"SUICIDE HATS"

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1935, Page 17

"SUICIDE HATS"

TRAFFIC DANCERS

Fashion's "suicide hats"* are a serious danger on the roads, states a writer in the London "Daily Telegraph." Those hats (you must have seen them and been amused or envious, according to sex) which slope down rakishly over one eye and make the wearer completely blind on that side. .

Women who.wear them almost have to turn about to look ever their shoulder before they dare to cross. While actually crossing they have to trust to luck that nothing is approaching on the blind side. Others, not so considerate, just step off the pavement, forgetting all about their "blinkers," and look up with offended dignity when an endangered driver blows .his horn. COIFFEUR DETERMINES TILT. ' It, was explained to -me by a fashion expert that it. is the coiffeur which determines the direction of the tilt and not safety. Even more dangerous than jay-walk--ing with the "suicide hat" is driving. The woman driver who wears one might as well drive with blinds over the side windows. Perhaps that is why many women drive bareheaded nowadays. A word of warning to pedestrians, tobr- Never overtake on the blind sids | a woman who is wearing one of these hats. She may suddenly slew round to admire a shop window, fail to see i you coming, and cause a nasty colliIsion.

"DIVINE RIGHT"

A FIGHTER AGAINST IT

CAREER OF SIR EDWARD

COKE

CHAMPION OF. COURTS

Sir Edward Coke, the famous Judge and writer on law, was appointed to the first of his many judicial offices (the recordership of Coventry) 350 years ago, and died nearly fifty years later, writes a legal correspondent in the "Manchester Guardian." Only an exceptionally robust body and mind could have survived the rigours of Coke's life. He was engaged in great cases shortly after his call to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1578. His mounting practice, helped by the powerful influence of Burghley, brought with it great wealth and great offices. Recorder, of Coventry, then of his home city of Norwich, then of London, he had early and continuous judi-' cial experience. A, member" of the House of Commons from 1589 and its Speaker from 1592. to 1593, his vigorous mind was forced to ruminate on constitutional problems. To the solution of these problems he brought the same equipment; which served him so well in his profession, a hard, dry passion for the common law which would not suffer him to bate a jot of its most minute technicality, and great' obstinacy and pugnacity of spirit. It-was Coke's fortune throughout his career to be pitted against the formidable rivalry of Francis Bacon. The opposition of these , two men • went much deeper, than the constitutional and legal questions on which they took opposite sides. It was a. temperamental difference which made Bacon despise the narrow and prolix legalism of Coke,: and made Coke scorn the wider but vaguer reach of Bacon's , great mind, so that he described the "Novum Organum" in the satirical couplet: It deserveth not to be read In Schooles. But to be freighted to the Ship of Fooles. ATTOKNJEY-GENERAt,. ' More material causes of opposition barbed their antagonism. In 1593 Coke became Attorney-General, disappointing Bacon,' who had been powerfully backed by Essex. Further, he kept the office .of Solicitor-General in his own hands, thus : balking his great rival of theii consolation of the minor office; Coke's first wife, one of the Pastons, died in 1598; and. less than five months later he married the Lady Hattbn, 1 granddaughter <■' of Burghley. Bacon, again supported by. Essex, was also anxious -to marry the lady, but the energetic Coke again beat him by a speed in remarriage and an irregularity in its solemnisation which drew upon his head, not for the only time in his life, ecclesiastical'thunder. This second marriage of Coke's brought him little joy arid much tribulation. !' : As Attorney-General Coke is chiefly remembered for the rancour with which he conducted the great Stateprosecutions which fell'to his lot. The Earls of Essex and Southampton in 1600, Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603, and the" Gunpowder conspirators- in 1605 were in turn assailed by him with a stream of vindictive abuse which sounds strangely in modern ears. What modern cross-examiner would attack a prisoner as Coke attacked Raleigh? "Thou hast, a Spanish heart, and thyself art a spider of hell.'V. . , "I will now make, it appear to the world that there never lived ■ a viler viper upon the lace' of' the earth than thOU." '•" '■"■ ..'■' ' ■/'• "■ ■• :' V- "{[- '■■ -•■■•'■ . In 1606 Coke became Chief Justice of ,the Common Pleas, and judicial responsibility wrought that change,in him which turned him from-a;ruthless pusher of his own fortunes to one: of the great figures of our constitutional history. The' times in which he lived were, suited to his peculiar gifts. -A monarchy with inflated notions of the prerogative, backed by' a Church which, flattered those " notions,, : was about to enter upon a-mbmentous struggle with a Parliament uncertain of its powers and a judicial Bench unused to the idea of any authority which was not delegated from-' its adversary. For: this struggle even Coke's : vices were apt. The involved 'arguments of James, deduced,from the principle of Divine Bight, met their match; in the sophistical and ; tautological deductions of Coke from equally-dim premises, as to the supremacy; of the. law'over both Church and King. In this contest Coke's superior obstinacy won the victory and established the rule of law. Supported by colleagues who (save; on one occasion) Were magnificently loyal, he defeated in turn, the ecclesiastics, the Court of Chancery, and the King, and established the Judiciary-as an: element in the Constitution > outside and critical of the executive in Church, and State. This was Coke's greatest achievement, the thing which his.-pecu-liar crabbed nature wrought into the life, of the nation. !/ ' ' . ' TO HIS COST. The victory was won at great cost for Coke. The forces which he defied had their revenge. By an intrigue of Bacon, Coke was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench, an office of less profit but greater dignity. ■ The object was to make the poacher turn gamekeeper; but it failed utterly of its object, and:the inevitable happened in 1616 when Coke was dismissed his offices, a blow which, depressed him to tears. But, while; Bacon went on triumphantly to the' Woolsack, the . Peerage, and ultimate disgrace, Coke. returned to the' House of Commons, where his harsh and pedantic objurgations against any rival of the common law exercised a continuing and powerful effect. We last hear of him pub^ licly as a supporter of the Grand Remonstrance; and, privately, as refusing medical aid because "he had .'never taken a physic since he was born and had now upon him a disease which all the drugges of-Asia . .. .could not cure—old age." So he died -in 1634.

