An Eccentric Judge.

Manawatu Herald, 24 January 1903, Page 2

An Eccentric Judge.

Thefj was the strangest blend of common-sense, Scotch irritability, terrible disconcerting can lour and contempt for the forms and procedants which sometimes baulk justice in the late Commissioner Kerr, who presided for nearly 12 vears in the City ot London Court, and whose death in his year was iinnounced this week. He was a remarkable and interesting character in many ways. No Eng' lish judge ever dealt with business so rapidly or in so unconventional a fashion. He refused to take notes. They wasted time, he said, and prevented him from studying the demeanour of witnesses He scouted “ leading cases whenever lie saw fit, (he'arihg that in his own court he wouhi hive his own law. H* 3 cherished a pi us fur,- against finicking, time-.,wa ting, cost-pi ing counsel. He/did not eire how many ol thqm he enragrd. Yet such was his; genius for getting be hind the spirit of the law and

rendering sound justice that few verdicts of his were reversed during his long career than those of any contemporary London judge. When practising at the bar in hia younger days he wrote several legal works including a notable commentary on Blackstone; but his studies, had had the reverse of the usual effect. He very rarely consulted legal works after he went on the bench, and no judge ever made so many contemptuous remark upon law and lawyers. “ The less law we have the better,’’ he said once. “ Men are more likely to be honest without it.” His general advice to the public was, “ Never go to law under any circumstances. You had much better loose your money than go to law. As a rule it only puts money into the pockets of tne lawyers—the very worst possible form in which money, can he spent.” His definition of “ without prejudice ” was “ a thing invented by lawyers to cover dishonesty.” The com** missioner had a drastic way with loquacious young barristers and solicitors, and often stopped their speeches and curtailed their supplies of evidence. “ Don't want any more evidence,” he would say, “ You’ve proved you case. Now you are only trying to run up costs.” One of the most cynical of his aphoiisms was: ‘‘ King David said in his haste, 1 All men are liars,’ If he had been sitting here for 40 years, as I have, he would have said it in his leisure. ’ The com missioner was noted as the terror of money lenders. “ You must pay this debt,” he said sternly to a young city clerk, who had already paid his original debt twice over, and s ill owed more than he had borrowed ; “ but yea will pay it at the rate ol Id per month.” This would make the last, instalment due 289 years later I