I knew a great many men connected with the Turf, from the highest to the humblest; but although I have spent the most agreeable hours amongst them, there is little which, if written, would afford amusement: everything in a story, a repartee, or a joke depends, like a jewel, on its setting. At Lord Falmouth's, my old and esteemed friend, I have spent many jovial and happy hours. He was one of the most amiable of hosts, and of a boundless hospitality; ran many distinguished horses, and won many big races. I used to drive with him to see his horses at exercise before breakfast, and in his company visited some of the most celebrated men of the day, who were also amongst the most distinguished of the Turf. Amongst these was Prince B——, whose fate was the saddest of all my reminiscences of the Turf. I almost witnessed his death, for it took place nearly at the moment of my taking leave of him at the Jockey Club. There was a flight of stairs from where I stood with him, leading down to the luncheon-room, and there he appears to have slipped and fallen.
I don't know that it was in consequence of this accident, or whether it had anything to do with it, but I seemed after this sad event to have practically broken my connection with the Turf, and yet perhaps I was more intimately attached to it than ever, for Lord Rosebery asked me (I being an honorary member of the Jockey Club) whether there was any reason, so far as my judicial position was concerned, why I should not be elected afull member. I said there was none. So his lordship proposed me, and I was elected.
The only privilege I acquired by "full membership" was that I had to pay ten guineas a year subscription instead of nothing. I almost regularly had the honour of being invited, with other members of the club, to the entertainment given by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales on the Derby night—a festivity continued since his Majesty's accession to the throne. Nor shall I forget the several occasions on which I have had the honour to be the guest of his gracious Majesty at Sandringham; and I mention them here to record my respectful gratitude for the kindness and hospitality of their Majesties the King and Queen whenever it has been my good fortune to be invited.
Speaking, however, of racing men, I have always thought that the passion for gambling is one of the strongest propensities of our nature, and once the mind is given to it there is no restraint possible, either from law or pulpit. Its fascination never slackens, and time never blunts the keen desire of self-gratification which it engenders, while the grip with which it fastens upon us is as fast in old age as in youth. It will absorb all other pleasures and pastimes. I will give an instance of what I mean. There was a well-known bookmaker of my acquaintance whose whole mind was devoted to this passion; his lifetime was a gamble; everything seemed to be created to make a bet upon. Do what he would, go where he would, his thoughts were upon horse-racing.
I was staying with Charley Carew, the owner and occupier of Beddington Park, with a small party of guests invited for shooting. One morning there was to be a rabbit-killing expedition, and after a pretty good morning's walk, I had a rest, and then leisurely went along towards the trysting-place for lunch. It was a large oak tree, and as I came up there was Hodgman, the bookie, who did not see me, walking round the rabbits, which lay in rows, counting them, and muttering, "Two—four—twenty," and so on up to a hundred. He then paused, and after a while soliloquized, "Ah! fancy a hundred! One hundreddead uns! What would I give for such a lot for the Chester Cup!"
His mind was not with the rabbits except in connection with his betting-book on the Chester Cup. He was by no means singular except in the manner of showing his propensity. The devotees of "Bridge" are all Hodgmans in their way.
At the Benchers' table I was speaking of Clarkson in reference to the Old Bailey. He had been with me in consultation in a very bad case. We had not the ghost of a chance of winning it, and indicated our opinion to that effect to the unhappy client.
He turned from us with a sad look, as if desperation had seized him, and then, with tears in his eyes, asked Clarkson if he thought it advisable for him tosurrenderand take his trial.
"My good man," said Clarkson, "it is my duty as a loyal subject to advise you to surrender and take your trial,but, if I were in your shoes, I'll be damned if I would!"
The man, however, for some reason or other,didsurrender like a good citizen, and the man who did not appear was his own leading counsel Clarkson. He never even looked in, and the conduct of the case, therefore, devolved on me. I did my best for him, however, and succeeded. The man was acquitted.
Not content with this piece of good fortune, for such indeed it was, he was ill-advised enough to bring an action formalicious prosecution. Lord Denman tried it, and told him it was a most impudent action, and he was astonished that he was not convicted.
During this conversation another, of no little importance, took place, and Lord Westbury is reported to have said,—
"I did not assert that the House of Lords had abolished hell with costs, although I have no doubt that the large majority would gladly assent to any such decree—all, in fact, except the Bishops."
As I never listen to after-dinner theology, I forbear comment on this subject; but before this time there had been a curious action brought by a churchwarden against his vicar for refusing to administer the Sacrament to him, on the ground that he did not believe in the personality of the devil. After the decisions in the courts below, it was finally determined by the House of Lords that the vicar was wrong. Hence it was that Westbury was reported to have said that the House of Lords had abolished hell with costs. "What I did say," said Westbury, "was that the poor churchwarden who did not at one time believe in the personality of the devil returned to the true orthodox Christian faith when he received his attorney's bill."
Turning to me, his lordship said,—
"My dear Hawkins, you shall write your reminiscences, and, what is more, they shall be printed in good type, and, what is more, the first copy shall be directed to me."
And so it should be, if I only knew his address.
I come now to a small event which occurred during my judgeship, and which I call my little mouse story.
I was presiding at the Old Bailey Sessions, and a case came before me of a prisoner who was undergoing a term of two years' imprisonment with hard labour for some offence against the Post Office.
The charge against him on the present occasion was attempting to murder or do grievous bodily harm to a prison warder. This officer was on duty in the prisoner's cell when the assault took place.
The facts relied on by the Crown were simple enough. The warder had gone into the cell to take the man's dinner, when suddenly the prisoner seized the knife brought for his use, and made a rush at the warder with it in his hand, at the same time uttering threats and imprecations.
Believing his life to be in danger, the warder ran to the door and got outside into the adjoining corridor, pulling the cell door to after him and closing it.