Coke's legal reputation : rests upon his "Reports" and his "Institutes." The Reports were notes,—carefully kept from his earliest, days at the Bar, of his cases; In them- the decision is so mixed with the argument of Coke as to make their . authority, that of the reporter rather .than of the Bench. But so great was the reporter than no other authority was deemed necessary for two centuries, by which, time latbr i decisions had covered in. more orthodox fashion most of the points decided. The first' volume of the . "Institutes"— a book intended for students— is a commentary on Littleton's earlier work upon tenures —"Coke upon' Littleton." This is a compound of immense learning anfi a good deal of rash, speculation upon etymology. Its value is historical rather than legal, but for' the student:of sources it remains still incomparable. ■ i i

WAR ON THE SLUMS

A YEAR OF PROGRESS

WORK SINCE ARMISTICE

In the first year of the Government's slum clearance, campaign, 15,058 new houses were built and a further 19,301 wcro begun—a total of 34,359 (says "Public Opinion"). This compared with a total of 11,8.68 provided during the previous three years under the Housing Act of 1930. These figures were given in the Ministry of Health's first half-yearly return, to September 30 last, on houso production, slum clearance, etc., in England and Wales, issued as a White Paper. -. .The .number of houses demolished or closed under the Housing Act during the year was 18,197,. whereas the total demolished or closed in the previous three years was 19,545. "The rate of submission of orders and proposals for rehousing continues to show steady increase," the White Paper states.' , At the date of the Armistice the number of houses in England and Wales was a little under 8,000,000. Between that date and September 30 last 2,484,848 new houses were provided— 788,872 by local authorities and 1,695,976 by'private enterprise. '■ This total excluded-14,365 houses provided to rehouse persons displaced under improvement : and reconstruction schemes under legislation before the Housing ' Act of 1930. The houses provided since the Armistice comprised the following:— WITH STATE ASSISTANCE. By local authorities ...;..' 776,174 By private enterprise 422,143 . . Tolul (Including 237,540 In rural districts) 1,198.317 WITHOUT STATE- ASSISTANCE; ' By local authorities 1"> G!)8 By private enterprise 1,273,833 Total (Including 334,939 In rural districts) ' 1,286,531 • Of the unassisted houses 1,028,829 were of a rateable value up to £26 (£35 in Greater London), 229,886 of a rateable value of £27-£52 (£36-£7O in Greater London), and 27,816 of a rateable value of £53-£7B (£7l-£I05! in Greater London). ,- <„ ,'' ; . The total of 134,153 houses provided by privato .enterprise without State assistance in the half-year ending September 30 last constituted a record. It was 13,372'm0re than in the previous half-year, the figure for which was a record at that time. , -