Little Bits of London
II
“THE BEAR GARDEN”
THE authors of the guide-books have signally failed to discover the really interesting parts of Law-land. I have looked through several of these books and not one of them refers, for example, to the “Bear-Garden,” which is the place where the preliminary skirmishes of litigation are carried out. The Bear-Garden is the name given to it by the legal profession, so I am quite in order in using the title. In fact, if you want to get to it, you have to use that title. The proper title would be something like The Place where Masters in Chambers function at Half-past One: but if you go into the Law Courts and ask one of the attendants where that is, he will say, rather pityingly, “Do you mean theBear-Garden?” And you will know at once that you have lost caste. Caste is a thing you should be very careful of in these days; so the best thing isto ask for the Bear-Garden straightaway. It is in the purlieus of the Law Courts, and very hard to find. It is up a lot of very dingy back staircases and down a lot of very dingy passages. The Law Courts are like all our public buildings. The parts where the public is allowed to go are fairly respectable, if not beautiful, but the purlieus and the basements and the upper floors are scenes of unimaginable dinginess and decay. The Law Courts’ purlieus are worse than the Houses of Parliament purlieus; and it seems to me that even more disgraceful things are done in them. It only shows you the dangers of Nationalization.
On the way to the Bear-Garden you pass the King’s Remembrancer’s rooms; this is the man who reminds His Majesty about people’s birthdays; and in a large family like that he must be kept busy. Not far from the King’s Remembrancer there is a Commissioner for Oaths; you can go into this room and have a really good swear for about half a crown. This is cheaper than having it in the street—that is, if you are a gentleman; for by the Profane Oaths Act, 1745, swearing and cursing is punishable by a fine of 1s. for every day-labourer, soldier or seaman; 2s. for every other person under the degree of gentleman; and 5s. for every person far above the degree of gentleman. This is not generally known.The Commissioner for Oaths is a very broad-minded man, and there is literally no limit to what you may swear before him. The only thing is that he insists on your filing it before you actually say it. This may cause delay, so that if you are feeling particularly strongly about anything, it is probably better to have it out in the street and risk being taken for a gentleman.
There are a number of other interesting functionaries on the way to the Bear-Garden; but we must get on. When you have wandered about in the purlieus for a long time you will hear a tremendous noise, a sort of combined snarling and roaring and legal conversation. When you hear that you will know that you are very near the bears. They are all snarling and roaring in a large preliminary arena, where the bears prepare themselves for the struggle; all round it are smaller cages or arenæ, where the struggle takes place. If possible, you ought to go early so that you can watch the animals massing. Lawyers, as I have had occasion to observe before, are the most long-suffering profession in the country, and the things they do in the Bear-Garden they have to do in the luncheon-hour, or rather in the luncheon half-hour, 1.30 to 2. This accounts, perhaps, for the extreme frenzy of the proceedings. They hurry in in a frenzy up the back stairs about 1.25, andthey pace up and down in a frenzy till the time comes. There are all sorts of bears, most of them rather seedy old bears, with shaggy and unkempt coats. These are solicitors’ clerks, and they all come straight out of Dickens. They have shiny little private-school handbags, each inherited, no doubt, through a long line of ancestral solicitors’ clerks; and they all have the draggled sort of moustache that tells you when it is going to rain. While they are pacing up and down the arena they all try to get rid of these moustaches by pulling violently at alternate ends; but the only result is to make it look more like rain than ever. Some of the bears are robust old bears, with well-kept coats and loud roars; these are solicitors’ clerks too, only better-fed; or else they are real solicitors. And a few of the bears are perky young creatures—in barrister’s robes—either for the first time—when they look very self-conscious—or for the second time—when they look very self-confident. All the bears are telling each other about their cases. They are saying, “We are a deceased wife’s sister suingin forma pauperis,” or, I am a discharged bankrupt, three times convicted of perjury, but I am claiming damages under the Diseases of Pigs Act, 1862,” or “You are the crew of a merchant ship and we are the editor of a newspaper——” Just at first it is rather disturbing tohear snatches of conversation like that, but there is no real cause for alarm; they are only identifying themselves with the interests of their clients, and when one realizes that one is a little touched.
At last one of the keepers at the entrance to the small cages begins to shout very loudly. It is not at all clear what he is shouting, but apparently it is the pet-names of the bears, for there is a wild rush for the various cages. Attaching himself to this rush the observer is swept with a struggling mass of bears past the keeper into a cage. Across the middle of the cage a stout barricade has been erected, and behind the barricade sits the Master, pale but defiant. Masters in Chambers are barristers who have not the proper legal faces and have had to give up being ordinary barristers on that account; in the obscurity and excitement of the Bear-Garden nobody notices that their faces are all wrong. The two chief bears rush at the Master and the other bears jostle round them, egging them on. When they see that they cannot get at the Master they begin snarling. One of them snarls quietly out of a long document about the Statement of Claim. He throws a copy of this at the Master, and the Master tries to get the hang of it while the bear is snarling; but the other bear is by now beside himself With rage and he begins putting in what are called interlocutorysnarls, so that the Master gets terribly confused, though he doesn’t let on. By and by all pretence of formality and order is put aside, and the battle really begins. At this stage of the proceedings the rule is that not less than two of the protagonists must be roaring at the same time, of which one must be the Master. But the more general practice is for all three of them to roar at the same time. Sometimes, it is true, by sheer roar-power, the Master succeeds in silencing one of the bears for a moment, but he can never be said to succeed in cowing a bear. If anybody is cowed it is the Master. Meanwhile, the lesser bears press closer and closer, pulling at the damp ends of their rainy moustaches and making whispered suggestions for new devilries in the ears of the chief bears, who nod their heads emphatically, but don’t pay any attention. The final stage is the stage of physical violence, when the chief bears lean over the barricade and shake their paws at the Master; they think they are only making legal gestures, but the Master knows very well that they are getting out of hand; he knows then that it is time he threw them a bun. So he says a soothing word to each of them and runs his pen savagely through almost everything on their papers. The bears growl in stupefaction and rage, and take deep breaths to begin again. But meanwhilethe keeper has shouted for a fresh set of bears, who surge wildly into the room. The old bears are swept aside and creep out, grunting. What the result of it all is I don’t know. Nobody knows. The new bears begin snarling....