He had no sooner escaped than the prisoner struck a violent blow in the direction the warder had gone, but the door being closed, it fell harmlessly enough. It left such a mark, however, that no doubt could be entertained as to the violence with which it was delivered and the probable result had it reached the warder himself.
Thus presented, the case looked serious. Mr. Montagu Williams, who was counsel for the Crown, felt it to be, as it undoubtedly was, his duty in common fairness to present not only the bare facts necessary for his own case, but also those which might be relied upon by the prisoner as his defence, or at all events in mitigation of punishment. In performing this duty, he elicited from his witness a very touching little history of the origin and cause of the crime. It was this:—
A poor little mouse had, somehow or other, managed to get inside the prisoner's cell; and one day, while the unhappy man was eating his prison fare, he saw the mouse running timidly along the floor. At last it came to a few crumbs of bread which the prisoner had purposely spread, and ran away with one of them into its hiding-place. The next day it came again, and found more crumbs; and so on from day to day, the prisoner relieving the irksomeness and the weary solitude of his confinement by tempting it to trust him, and become his one companion and friend, till at last it became so tame that it formed a little nest, and made its home in the sleeve of the prisoner's jail clothes. During the long hours of the dreary day it was his companion and pet; played with him, fed with him, and mitigated his solitude. It even slept with him at night.
All this was, of course, against the prison rules. But the mouse had no reason to obey them.
One unhappy day a warder came into the cell, when the poor mouse peeped out from his tiny hiding-place, and the officer, I presume, as a matter of duty, seized the little intruder on the spot and captured it.
God help the world if every one did his strict duty in it! But—what to the prisoner seemed inexcusable barbarity—he killed the poor little mouse in the sight of the unhappy man whose friend and companion it had been.
This infuriated him to such an extent that, having the dinner-knife in his hand—the knife which would have assisted at the mouse's banquet as well as his own—he rushed at the warder, who fortunately escaped through the open door of the cell, the prisoner striking the knife into the door.
In the result the prisoner was indicted on the charge of attempting to murder the warder. The defence was that, as murder in the circumstances was impossible,the attempt could not be established, and on the authority of a case (which has, however, since been overruled) I felt bound to direct an acquittal; and I confessI was not sorryto come to that conclusion, for it would have been a sad thing had the prisoner been convicted of an offence committed in a moment of such great and not unnatural excitement, and one for which penal servitude must have been awarded.
The poor fellow had suffered enough without additional punishment. I can conceive nothing more keen than the torture of returning to his cell to grieve for the little friend which could never come to him again.
Life, alas! must have its sad stories as well as its mirthful. I have told few of the former, not because they have not been present to my mind, but because I think it useless to perpetuate them by narration. But for its occasional gleams of humour, life would indeed be dull, and ever eclipsed by the shadow of sorrow.
One of the stories the Chief Baron told me is as indelibly fixed on my memory as it was on his. Lord Campbell had been so long and so prominently before the country that his death would be a theme of conversation in the world of literature, science, law, and fashion. But it was not his death that impressed me; it was the incidents that immediately attended it.
"His lordship"—thus was the event related—"had been entertaining a party at dinner, and amongst them was his brother-in-law, Colonel Scarlett. In its incidents the dinner had been as lively and agreeable as those events in social and refined life usually are. Scarlett had an important engagement with Campbell in the city on the following Monday, this being Saturday night. As he rose to go Scarlett wished his host good-night with a hearty shake-hands.
"'Good-night—good-night; we shall meet again on Monday.'"
Alas! Campbell died that night suddenly, and by a singular interposition of Providence, Scarlett died suddenly the next day, Sunday. They met no more in this world.
* * * * *
In the course of my life I have suffered, like many others, from nameless afflictions—nameless because they do not exist. No one can localize this strange infirmity or realize it. You only know you have a sensation of depression. In every other respect I was perfectly well, yet I thought it was necessary to see a doctor. So it was, if I wished to be ill.
Being in this unhappy condition, I consulted Sir James Paget, then in the zenith of his fame.
It did not take him very long to test me. I think he did it with a smile, for I felt a good deal better after it.
"Just tell me," said he, "do you ever drink any water?"
"Now it's coming," I thought; "he's going to knock me off my wine." I thought, however, I would be equal to the occasion, and said,—
"I know what you are driving at: you want to know if I ever mix a little water in my wine."
"No, no, I don't," said he; "you are quite wrong, for if your water is good and your wine bad, you spoil your water; and if your wine is good and your water bad, you spoil your wine."
I took his advice—which was certainly worth the fee—and never mixed my wine with water after that, although I have some doubt as to whether I had ever done so before.
I came away in good heart, because I was so delighted that there was not a vestige of anything the matter with me.
With a view to enable me to give each case due consideration before fixing the poor wretch's doom after conviction, I invariably ordered the prisoner to stand down until all were tried.
I then spent a night in going through my notes in each case, so that if there were any circumstances that I could lay hold of by way of mitigation of the sentence, I did so.
I do not mean to say that I did this in trifling cases, such as a magistrate could dispose of, but in all cases of magnitude possibly involving penal servitude.
Once, however, I had made up my mind as to what was, in accordance with my judgment, the sentence to be passed, I took care never to alter it upon any plea in mitigation whatever.
For this line of conduct I had the example of Sir Thomas Wilde, when, as Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, he travelled the Home Circuit. He was a marvellous and powerful judge in dealing with the facts of a case. He had tried a prisoner for larceny in stealing from a house a sack of peas. The prisoner's counsel had made for him a very poor and absurd defence, in which, over and over again, he had reiterated that one pea was very like another pea, and that he would be a bold man who would swear to the identity of two peas.
