BOOKS OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2944, 2 December 1916, Page 10

BOOKS OF THE DAY

"Forty Years at the Bar." Much 60-called legal wit seoras to evaporate a little when translated from the special atmosphere of the court or the barristers' mess to the printed page; and many books of legal reminiscences t*at I have read have been singularly disappointing. In "Forty Years at the •Bar," by Mr. Balfour Browne, an English K.C. ; whose practice has been mainly laid at the Parliamentary Bar, .there are, however, many good things. ■ One of Mr. Browne's contemporaries and rivals at the Parliamentary Bar was Mr. Danckwerts, K'.C. ■ Of this gentleman, Mr. Browne says he was like a _ winter pear, hard without and 6oft within. Browne had many tough. 1 combats with him. He writes: -There was a good deal ; of blistering matter in the way Danckwerts conducted • his v cases, but we gofc through four or •five''days without any serious rupture. Then something I said upset his temporary placidity, and ho said that I was ■■• wrong, and if ho had me outsido he could convince me of it. As I.had no desire ■to submit the question to the "ordeal of battle"—for, I remembered that ■ the att of war is being two to one, and the' art 'of peace knowing' when you; are one to two, and Danckwerts would have made two : of me—riet the Jibe pass. But shortly afterwards he took' out a knife with a very long blade and began to manicure his nails, which was, to sav the' least of it, not the best taste in 'the arbitration room, so I said to the Recorder, "Sir, a few moments ago Mr. Danck- : werte threatened me with personal violence. Now he menaces me with cold /steel." He pocketed the''knife. 'IThe Scottish law-lord, Young,' seems to'have been a wit as well'as a lawyer. ■•■.. On 'one occasion, at Grand Dav dinner, : the, Poet Laureate, Alfred' Austin, was ': one. of the guests, and walked up the hall with and sat.beside Lord Yoiing." When .- they were seated at the table above the qaui Lord Young said to the small mau : ."You'll be a lawyer like the rest of us?" , . , "No,-" said Alfred Austin, "I am a poet. .'. ' " '..'■ "A poet," said Lord Young. "Do you ■,; r make a living by it?" ".Vr s *" 9ai<l tilß laureate, 'T keep the wolf'.from thedOor." ' / "Wmli, by' reading your poems to him?" said Young. ... Very'early iii his career Mr. Balfour Browne was engaged'on. a. breach of promise action. It was his iluty to .. cross-examine tlie yomig woman who I was claiming damages for being jilted. Ho was asking various questions when the Judge interposed, and asked, "Don't you want to know whether she accepted him ?!' "I saw I had made a mistake, but determined to brazen it out; and said, 'Oh, I took that as a ■matter of course, my Lord.' 'Has that been your experience,' Mr. Browne?' asked his Lordship. . . . 'Invariably, .; my. Lord,' I. said. There was some laughter. That was the only time in those days when I was fully reported in the evening papers with a headline." '•■ Another good story relates to Mr. 0. K. Pember, Q. 0., who was speaking when some client corrected him from behind'to 6et some inaccuracy right. Pemher lost his temper 'and sworo at' tlie client. The chairman attempted .to smooth the troubled waters. "1 cannot go ou, my Lord," said Mr.. Pember; "I hate being corrected from behind." "It reminds him of his youth," said one of the counsel; who was en- •■.■' gagedon the other side. Another rather neat remark was when somebody moved ;•, the health of the chairman at a dinner, who'on this: occasion happened to be ;■" Sir Frederick Bramwell,who had "great :■ bulk, an eminent waistcoat." Tho pro- . poser, moved, "The Chairman, who so fittingly fills and so fillingly .fits the chair." •' A neat little anecdote concerns a gentleman who bore the curious name of Shiress Will, who at one time was M.P. for the Montrose Burghs, a seat.he resigned to Lord (then Mr. John) Morley when the latter was defeated, at New- ■, castle: . Once Shiress Will was in a rightofway case. He had a brief for the public resisting the owner's claim to ■. shut up a footpath. _ The owner, who was in Court, saw him is-his.wig nndgown, and . Said, pointing to him, "Who is that?" "That," said his solicitor, "is Mir. Will." "I don't like that," said the ■ owner, "for where there's a will there's jt way." ,• Here is a smart saying attributed to Mr.'Joseph Chamberlain: . There was a legend in existence at one ■• time that whenever- a lie was told a cock crew. The derivation of the tradition is obvious. Upon one occasion this legend was being mentioned, and somo- - one said, "If that is sot, how do you .. account for the fact, that cocks mostly crow about three or four, o'clock in the morning?" "That"—and tho answer is ascribed, I ". do not know whether correctly or not, \to Mr. Chamberlain—"is owing to the fact that at that hour the morning ynpera are being published." Not all Mr. Balfour Browne's stories are of the law and lawyers. For instance, there is an interesting -littlo pen-picture of Carlyle as he was seen by Mr. Browne and a friend in Dumfries, the scene of the last tragedy of Robert Burns:— We were.then walking up the Kirkgate towards the site of that red history When we. saw two old men beforo us. Both were burdened with years. They wore Thomas Carlyle and his brother. Dr. John Carlyle, who had lived for many years in Home, and made a good translation of some of the cantos of the "Inferno." They walked on 6lowly in front of us, past tho old churchyard which frowns upon you from its monuments with skulls and crossbones as you go up the street, until they came to a narrow 6treet which runs out of tho Kirkgate, which is called "Bums Street." ■ It was in this street—almost -\a" shame—that Burns had_lived, and. it..was in honour of the poet that an appreciating town council called the mean street after him when ho was dead, for whom they had done nothing in-his "ranting, roaring" life. Hero Carlyle and his brother slopped opposite tho house in which Bums had lived and died, and as wc biiw them pause Aird said: "There they are looking at the shell of a tragedy." A Striking; War-Poem, j Robert Service, the ex-Alaskan bank clerk, who jumped into literary fame by his "Songs of a Sour-Dough," and "Ballads of a • Cneechako," and who has sinco written more than ono very readable, if not specially brilliant, novel, has been engaged on the Western front for more than a year as a chauffeur in tho 'Anglo-American Ambulance Corps, wider the auspices of the Red Cross. •Like other English and American literary men who have gone to tho front for service, he has utilised his experiences of modern warfare by writing a book of war verso, entitled "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man." The book was to bo published in London in October, and go far oopies have not reached tho Dominion. In Mr. Fisher Unwin's al,*otb interesting, little monthly * 1 M.A.8." ("Mainly About Books") &4re is given, one of the most charterutfo of Mr. Service's now poems, en-

