning was defending a gentleman in an action brought from crim. con. with the plaintiff's wife. The chief witness for the plaintiff was the lady's maid, a clever, self-composed person, who spoke confidently as to seeing the defendant in bed with her mistress. Dunning, on rising to cross-examine her, first made her take off her bonnet, that they might have a good view of her face, but this did not discompose her, as she knew she was good-looking. He then arranged his brief, solemnly drew up his shirt sleeves, and then began: "Are you sure it was not your master you saw in bed with your mistress?"—"Perfectly sure."—"What, do you pretend to say you can be certain when the head only appeared from the bedclothes, and that enveloped in a nightcap?"—"Quite certain."—"You have often found occasion, then, to see your master in his nightcap?"—"Yes—very frequently."—"Now, young woman, I ask you, on your solemn oath, does not your master occasionally go to bed with you?"—"Oh, that trial does not come on to-day, Mr. Slabberchops!" replied the witness. A loud shout of laughter followed, and Lord Mansfield leaned back to enjoy it, and then gravely leaned forward and asked if Mr. Dunning had any more questions to put to the witness. No answer was given, and none were put. The same counsel, when at the height of his large practice at the Bar, was asked how he got through all his work. He replied: "I do one-third of it; another third does itself; and I don't do the remaining third."

A witness under severe cross-examination by Serjeant Dunning was repeatedly asked if he did not live close to the Court. On admitting that he did, the further question was put, "And pray, sir, for what reason did you take up your residence in that place?"—"To avoid the rascally impertinence of dunning," came the ready answer.

A barrister's name once gave a witness the opportunity to score in the course of a severe cross-examination. Missing was the leader of his Circuit and was defending his client charged with stealing a donkey. The prosecutor had left the donkey tied up to a gate, and when he returned it was gone. "Do you mean to say," said counsel, "the donkey was stolen from the gate?"—"I mean to say, sir," said the witness, giving the judge and then the jury a sly look, at the same time pointing to the counsel, "the ass was missing."

Mr. Clarke, a leader of the Midland Circuit, was a very worthy lawyer of the old school. A client long refusing to agree to refer to arbitration a cause which judge, jury, and counsel wished to get rid of, he at last said to him, "You d—d infernal fool, if you do not immediately follow his lordship's recommendation, I shall be obliged to use strong language to you." Once, in a council of the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn, the same gentleman very conscientiously opposed their calling a Jew to the Bar. Some tried to point out the hardship to be imposed upon the young gentleman, who had been allowed to keep his terms, and whose prospects in life would thus be suddenly blasted. "Hardship!" said the zealous churchman, "no hardship at all! Let him become a Christian, and be d—d to him!"

It is sometimes imagined by laymen that verdicts may be obtained by the trickery of counsel. Doubtless counsel may try to throw dust in the eyes of jurors, but they are not very successful. Lord Campbell tells a story of Clarke, who by such tactics brought a case to a satisfactory compromise. The attorney, coming to him privately, said, "Sir, don't you think we have got very good terms? But you rather went beyond my instructions."—"You fool!" retorted Clarke; "how do you suppose you could have got such terms if I had stuck to your instructions."

One night, walking through St. Giles's by way of a short cut towards home, an Irish woman came up to Mr. Adolphus. "Why, Misther Adolphus! and who'd a' thought of seeing you in the Holy Ground?"—"And how came you to know who I am?" said Adolphus. "Lord bless and save ye, sir! not know ye? Why, I'd know ye if ye was boiled up in a soup!"

Mr. Montagu Chambers was counsel for a widow who had been put in a lunatic asylum, and sued the two medical men who signed the certificate of her insanity. The plaintiff's case was to prove that she was not addicted to drinking, and that there was no pretence for treating hers as a case of delirium tremens. Dr. Tunstal, the last of plaintiff's witnesses, described one case in which he had cured a patient of delirium tremens in a single night, and he added, "It was a case of gradual drinking, sipping all day from morning till night." These words were scarcely uttered when Mr. Chambers rose in triumph, and said, "My lord, that is my case."