This miserable defence made the Lord Chief Justice angry, and he summed up the case tersely but crushingly to this effect: "Gentlemen, you have been told by the learned counsel very truly that one pea is very like another pea, and if the only evidence in this case had been that one pea had been taken from the house of the prosecutor, and a similar pea had been found in the prisoners house, I for one should have said it would have been insufficient evidence to justify the accusation that the prisoner had taken it.
"But such arenotthe facts of this case; and when you find, as was the fact here, that on March 30 a sack appears in a particular place, marked with the prosecutor's initials, safe in his house at night, where it ought to have been but was not, on the morning of the 31st; and when you find that on that morning a sack of peas of precisely similar character was in the house of the prisoner in a precisely similar sack behind the door, the question very naturally arises,How camethose peas in that man's house? He says he found them; do you believe him? Did it ever occur to you, gentlemen, to find a similar sack of peas in the dead of the night on any road on which you chanced to be travelling?
"The prosecutor says the prisoner stole them, and that is the questionI ask you to answer. Did he or not, in your opinion, steal them?"
I need not say what the verdict was. The man wasput back for sentence. That is the point I am upon.
On the following morning the Lord Chief Justice, still a bit angry with the prisoner's counsel for the miserable imposture he had attempted upon the jury, said,—
"God forbid, prisoner at the bar, that the defence attempted by your counsel yesterday should aggravate the punishment which I am about to inflict upon you; and with a view to dispel from my mind all that was then urged on your behalf, I have taken the night to consider what sentence I ought to pronounce."
Having said thus much about the speech for the defence, he gave a very moderate sentence of two or three months' imprisonment. Every sentence that this Chief Justice passed had been well thought out and considered, and was the result of anxious deliberation—that is to say, in the serious cases that demanded it. Of course, I do not claim for my adopted system an infallibility which belongs to no human device, but only that during some years, by patiently following it, I was enabled the better to determine how I could combine justice with leniency.
I have been often questioned in an indirect manner as to the amount of my income and the number of my briefs. I do not mean by the Income Tax Commissioners, but by private "authorities." I was oftentoldhow much I must be making. Sometimes it was said, "Oh, the Associates' Office verdict books show this and that." "Why, Hawkins, you must be making thirty thousand a year if you are making a penny. What a hard-working man you are! Howdoyou manage to get through it?"
Well, I had no answer. It is a curious inquisitiveness which it would do no one any good to gratify. I did not think it necessary to the happiness of my friends that they should know, and if it would affordmeany satisfaction, it was far better that they should name the amount than I. They could exaggerate it; I had no wish to do so. It is true enough in common language I worked hard, but working by system made it easy. Slovenly work is always hard work; you never get through it satisfactorily. It was by working easily that I got through so much. "Never fret" and "toujours pret" were my mottoes, as I told the chaplain; I hope he remembers them to this day. If they would not help him to a bishopric, nothing would. But I will say seriously that nothing is so great a help in our daily struggles asgood temper, and with that observation I leave my friends still to wonder how I got through so much.
Judges often talk over their experiences at the Bar. Sometimes I talked of mine, and on one occasion told the following curious incident in my long career.
I mention this circumstance as a curiosity only so far as the incident is concerned, but as more than a curiosity so far as the legality of evading the substance of the law by a technicality is concerned.
All men are not privileged to cross-examine royalty, and especially future emperors.
On July 1, 1847, which was not very long after my call to the Bar, Prince Louis Napoleon, who afterwards became Emperor of the French, was residing in England.
Of course, in looking back upon a man who afterwards became an Emperor, the proportions seem to have altered, and he looks greater than his figure actually was. He is more important in one's eyes, and therefore from this point of view the event seems to be of greater magnitude than the mere police-court business that it was. When a man becomes great, the smallest details of his career increase in value and importance.
The Prince had given a man of the name of Charles Pollard into custody for stealing and obtaining by fraud two bills of exchange for £1,000 each.
I was instructed by one Saul (not of Tarsus) to defend, and old Saul thought it would be judicious to cross-examine the Prince into a cocked hat, little dreaming what kind of a cocked hat our opponent would one day wear.
But Saul, not content with this ordinary drum-beating kind of Old Bailey performance, in which there is much more alarm than harm, instructed me to make a few inquiries as to the Prince's private life, and soshow him upin public. Saul loved that kind of persecution. To him the witness-box was a pillory, notwithstanding there was more mud attaching to the throwers than to the mere object of their attention.
Young as I was in my profession, I had sense enough to know that to dip into a prosecutor's private history, and the history of his father and grandfather, and a succession of grandmothers and aunts, was hardly the way to show that the prisoner had not stolen that gentleman's property, but was a good way to prevent the Prince from recommending him to mercy.
I therefore, in my simplicity, asked old Saul what the uncle of the Prince and his voyage in theBellerophon, etc., had to do with this man's stealing these two bills of exchange.
"Never mind, Mr. Hawkins, you do it; it has a great deal to do with it."
However, I made up my own mind as to the course I should pursue, and having carefully read my "instructions," found that the man had been unjustly accused by this Napoleon—there never was a man so trampled on—and every word of the whole accusation was false.Sodid some solicitors instruct young counsel in those days.
I started my business of cross-examination, accordingly, with a few tentative questions, testing whether the ice would bear before I took the other foot off dry land. It did not seem to be very strong, I thought. Some of them were a little bewildering, perhaps, but that, doubtless, was their only fault, which the Prince was desirous of amending, and he graciously appealed to me in a very sensible manner by suggesting that if I would put a question that hecouldanswer, he would do so.
I thought it a fair offer, even from a Prince, if I could only trust him. I kept my bargain, and definitely shaped my examination so that "Yes" and "No" should be all that would be necessary.
We got on very well indeed for some little time, his answers coming with great readiness and truth. He was perfectly straightforward, and so was I.
"Yes, sir," "No, sir;" that was all.
