MR JUSTICE ROWLATT

Hokitika Guardian, 4 January 1930, Page 7

MR JUSTICE ROWLATT

SEEING JOKES IN ARITHMETIC. LONDON, Nov. 21. Mr .Justice Rowlatt is the laughing judge, and he laughs not at jokes but at problems. He smiles not at figures of fun, but merely at figures. He has a mathematical mind which enables him to detect humour in a book on arithmetic. Mr Justice Rowla tt can always see the point in decimals. He is one of the most hard-working and soundest judges on the bench and hi* revels in revenue problems and company cases. He sits in King’s Bench Court No. 9, which is a library of law books, and books that are not on shelves aie littered round the court. There are barriers of hooks, heaps of books, ordered lines of books, and Mr'Justice Rowlatt knows them all. He reads more law books in a day than other judges see in a week Rarely is a member of the public seen in No. 9 court. Yesterday i found an empty gallery, one woman clerk, and a score of lawyers and solicitors. And in this atmosphereof intricate figures and perplexing facts Mr Justice Rowlatt was- at his best and brightest. JOKES IN GEOMETRY. He has a genial face, this judge, who can smile at the multiplication table, Ho has the bulging, wrinkled brow of the mathematician, the forceful nose of a man of character, and the whimsical mouth of a sensitive personality. This comedian in calculation is a specialist in inland revenue eases in which figures count for more than phrases. lie sees epigrams in trigonometry and jokes in geometry. He wears eyeglasses that persist in Vailing off, and when he is interested hi an involved problem he bites his left thumb. He is the combination of a chartered accountant and an uiiehartc/red comedian. His slight stammer reveals a nervous temperament emphasised hv his subconscious laugh'er. Mr Justice Rowlatt does not laugh because he is amused, but because lie is unconsciously easing the strain of acute concentration. I was paralysed by this strange court where human I passions and natural emotions wore reduced to the lowest common multiple. The judge was revelling in financial problems that sounded to me like the quaint wordings of Norman-French decrees printed in tho old books. This is the sort of thing that made Mr Justice Rowlatt’s genial face glow in radiant smiles. I apologise for presenting it, but after all it is the sort of thing that goes on daily in No. 9 Court.

TYIN t G up counsel. The case raised the question of what amount of mortgage must remain outstanding in the hands of the executors of a dead man’s estate to entitle them to say that they are still carrying on their duties of administering the estate so as not to make the income from funds in their hands taxable as income of the beneficiaries under the will. Like old Caspar and the battle of Blenheim I do not understand what it was aR about. But Mr Justice Rowlatt did. He bit his thumb, he dropped his eye-glasses, he laughed, and he stammered, but he tied up cjoinisoL iiijto many mathematical knots. Mr Justice Rowlatt was enjoying himself. It was the sort of case that made strife worth living. I watched the one woman in court and I must confess that she bore up bravely. VVe went to six places of decimals, and then worked backwards to the unit. It was a chartered accountant’s orgay, and figures were dancing a decimal dance. It was magnificent but it was not human. The more the figures came, the more Mr Justice Rowlatt laughed.

THE OYSTER. Listening to the fight of figures, .1 clung to the incident of the judge and the oysters. Informed by counsel that the oyster was a highly organised fish that could change its sex at will, Mr Justice Rowlatt observed; “I wish we could do it in these days. But when you say they change their sex at will, I don’t know. Have you ever discussed it with oysters? The counsel got his own back with the witty retort, “No, my lord, my discussions with oysters have alwajs been very onesided.” An Eton bov, an honours mail ai Cambridge*, a. Fellow there of King s, then a master for a time at his own Eton, MY Justice Rowlatt is a scholar with a sense of humour and a judge with a mathematical mind.