On the Northern Circuit a century ago, there was a famous barrister who was familiarly known among his brother advocates as Jack Lee. He was engaged in examining one Mary Pritchard, of Barnsley, and began his examination with, "Well, Mary, if I may credit what I hear, I may venture to address you by the name of Black Moll."—"Faith you may, mister lawyer, for I am always called so by the blackguards." On another occasion he was retained for the plaintiff in an action for breach of promise of marriage. When the consultation took place, he inquired whether the lady for whose injury he was to seek redress was good-looking. "Very handsome indeed, sir," was the assurance of her attorney. "Then, sir," replied Lee, "I beg you will request her to be in Court, and in a place where she can be seen." The attorney promised compliance, and the lady, in accordance with Lee's wishes, took her seat in a conspicuous place, where the jury could see her. Lee, in addressing the jury, did not fail to insist with great warmth on the "abominable cruelty" which had been exercised towards "the highly attractive and modest girl who trusted her cause to their discernment"; and did not sit down until he had succeeded in working upon their feelings with great and, as he thought, successful effect. The counsel on the other side, however, speedily broke the spell with which Lee had enchanted the jury, by observing that "his learned friend, in describing the graces and beauty of the plaintiff, ought in common fairness not to have concealed from the jury the fact that the lady had a wooden leg!" The Court was convulsed with laughter at this discovery, while Lee, who was ignorant of this circumstance, looked aghast; and the jury, ashamed of the influence that mere eloquence had had upon them, returned a verdict for the defendant.

Justice Willes, the son of Chief Justice Willes, had an offensive habit of interrupting counsel. On one occasion an old practitioner was so irritated by this practice that he retorted sharply by saying, "Your lordship doubtless shows greater acuteness even than your father, the Chief Justice, for he used to understand me after I had done, but your lordship understands me even before I have begun."

Of Whigham, a later leader on the Northern Circuit, an amusing story used to be told. He was defending a prisoner, and opened an alibi in his address to the jury, undertaking to prove it by calling the person who had been in bed with his client at the time in question, and deprecating their evil opinion of a woman whose moral character was clearly open to grave reproach, but who was still entitled to be believed upon her oath. Then he called "Jessie Crabtree." The name was, as usual, repeated by the crier, and there came pushing his way sturdily through the crowd a big Lancashire lad in his rough dress, who had been the prisoner's veritable bedfellow—Whigham's brief not having explained to him that the Christian name of his witness was, in this case, a male one.

Colman, in his Random Records, tells the following anecdote of the witty barrister, Mr. Jekyll. One day observing a squirrel in Colman's chambers, in the usual round cage, performing the same operation as a man in a tread-mill, and looking at it for a minute, exclaimed, "Oh! poor devil, he's going the Home Circuit."

Jekyll was asked why he no longer spoke to a lawyer named Peat; to which he replied, "I choose to give up his acquaintance—I have common of turbary, and have a right to cut peat!" An impromptu of his on a learned serjeant who was holding the Court of Common Pleas with his glittering eye, is well known:

Mr. H. L. Adam, in his volume The Story of Crime, tells an amusing story of a prisoner whose counsel had successfully obtained his acquittal on a charge of brutal assault. A policeman came across a man one night lying unconscious on the pavement, and near by him was an ordinary "bowler" hat. That was the only clue to the perpetrator of the deed. The police had their suspicions of a certain individual, whom they proceeded to interrogate. In addition to being unable to give a satisfactory account of his movements on the night of the assault, it was found that the "bowler" hat in question fitted him like a glove. He was accordingly arrested and charged with the crime, the hat being the chief evidence against him. Counsel for the defence, however, dwelt so impressively on the risk of accepting such evidence that the jury brought in a verdict of "not proven," and the prisoner was discharged. Before leaving the dock he turned to the judge, and pointing to the hat in Court, said, "My lord, may I 'ave my 'at."