As I have said, at this time I had not had much experience in cross-examination, but I had some intuitive knowledge of the art waiting to be developed. Napoleon gave me my first lesson in that department.
"I am afraid, sir," said his Highness, "you have been sadly misinstructed in this case."
"I am afraid, sir, I have," said I. "One or the other of us must be wrong, and I am much inclined to think it's my solicitor."
It was a nice little bull, which the Prince liked apparently, for he laughed good-humouredly, and especially when I found, as I quickly did, that my strength was to sit still, which I also did.
I had learned by this exhibition of forces that therewasa defence, if I could only keep it up my sleeve. To expose it before the magistrate would simply enable Clarkson, who was opposed to me, to bring up reinforcements, and knock me into a cocked hat instead of Napoleon. Old Saul knew nothing whatever about my intended manoeuvre, nor did Clarkson or his solicitor.
I knew the man would be committed for trial; the magistrate had intimated as much. I therefore said nothing, except that I would reserve my defence.
Had I said a word, Clarkson would have shaped his indictment to meet the objection which I intended to make; the man, however, was committed to the Old Bailey in total ignorance of what defence was to be made.
The case was tried before Baron Alderson, as shrewd a Judge, perhaps, as ever adorned the Bench.
When I took my point, he at once saw the difficulty Napoleon was in—a difficulty from which no Napoleon could escape even by acoup d'état.
It was, in fact, this—simple as A B C:—
When the bills of exchange were received by Pollard, although he intended to defraud, they wereneither drawn nor accepted, and so were not bills of exchange at all; another process was necessary before they could become so even in appearance, and that was forgery.
Moreover, there was included in this point another objection—namely, that thestampssigned by the Prince having been handed to him with the intention that theyshould be subsequently filled up, they were notvaluable securities(for stealing which the ill-used Pollard was indicted) at the time they were appropriated, and could not therefore be so treated.
In short, the legal truth was that Pollard neither stole nor obtained eitherbill of exchange(for such they were not at that time) or valuable security.
Such was the law. I believe Napoleon said the devil must have made it, or worked it into that "tam shape!"
There were many technicalities in the law of those days, and justice was often defeated by legal quibbles. But the law was so severe in its punishments that Justice herself often connived at its evasion. At the present day there is a gradual tendency to make punishment more lenient and more certain—to remove the entanglements of the pleader, and render progress towards substantial instead of technical justice more sure and speedy. Napoleon's defeat could not have occurred at the present day—not, at all events, in that "tam shape."
In a case in which the member of St. Ives was petitioned against on the ground of treating, before Lush, J., I was opposed by Russell (afterwards Lord Chief Justice and Lord Russell of Killowen). A.L. Smith was my junior, and I need not say he knew almost everything there was to be known about election law. There was, however, no law in the case. No specific act of treating was proved, but we felt that general treating had taken place in such a wholesale manner that our client was affected by it. So we consented to his losing his seat—that is to say, that the election should be declaredvoid—merely void. As the other side did not seem to be aware that this void could be filled by the member who was unseated, they did not ask that our client should not be permitted to put up for the vacancy, although this was the real object of my opponent's petition. He wanted the seat for himself, but knew that he had not the remotest chance against his unseated opponent.
His surprise, therefore, must have been as great as his chagrin when, the very night of the decision which unseated him, he came forward once more as a candidate. The petition had increased his popularity, and he won the seat with the greatest ease, and without any subsequent disturbance by the former petitioner.
I have told you of a curious trial before a Recorder of Saffron Walden, and my memory of that event reminds me of another which took place in that same abode of learning and justice. Joseph Brown, Q.C., and Thomas Chambers, Q.C., were brother Benchers of mine, and when we met at the Parliament Chamber after dinner it was more than likely that many stories would be told, for we often fought our battles over again.
At the time I speak of Knox was the Recorder of that important borough, and was possessed of all the dignity which so enhances a great officer in the eyes of the public, whether he be the most modest of beadles in beadledom, or the highest Recorder in Christendom. To give himself a greater air of importance, Knox always carried ablue umbrellaof a most blazing grandeur. He was looked up to, of course, at Saffron Walden, as their greatest man, especially as he occupied the best apartments at the chief brimstone shop in the town. When I saybrimstone, I mean that it seemed to be its leading article; for there were a great many yellow placards all over and about the emporium, which, perhaps, ought to have been called a "general shop."
There were three men up before Knox for stealing malt; a very serious offence indeed in Saffron Walden, where malt was almost regarded as a sacred object—until it got into the beer.
"Tom" Chambers (afterwards Recorder of London) was defending these prisoners, and I have no doubt, from the conduct of Knox, acquired a great deal of that discrimination of character which afterwards so distinguished him in the City of London. The degrees of guilt in these persons ought to be noted by all persons who hold, or hope to hold, a judicial position. As to the first man, the actual thief, there could be no doubt about his crime, for he was actually wheeling the two or three shovelfuls of malt in a barrow; so there was not much use in defending him.
About the second man there was not the same degree of certainty, for he had never touched the malt or the barrow, and there was no evidence that he knew the first man had stolen it. The only suspicion—for it was nothing more—against him was that he was seen to be walkingalong the highwaynear the man who was wheeling the barrow, and as it was daytime, many others were equally guilty.
The third man was still less implicated, for all that appeared against him was thatat some time or otherhe had been seen, either on the day of the theft or just before, to be in a public-house with the thief and asking him to have a drink.
If it had not been at Saffron Walden, where they are so jealous of their malt and such admirers of their maltsters, there would have been no case against any one but the actual thief; and if the Recorder had known the law as well as he knew Saffron Walden, or half as much as Saffron Walden admired him, he would have ruled to that effect.
However, he pointed out to the jury the cases one by one with great care and no stint of language.
