ANECDOTES OF JUDGES AND JURYMEN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5633, 19 April 1879, Page 3

ANECDOTES OF JUDGES AND JURYMEN.

(From the Leisure Hour.) . In a murder case before Baron Parke, the Judge told the jury that the evidence of any malice was very »Ugljt, and that they could, if they chose, find the prisoner guilty of manslaughter. “Just,” added his Lordship, “as in an indictment for child murder, you may acquit the woman of murder and find her guilty of concealing the birth of her child.” The jurymen deliberated long and carefully, and eventually came into Court with a verdict of “Concealment of birth.” Justice Moule once tried a grievous case of wounding. The prisoner quarrelled with the prosecutor, and, drawing a large clasp knife, held him to the ground, gashed him most horribly, and he was with great difficulty cured of the dreadful, wound. The counsel who defended the prisoner told the jury that although the indictment charged the offence as being “ with intent to kill and murder,” and “ with intent to do grievous bodily harm," they could, under a recent statute, find the prisoner guilty of “ unlawful wounding," which was a misdemeanor. Said Maule, in summing up ; “ Gentlemen, if you think the prisoner knocked the prosecutor down, drew his knife, stabbed and cut him in such a manner that his clothes were divided with ; the violence of the act, his abdomen ripped up, and his intestines made to issue from the wound in such a manner as that the doctor tells you only the mercy of God has enabled him to appear here this day, merely without any ill-feeling, and more as an accident than anything else, you will say it is unlawful wounding.” The jury construed this sarcastic remark of the judge as a direction to them, and instantly returned a verdict of “ unlawful wounding.” Baron Alderson once tried a civil action in which the plaintiff had had his ribs broken and his skull fractured by the defendant. The facts were unanswerable, and the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, with £1 “We won’t try any more causes with this jury,” said the Baron. “ Call another.” And as they left the box he quietly added, «Go home, gentlemen ; as you value your heads and ribs at £l, I hope you may find some liberal purchasers ou your journey !” The Judges often talk in too learned a strain to the juries who are assisting them. This is undoubtedly true in many instances. _ The Judge is by education, general and special, a different individual from any one of the jury, and we know an excellent ex-member of the Bench who dreadfully confuses juries by small Latin quotations introduced into his summingup, and utterly unintelligible to the majority of ’the “ gentlemen,” and who was also always wont, when the jury were considering their verdict, and It was necessary, through pressure of time, to call another sacred twelve, to say, “ Gentlemen, do not allow me to precipitate your deliberations; but, if your cogitation is likely to be protracted, the Court will direct yon to retire, and proceed with another portion of the panel.” Very different, however, have been other Judges in this particular. They have attempted to make everything as plain as possible. Justice Burroughs was an eminent instance of this. After a prolonged argument upon the goodness of the pleading in a record, in which a “ consequential issue” was contained, he addressed the jury thus ! “You have been patiently hearing the learned counsel and myself talk for some time about a * consequential issue,’ gentlemen, and I don’t suppose that you know what a consequential issue is ; but I daresay you do know what a game of skittles is, and know also that if you can properly roll your ball against, one of the nine pins in a right direction that pin tumbles down and knocks all the other eight after it. Now, gentlemen, this countin the declaration, called a consequential issue, is just like that first nine-pin, and if we can bowl it over, as we have done, all the other causes of action fall to the ground also. You must find a verdict for the defendant. At the Winchester Assizes, in the winter of 1855, two men were tried before Baron Parke for poaching. It was observed that some difficulty was experienced in getting a - jury, the prisoners’ counsel objecting to one after another juryman called. At length twelve were empanelled, and the tiial proceeded. The facts were plain, the prisoners being taken in the very act. When the evidence was over the learned gentleman who defended submitted that there was no case against bis clients, and urged some most frivolous objections to the evidence. The Judge was impatient, i-J counsel warm, and warmer as the arguments went ou, eventually observing that in 'his opinir a ttiro was no case to “ go to the jury,” and l.e declined to address them. The Judge shortly summed up, and the jury immediately returned a verdict of “ not_ guilty.. Everyone was electrified, and the jury cismissed from the trial of any further caces. Leaving Court in the afternoon we encoun % tered one of the “perverse” twelve quietly sm-king his pipe outside the hall, and,- after a remark or two about the weathsv, asksd the comfortable old fellow how it was they gave such a verdict. “ Well,” was the ccol reply, “our Recorder, he said he thought the law was on prisoner s side, and t’other Judge from Lunooo, he said it warn’t j and our Recorder, he said he thought the men wara’t guilty, and t’other old man from Lunnon said he thought they were ; and it wasn’t likely we was going against our Recorder, and wo weren’t going to see him bullied neither, so we gave him the verdict. ’ It is hardly necessary to add that the learned counsel for tae prisoners, being Recorder for Portsmouth, had “packed” a jury of Portsmouth men. Our judges have not attained to the happiness of our bishops; no dispensation from the ancient usage has been given to them. Were George 111. amongst us he might look complacently upon the judges* bench and the bar, however hia sense of propriety might be shocked by the bench of bishops, for he was quite as inexorable concerning the former as we have seen him to be towards the latter. When Eldon was made Chief Justice of the Common pleai it was customary for the judges to wear powdered bush wigs as part of their ordinary

costume. The appendage was not pleasant, and at a much later period the well-known Baron Parke’s wig earned for him the ordinary designation of “ Bushey Parke.” Lady Eldon liked the peerage very well for her husband, but she did not like the wig. She was very proud of his handsome locks, and it was by her persuasion he begged the king to give him a dispensation from the wig on account cf headache. “No, no,” said the startled monarch, “ I will have no innovations in my time.” Eldon urged that the wig was an innovation, since the old judges did not wear it. “True,” said the king, “ you may do as they did, if you like. They wore no wigs ; they wore their beards.” But Eldon preferred the wig to the beard, so there was no innovation.