Some amusing scenes have occurred in suits brought by tailors and dressmakers to recover the price of garments for which their customers have declined to pay on the ground of misfit. Serjeant Ballantine, in his Experiences of a Barrister, relates the case of a tailor in which the defendant was the famous Sir Edwin Landseer. It was tried in the Exchequer Court, before Baron Martin. "The coat was produced," says the serjeant, "and the judge suggested that Sir Edwin should try it on; he made a wry face, but consented, and took off his own upper garment. He then put an arm into one of the sleeves of that in dispute, and made an apparently ineffectual endeavour to reach the other, following it round amidst roars of laughter from all parts of the Court. It was a common jury, and I was told that there was a tailor upon it, upon which I suggested that there was a gentleman of the same profession as the plaintiff in Court who might assist Sir Edwin. This was acceded to, and out hopped a little Hebrew slop-seller from the Minories, to whom the defendant submitted his body. With difficulty he got into the coat, and then stood as if spitted, his back one mass of wrinkles. The tableau was truly amusing; the indignant plaintiff looking at the performance with mingled horror and disgust; Sir Edwin, as if he were choking; whilst the juryman, with the air of a connoisseur, was examining him and the coat with profound gravity. At last the judge, when able to stifle his laughter, addressing the little Hebrew, said, 'Well, Mr. Moses, what do you say?'—'Oh,' cried he, holding up a pair of hands not over clean, and very different from those encased in lavender gloves which graced the plaintiff, 'it ish poshitively shocking, my lord; I should have been ashamed to turn out such a thing from my establishment.' The rest of the jury accepted his view, and Sir Edwin, apparently relieved from suffocation, entered his own coat with a look of relief, which again convulsed the Court, bowed, and departed."

Financial prosecutions are as a rule very dreary, and any little joke perpetrated by counsel during the course of them is a relief. One was being heard, in which Mr. Muir was counsel, and to many of his statements the junior counsel for the prosecution shook his head vehemently, although he said nothing. This continual dumb contradiction at length got on the customary patience of Mr. Muir, who blurted out: "I do not know why my friend keeps shaking his head, whether it is that he has palsy, or that there's nothing in it!"

Mr. Baldwin was the counsel employed to oppose a person justifying bail in the Court of King's Bench. After some common questions, a waggish counsel sitting near suggested that the witness should be asked as to his having been a prisoner in Gloucester gaol. Mr. Baldwin thereon boldly asked: "When, sir, were you last in Gloucester gaol?" The witness, a respectable tradesman, with astonishment declared that he never was in a gaol in his life. Mr. Baldwin being foiled after putting the question in various ways, turned round to his friendly prompter, and asked for what the man had been imprisoned. He was told that it was for suicide. Thereupon Mr. Baldwin, with great gravity and solemnity addressed the witness: "Now, sir, I ask you upon your oath, and remember that I shall have your words taken down, were you not imprisoned in Gloucester gaol for suicide?"

A young lawyer who had just "taken the coif," once said to Samuel Warren, the author of Ten Thousand a Year: "Hah! Warren, I never could manage to get quite through that novel of yours. What did you do with Oily Gammon?"—"Oh," replied Warren, "I made a serjeant of him, and of course he never was heard of afterwards."

Warner Sleigh, a great thieves' counsel, was not debarred by etiquette from taking instructions direct from his clients. One day, following a rap on the door of his chambers in Middle Temple Lane, a thick-set man, with cropped poll of unmistakably Newgate cut, slunk into the room, when the following colloquy took place.

"Mornin', sir," said the man, touching his forelock. "Morning," replied counsel. "What do you want?"—"Well, sir, I'm sorry to say, sir, our little Ben, sir, has 'ad a misfortin'; fust offence, sir, only a 'wipe'—"—"Well, well!" interrupted counsel. "Get on."—"So, sir, we thought as you've 'ad all the family business we'd like you to defend 'im, sir."—"All right," said counsel; "see my clerk—."—"Yessir," continued the thief; "but I thought I'd like to make sure you'd attend yourself, sir; we're anxious, 'cos it's little Ben, our youngest kid."—"Oh! that will be all right. Give Simmons the fee."—"Well, sir," continued the man, shifting about uneasily, "I was going to arst you, sir, to take a little less. You see, sir (wheedlingly), it's little Ben—his first misfortin'."—"No, no," said the counsel impatiently. "Clear out!"—"But, sir, you've 'ad all our business. Well, sir, if you won't, you won't, so I'll pay you now, sir." And as he doled out the guineas: "I may as well tell you, sir, you wouldn't 'a' got the 'couties' if I 'adn't 'ad a little bit o' luck on the way."

The gravity of the Court of Appeal was once seriously disturbed by Edward Bullen reading to them the following paragraph from a pleading in an action for seduction: "The defendant denies that he is the father of the said twins, or of either of them." This he apologetically explained was due to an accident in his pupil-room, but everyone recognised the style of the master-hand.