"Against the first," said he, "the case is clear enough: he is caught with the stolen goods in his possession. In the second case,perhaps, it is not quite so strong, you will think; but it is foryou, gentlemen, not forme, to judge. You will not forget, gentlemen, he was walking along by the side of the actual thief, and it is for you to say what that means." Then, after clearing his throat for a final effort, he said,—
"Now we come to the third man. Where was he? I must say there is a slight difference between his case and that of the other two men, who might be said to have been caught in the very act; but it's foryou, gentlemen, not forme. It is difficult to point out item by item, as it were, the difference between the three cases; but you will say, gentlemen, whether they were not all mixed up in this robbery—it's foryou, gentlemen, not forme."
The jury were not going to let off three such rogues as the Recorder plainly thought them, and instantly returned a verdict of guilty against all.
"I agree with the verdict," said the Recorder. "It isa very bad case, and a mercantile community like Saffron Walden must be protected against such depredators as you. No doubt there are degrees of guilt in your several cases, but I do not think I should be doing my duty to the public if I made any distinction in your sentences: you must all of you undergo a term of five years' penal servitude."
Whereupon Tom Chambers was furious. Up he jumped, and said,—
"Really, sir; really—"
"Yes," said Knox, "really."
"Well, then, sir, you can't do it," said the counsel; "you cannot give penal servitude for petty larceny. Here is the Act" (reading): "'Unless the prisoner has been guilty of any felony before.'"
"Very well," said the Recorder; "you, Brown, the actual thief, and you, Jones, his accessory in the very act, not having been convicted before, I am sorry to say, cannot be sentenced to more than two years' imprisonment with hard labour, and I reduce the sentence in your cases to that; but as to you, Robinson, yours is a very bad case. The jury have found that you weremixed upin this robbery, and I find that you have been convicted of stealing apples. True, it's a good many years ago, but it brings you within the purview of the statute, and therefore your sentence of five years will stand."
I should like to make an observation on the recent Act for enabling prisoners to go into the witness-box and subject themselves, after giving their evidence, to cross-examination.
It must be apparent to every one, learned and unlearned in its mysteries, that no evidence can be of its highest value, and often is of no value, until sifted by cross-examination. I was always opposed to this process as against an accused person, because I know how difficult it is under the most favourable circumstances to avoid the pitfalls which a clever and artistic cross-examiner may dig for the unwary.
It did not occur to me in that early stage of the discussion on the Bill that a really true storycannotbe shaken in cross-examination, and that only thefalsemust give way beneath its searching effect.
I had to learn something in advocacy; indeed, I was always learning, and the best of us may go on for ever learning, as long as this wonderful and mysterious human nature exists.
However, I am not writing philosophical essays, but relating the facts of my simple life, and I confess that the case that came before me on this occasion totally upset my quiet repose in all the comfortable traditions of the past. Human nature had something which I had not seen: it arose in this way. A doctor was accused of a terrible crime against a female patient. I need not give its details; it is sufficient to say that if the girl's statement was true penal servitude for life was not too much, for he was a villain of the very worst character. Taking the ordinary run of evidence, if I may use the word, and the ordinary mode of cross-examination, which, in the hands of unskilled practitioners, generally tends to corroborate the evidence-in-chief, the case was overwhelmingly proved, and how sad and painful it was to contemplate none can realize who do not understand anything below the surface of human existence.
I had watched the case with the anxious care that I am conscious should be exercised in all inquiries, and especially criminal inquiries, that come before one. I watched, and, let me say,especially watched, for any point in the evidence on which I could put a question in the prisoner's favour.
Upon that subject I never wavered throughout the whole of my career, and the testimony of the letters which I received from the most distinguished members of the criminal Bar—not to say that they are not equally distinguished in the civil—will, I am sure, bear out my little self-praise upon a small matter of infinite importance.
Everything in this case seemed to be overwhelmingly against the unhappy doctor. No one in court, except himself,couldbelieve on the evidence but that he was guilty.
I, who through my whole life had been studying evidence and the mode in which it was delivered, believed in the man's guilt, and felt that no cross-examination, however subtle and skilfully conducted, could shake it.
I felt for the man—a scholar, a scientist—as one must feel for the victim of so great a temptation. But I felt also that he was entitled, on account of all those things which aroused my sympathy, to the severest sentence, which I had already considered it would be my duty to award him.
Then, under the New Act, which I had spoken against and written against, as one long associated with all the bearings of evidence given in the witness-box, the poor doctor stepped into that terrible trap for the untruthful.
Let me now observe that, even before he was sworn, hismannermade a great impression on my mind. And on this subject I would like to say that few Judges or advocates sufficiently consider it.
The greatest actor has a manner. The man who is not an actor has a manner, and if you are only sufficiently read in the human character, it cannot deceive you, however disguised it may be. A witness's evidence may deceive, but his manner is the looking-glass of his mind, sometimes of his innocence. It was so in this case.
The man was not acting, and he was not an actor.
This made the first impression on my mind, and I knew theremustbe something beneath it which onlyhecould explain. I waited patiently. It was much more than life and death to this man.
The next thing that impressed me was that there was not the least confusion in his evidence or in himself. His tone, his language, could only be the result of conscious innocence.
It was not very long before I gathered that he was the victim of a cruel and cowardly conspiracy. It was absolutely a case ofblackmailing, and nothing else.
I believed every word the man said, and so did the jury. His evidenceacquitted him. He was saved from an ignominious doom by the new Act, and from that moment I went heart and soul with it: however much it may be a danger to the guilty, it is of the utmost importance to the innocent.
This case was not finished without a little touch of humour. When half-past seven arrived—an hour on circuit at which I always considered it too early to adjourn—the jury thought it looked very like an "all-night sitting," although I had no such intention, and one of their body or of the Bar, I forget which, raised the question on a motion for the adjournment of the house.