—James Thomson. titled "Tho Fool," which I now take the liberty of quoting:— THE FOOL. "But it isn't playing the game," he said, mm slammed his books away; the Latin and Greek I've got in my head ' Will do for a commoner day." 'Rubbish!" I cried, "the bugle's call Isn't for lads from school." D'ye think he would listen? Oh not at nil! So I called him a fool, a fool. Now there's his dog by his empty he'd, And the flute ho used to play, And his favourite bat ... but Dick he's dead, Somewhere in France, they say: Dick with his-rapture of song and sun, Dick of the yellow hair, ■ Dicky whose life had not begun, Carrion-cold out there. Look at his prizes all in a row: Surely a hint of fame. Now he's'finished with, nothing to show: Doesn't it seem a shame? Look from the window! All you see ; Was to be his one day. Forest and furrow, lawn aiid lea,, And he goes and chucks it away. Throws it away to die in the dark. Somebody saw him fall, Part of him mud, part of him'blood, The rest of him— not at all.. And yet I'll bet he was never afraid, _ And he went as the best of 'em go. For ' i :•■ hand was clenched on his broken wade, And his face was turned to the foe. And I called him a. fool . . . . how [ '• blind was I!. . . '", < n Oh, the cup of ray grief's abrini! Will Glory, o' England ever die So long as we've lads like him ? oolong ns we've fond, and fearless fools, Wno, spurning fortune and fame, i Turn out with the rallying cry of their schools, Intent on playing the game. A fool! Ah, no! He was more than wise. His was the proudest part. ■ He died with the glory of faith in his eyes, ■ . • And the glory of love in his heart. And though-there's never a grave to tell, Ivor a cross to mark his fall, Thank' God! we know that he "batted well" In the last great Game of all.