Serjeant Adams, who acted as assistant judge at the sessions, had a very pleasant wit, and knew how to deal with any counsel who took to "high-falutin." On one occasion, after an altercation with the judge, the counsel for the prisoner in his address to the jury reminded them that "they were the great palladium of British Liberty—that it was their province to deal with the facts, the judge with the law—that they formed one of the great institutions of their country, and that they came in with William the Conqueror." Adams at the end of his summing up said: "Gentlemen, you will want to retire to consider your verdict, and as it seems you came in with the Conqueror you can now go out with the beadle."

There was always a mystery how Edwin James, who at the Bar was earning an income of at least £10,000 a year, was continually in monetary difficulties. Like Sir Thomas Lawrence, he must have had some private drain on his resources which was never disclosed. Among others who suffered was the landlord of his chambers, whose rent was very much in arrear. In the end the landlord hit upon a plan to discover which would be the best method of recovering his rent, and one day asked James to advise him on a legal matter in which he was interested, and thereupon drew up a statement of his grievance against his own tenant. The paper was duly returned to the landlord next day with the following sentence subjoined: "In my opinion this is a case which admits of only one remedy—patience. Edwin James."

In a case before Lord Campbell, James took a line with a witness which his lordship considered quite inadmissible, and stopped him. When summing up to the jury Lord Campbell thought to soften his interruption by saying: "You will have observed, gentlemen, that I felt it my duty to stop Mr. Edwin James in a certain line which he sought to adopt in the cross-examination of one of the witnesses; but at the same time I had no intention to cast any reflection on the learned counsel who I am sure is known to you all as a most able—" but before his lordship could proceed any further James interposed, and in a contemptuous voice exclaimed: "My lord, I have borne your lordship's censure, spare me your lordship's praise."

Mr. W. G. Thorpe, F.S.A., in his entertaining volume of Middle Temple Table Talk, relates a curious story of a judge taking an extremely personal interest in a case which was brought before him. A milk company had sold off a lot of old stock to a cake-maker, and the cake-maker had declined to pay because the milk had turned out to be poisonous. As the case went on the judge became more and more exercised. "What do they do with this stuff?" he asked, pointing to a mass of horrible mixture. "Oh, my lord, they make cakes of it; it doesn't taste in the cakes."—"Where do they sell these cakes?" was the judge's next question, and the reply was, "They are used for certain railway stations, school-treats, and excursions." Then the defendant specified one of the places. "Bless me!" said the judge, turning an olive-green, "I had some there myself," and with a shudder he retired to his private room, returning in a few minutes wiping his mouth.

There is another story of a counsel defending a woman on a charge of causing the death of her husband by administering a poisoned cake to him. "I'll eat some of the cake myself," he said in Court, and took a bite. Just at this moment a telegram was brought to him to say that his wife was seriously ill, and he obtained permission to leave in order to answer the message. He returned, finished his speech, and obtained the acquittal of his client. It transpired afterwards that the telegram business was arranged in order that counsel could obtain an emetic after swallowing the cake.

Mr. Montagu Williams tells a story, in his interesting Leaves of a Life, of two members of the Bar, one of whom had made a large fortune by his practice, but worked too hard to enjoy his gains, while the other, who only made a decent living, liked to enjoy life. They met on one occasion at the end of a long vacation, and the rich man asked his less fortunate brother what he had been doing. "I have been on the Continent," the other replied, "and I enjoyed my holiday very much. What have you been doing?"—"I have been working," said the rich Q.C., "and have not been out of town; I had lots of work to do."—"What is the use of it?" queried the other; "you can't carry the money with you when you die; and if you could, it would soon melt."

From the same work we take the following story of Serjeant Ballantine. On one occasion he was acting in a case with a Jewish solicitor, and it happened that one of the hostile witnesses also belonged to the same race. Just as the serjeant was about to examine him, the solicitor whispered in Ballantine's ear: "Ask him as your first question, if he isn't a Jew."—"Why, but you're a Jew yourself," said the serjeant in some surprise. "Never mind, never mind," replied the little solicitor eagerly. "Please do—just to prejudice the jury."