I was asked, I know, by some impatient member of the Bar whether a case in whichhewas engaged could not go over till the morning.
This gave immense encouragement to an independent juryman, who evidently was determined to beard the lion in his den, and possibly shake off "the dewdrops of his British indignation."
I never believed in British lions, except on his Majesty's quarterings; and although they look very formidable in heraldry, I never found them so in fact. Indeed, if the British lion was ever a native of the British Isles, he must have become extinct, for I have never heard so much as an imitation growl from him except in Hyde Park on a Sunday.
The British lion, however, in this case seemed to assert himself in the jury-box, and rising on his hind legs, said in a husky voice, which appeared to come from some concealed cupboard in his bosom,—
"My lord!"
"Yes?" I said in my blandest manner.
"My lord, this 'ere —— is a little bit stiff, my lord, with all respect for your lordship."
"What is that, sir?"
"Why, my lord, I've been cramped up in this 'ere narrer box for fourteen hours, and the seat's that hard and the back so straight up that now I gets out on it I ain't got a leg to stand on."
"I'm sorry for the chair," I said.
He was a very thick-set man, and the whole of the jury burst into a laugh. Then he went on, with tears in his eyes,—
"My lord, when I went home last night arter sittin' here so many hoursI couldn't sleep a wink."
I could not help saying,—
"Then it is no use going to bed; we may as well finish the business."
That was all very well for him, but another juryman arose, amidst roars of laughter, and lifted up a hard, wooden-bottomed chair, and beat it with his heavy walking-stick.
The chair was perfectly indifferent to the treatment it was receiving after supporting the juryman for so many hours without the smallest hope of any reward, and I then asked,—
"Is that to keep order, sir?"
The excitement continued for a long time, but at last it subsided, andI suggested a compromise.
I said probably the gentlemen in the next case would not speak for more than one hour each, and if they would agree to this I would undertake to sum up infive minutes.
The husky lion sat down, and so did the musician. The jury acquitted and went home.
These are some of the caprices of a jury which a Judge has sometimes to put up with, and it has often been said that Judges are more tried than prisoners. Perhaps that is so, especially when, if they do not get the kind of rough music I have mentioned from the jury-box, they sometimes receive a by no means complimentary address from the prisoner. One occurs to my mind, with which I will close this chapter.
I had occasion to sentence to death a soldier for a cruel murder by taking the life of his sergeant. It was at Winchester, and after I had uttered the fatal words the culprit turned savagely towards me, and in a loud, gruff voice cried, "Curse you!"
I made no remark, and the man was removed to the cells. Very humanely the chaplain went to the prisoner and endeavoured to bring him to a proper state of mind with regard to his impending fate.
On the day appointed for the execution I received by post a long letter from the clergyman, enclosing another written on prison paper.
The letter was to tell me that for ten days he could make no impression on the condemned man; but on the tenth or twelfth day he expressed his sincere sorrow that he had cursed me for passing on him the sentence he had so well deserved, and his great desire was to make a humble apology to me in person. He was told that that was impossible, as I could not come to him, nor could he go to me. Whereupon he begged to be allowed to write this humble apology. This he was permitted to do, and the letter from the culprit, who was hanged that morning, I was reading at the very moment of his execution. It contained, I believe, sincere expressions of contrition for the cruel deed he had done, but was mostly taken up with apologies to me for having cursed me after advising him to prepare for the doom that awaited him. He begged my forgiveness, which, I need not say, I freely gave.
Poor little Jack is dead!
It is a real grief to me. A more intelligent, faithful, and affectionate creature never had existence, and to him I have been indebted for very many of the happiest hours of my life.
Poor dear little Jack! he lived with me for many years; and at last, I believe, some miscreant poisoned him, for he was taken very ill with symptoms of strychnine, and died in a few hours in the early morning of May 24, 1894. I was with him when he died.
I never replaced him, and to this hour have never ceased to be sad when I think of the merciless and cruel fate by which the ruffian put an end to his dear little life.
He was buried under some shrubs in Hyde Park, where I hope he sleeps the sleep of good affectionate dogs.
It is ten years ago, and yet there is no abatement of my love for him, hardly any of my sorrow. He always occupied the best seat in the Sheriff's carriage on circuit, and looked as though he felt it was his right. He slept by my side on a little bed of his own. At Norwich, I think, he made his first appearance in state. The moment he entered the house he appropriated to himself the chair of state, which had been provided by the local upholsterer for the express use of Queen Alexandra, then Princess of Wales, on her first visit to Norwich to confer honour and happiness on Queen Victoria's subjects in the eastern counties.
Nobody, however, molested Jack in his seat, and, I believe, had it been one of the seats for the county there would have been no petition to disturb him. He would have been as faithful a member as the immortal Toby, M.P. for Barkshire, of Mr. Punch, to whom ever my best regards. Jack considered himself entitled to precedence wherever he went, and maintained it. He was a famous judge of upholstery, and the softest chair or sofa, hearthrug or divan, was instantly appropriated. This sometimes made the local dignitaries sit up a little. They might be accustomed to the dignity of one of her Majesty's Judges, but the impudence of her Majesty's "Jack"—for so he deemed himself on circuit—was a little beyond their aldermanic natures.
I was much and agreeably surprised to find that the Press everywhere sympathized with my loss of Jack, and many an extract I made containing their very kind remarks. My room might have been one of Romeike's cutting-rooms. Here is one I will give as a sample. I am sorry I cannot positively state the name of the journal, but I am almost sure it is from theDaily Telegraph.
"An item of judicial intelligence, which may not everywhere be duly appreciated, is the death of Mr. Justice Hawkins's fox terrier Jack. Jack has been his lordship's most constant friend for many years. With some masters such a useful dog as he was would have found going on circuit a bore; but with Sir Henry Hawkins, who knows what kind of life suits a dog, and likes to see that he enjoys it, going on circuit was a career of adventure. The Judge was always out betimes to give Jack a long morning walk, and when his duties took him to small county towns he often rose with the farmers for no other purpose."
Here is another paragraph; and I should like to be able to give the writer's name, for it is very pleasant at all times to find expression of true love for animals, whose devotion and faithfulness to man endear them to us:—
"Sir Henry Hawkins has my sincere sympathy in his great bereavement. Jack, the famous fox terrier who accompanied his master everywhere, is dead. Innumerable are the things told of Jack's devotion to Sir Henry, and of Sir Henry's devotion to Jack. I first made their acquaintance at Worcester Railway Station some years ago, when I saw Jack marching solemnly in the procession of officials who had come with wands and staves and javelins to receive Sir Henry Hawkins at the opening of the Assizes. Jack was on one or two special occasions, I believe, accommodated with a seat on the Bench; and at Maidstone, when the lodgings caught fire, Sir Henry rushed back at the risk of his life to save his faithful little dog."
These are small memories, perhaps, but to me more dear than the praises too often unworthily bestowed on actions unworthy to be recorded.
But here I pause. Jack rests in his little grave in Hyde Park, and I sometimes go and look on the spot where he lies. Many and many an affectionate letter was written to me bewailing the loss of our little friend.
Only one of these I shall particularly mention, because it shows how immeasurably superior was Jack to the lady who wrote it, in that true and sincere feeling which we call friendship, and which, to my mind, is the bond of society and the only security for its well-being. She was a lady who belonged to what is called "Society," the characteristic of which is that it exists not only independently of friendship, but in spite of it.
After condoling with me on my loss and showing her sweet womanly sympathy, she concluded her letter by informing me that she had "one of the sweetest pets eyes ever beheld, a darling devoted to her with a faithfulness which would really be a lesson to 'our specie,'" and that, in the circumstances, she would let me have her little darling forfive pounds. I was so astonished and angry at the meanness of this "lady of fashion" that I said—Well, perhaps my exact expression had better be buried in oblivion.
[Footnote A: It was a well-known expression of Sir Henry Hawkins when on the Bench, "I should be surprised at nothing;" and after the long and strange experiences which these reminiscences indicate, the literal truth of the observation is not to be doubted. This clever ballad, which was written in 1895, seems sufficiently appropriate to find a place in these memoirs, and I wish I knew the name of the writer, that my thanks and apologies might be conveyed to him for this appropriation of them.]
("Mr. Justice Hawkins observed, 'I am surprised at nothing,'"—Pitts v. Joseph, "Times" Report, March 27.)
All hail to Sir Henry, whom nothing surprises!Ye Judges and suitors, regard him with awe,As he sits up aloft on the Bench and applies hisSwift mind to the shifts and the tricks of the law.Many years has he lived, and has always seen clear thingsThat Nox seemed to hide from our average eyes;But still, though encompassed with all sorts of queer things,He never, no, never, gives way to surprise.
When a rogue, for example, a company-monger,Grows fat on the gain of the shares he has sold,While the public gets lean, winning nothing but hungerAnd a few scraps of scrip for its masses of gold;When the fat man goes further and takes to religion,A rascal in hymn-books and Bibles disguised,"It's a case," says Sir Henry, "of rookversuspigeon,And the pigeon gets left—well, I'm hardly surprised."
There's a Heath at Newmarket, and horses that run there;There are owners and jockeys, and sharpers and flats;There are some who do nicely, and some who are done there;There are loud men with pencils and satchels and hats.But the stewards see nothing of betting or money,As they stand in the blinkers for stewards devised;Their blindness may strike Henry Hawkins as funny,But he only smiles softly—he isn't surprised.
So here's to Sir Henry, the terror of tricksters,Of law he's a master, and likewise a limb;His mind never once, when its purpose is fixed, errs:For cuteness there's none holds a candle to him.Let them try to deceive him, why, bless you, he'sbeenthere,And can track his way straight through a tangle of lies;And though some might grow gray at the things he has seen there,He never, no, never, gives way to surprise.
By the courtesy of Sir Francis Burnand, who most kindly obtained permission from Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew, I insert the following poem, which appeared in a February number ofPunchin the year 1887:—
(A true story, told before Mr. Justice Hawkins at the recent LiverpoolAssizes—vide Daily Telegraph, February 8.)
In the criminal dock stood a woman alone,To be judged for her crime, her one fault to repair,And the man who gave evidence sat like a stone,With a look of contempt for the woman's despair!For the man was a husband, who'd ruined a life,And broken a heart he had found without flaw;He demanded the punishment due to the wife,Who was only a Woman, whilst his was the Law!
A terrible silence then reigned in the Court,And the eyes of humanity turned to the dock;Her head was bent down, and her sobbing came short,And the jailer stood ready, with hand on the lockOf the gate of despair, that would open no moreWhen this wreckage of beauty was hurried away!"Let me speak," moaned the woman—"my lord, I implore!""Yes, speak," said the Judge. "I will hear what you say!"
"I was only a girl when he stole me awayFrom the home and the mother who loved me too well;But the shame and the pain I have borne since that dayNot a pitying soul who now listens can tell!There was never a promise he made but he broke;The bruises he gave I have covered with shame;Not a tear, not a prayer, but he scorned as a joke!He cursed at my children, and sneered at my fame!
"The money I'd slaved for and hoarded he'd rob;I have borne his reproaches when maddened with drink.For a man there is pleasure, for woman a sob;It is he who may slander, but she who must think!But at last came the day when the Law gave release,Just a moment of respite from merciless fate,For they took him to prison, and purchased me peace,Till I welcomed him home like a wife—at the gate!
"Was it wrong in repentance of Man to believe?It is hard to forget, it is right to forgive!But he struck me again, and he left me to grieveFor the love I had lost, for the life I must live!So I silently stole from the depths of despair,And slunk from dark destiny's chastening rod,And I crept to the light, and the life, and the air,From the town of the man to the country of God!
"'Twas in solitude, then, that there came to my soulThe halo of comfort that sympathy casts;He was strong, he was brave, and, though centuries roll,I shall love that one man whilst eternity lasts!O my lord, I was weak, I was wrong, I was poor!I had suffered so much through my journey of life,Hear! the worst of the crime that is laid at my door:I said I was widow when, really a wife!
"Here I stand to be judged, in the sight of the manWho from purity took a frail woman away.Let him look in my face, if he dare, if he can!Let him stand up on oath to deny what I say!'Tis a story that many a wife can repeat,From the day that the old curse of Eden began;In the dread name of Justice, look down from your seat!Come, sentence the Woman, and shelter the Man!"
A silence more terrible reigned than before,For the lip of the coward was cruelly curled;But the hand of the jailer slipped down from the doorMade to shut this sad wanderer out from the world!Said the Judge, "My poor woman, now listen to me:Not one hour you shall stray from humanity's heartWhen thirty swift minutes have sped, you are freeIn the name of the Law, which is Mercy, depart!"
An announcement in the morning papers of the death of Mr. Richard C. Naylor of Kelmarsh, Northamptonshire, at the age of eighty-six, carried me back to the far-off days when, tempted by the hospitality and kind friendship of Lord Falmouth, I became a regular visitor of Newmarket Heath—anhabituéduring the splendid dictatorship of Admiral Rous!
I would like to mention the names of some of the celebrities of the Turf of those days, many of them my frequent companions, and no less my real and sincere friends. Time, however, fails. But in looking through the piles of letters with which the kindness of my friends has favoured me from time to time, I come across many a relic of the past that recalls the pleasantest associations. Even a telegram, most prosaic of correspondence, which I meet with at this moment, is a little poem in its way, and brings back scenes and circumstances over which memory loves to linger.
It is nothing in itself, but let any one who has loved country life and enjoyed its sports and its many friendships consider what forgotten pleasures may be brought to mind by this telegram.
Telegram.
DORCHESTER,November2, '97.
Handed in at QUORN at 9.10 a.m.
Received here at 11.1 a.m.
ToSIR H. HAWKINS, The Judges' House, Dorchester.
Just returned from Badminton to find the most charming present from you, which I shall always regard with the greatest value, and think you are too kind, in giving me such a present. Am writing.—LONSDALE.
"AtQuorn," I repeat, and then I find the letter which Lord Lonsdale was writing. This is it:—
CHURCHILL COTTAGE,QUORN,LOUGHBOROUGH,Tuesday, November2, '97.
MY DEAR SIR HENRY,—How can I thank you enough for your magnificent present? It is, indeed, kind of you thinking of me, and I can assure you that the spurs shall remain an "heirloom" to decorate the dinner-table (a novel ornament) and match the silver spur poor old White Melville gave me. Why you should have so honoured me I do not know, but that I fully value your kindly thought I do know.
Is there any chance of your being in these parts? If so,dopay me a visit.
And with many, many thanks for your extreme kindness,
Believe me
Yours very truly,
(Signed) LONSDALE.
Alas! almost all of them have passed away, yet they will live while the memory of the generation lasts which called them friends. They have vanished from the scenes in which they played so prominent a part, and yet their influence remains.
There was the old Admiral himself, the king of sportsmen and good fellows. Horse or man-o'-war, it was all one to him; and although sport may not be regarded as of the same importance with politics, who knows which has the more beneficial influence on mankind? I would have backed Admiral Rous to save us from war, and if we drifted into it to save us from the enemy, against any man in the world. Then there was his bosom friend George Payne, and the old, old Squire George Osbaldeston, Lord Falmouth, W.S. Crawfurd, the Earl of Wilton, Lord Bradford, Lord Rosslyn, Lord Vivian, the Duke of Hamilton, George Brace, General Mark Wood, Alexander, Lord Westmorland, the Earl of Aylesbury, Clare Vyner, Dudley, Milner, Sir John Astley ("The Mate"), Lords Suffolk and Berkshire, Coventry and Clonmell, Manton, Ker Seymer—the names crowd upon my memory; then, alas! a long, long while after, Henry Calcraft, Lord Granville, Lord Portsmouth, and "Prince Eddy," Lord Gerard, the Earl of Hardwicke, Viscount Royston, Sam Batchelor, and Tyrwhitt Wilson.
These are some of those whom I remember, and, by the way, I ought to add the Duke of Westminster and Tom Jennings, names interesting and distinguished, and indicative of a phase of life ever full of enjoyment such as is not known out of the sporting world, where excitement lends to pleasure the effervescence and sparkle which make life something more than animal existence.
This is true in hunting, racing, cricket, and I should think intensified in the highest degree in a charge of cavalry. Take Balaclava, for instance: the very fact of staking life at such odds must have compressed into that moment a whole life of ordinary pleasure.
I will mention a few more names, and then close another chapter of my memory. There was Mr. J.A. Craven, the Duke of St. Albans, the Duke of Beaufort, Montagu Tharp, Major Egerton, General Pearson, Lord Calthorpe, Henry Saville, Douglas Gordon (Mr. Briggs), Oliver Montagu, Henry Leeson, the Earl of Milltown, Sir Henry Devereux, Johnny Shafto, Douglas Phillips, Randolph Churchill, Lord Exeter, Lord Stamford.
Of the famous jockeys and trainers there were John Scott, Mat Dawson,Fred Archer. There were also James Weatherby, Judge Clark, andTattersall.