HUMOURS OF THE LAW

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 84, 30 November 1931, Page 2

HUMOURS OF THE LAW

amusing address JURYMAN WHO KNEW A NOD WAS AS GOOD AS A WINK. A JUDGE'S SARCASM. SYDNEY, Monday. Criminal law is hardiy a subjeet calculated to yield mnch in the way of humour, but Mr. John Gonsalves, former Clerk of the Peace in Sydney, made of it a lunch-hour address from which members of the Millions Club extracted a vast amount of amusement. "The jury system," said Mr. Gonsalves, "is universally regarded as one of the bulwarks of British justice. That being the case, it is a curious thing' that you all try to dodge it. Every possible ingenious excuse has been exhausted in the evasion of this great public duty. "When Mr. Coyle yras Crown Proseciitor at the Darlinghurst Quarter Sessions, the name of a certain juryman was called. As the juryman passed the Bar tahle he bowed to Mr. : Coyle. The lynx-eyed array of legal men for the defence spotted the bow. 'Friend of Coyle's,' muttered a defence solicitor, and before the juryman reached the box he was halted by " a ' sfentorian /Challenged!' "I seem to remember that chap's face," said Mr. Coyle as the rejected juryman marched out of court, ahd he asked an official to catch him up and ask him where they had met. "Never saw him in my life before," said the juryman. "Old Jim Gannon put me up to that trick." Knew the World. The judge about whom, most stories were told, Mr. Gonsalves continued, was the late Judge Docker, a highly religious man, yet one with a working knowledge of the world for which few gave him credit. "He had a peculiar gift for biting, withering1 sarcasm, but once he exercised it very unwisely. "A man eame before him charged with burglary in a house at Potts . Point. "The Crown case was that the man had been found in the house at three o'clock in the morning, with a dark lantern, wearing sandshoes, and near a sideboard, in which the siiver was kept. "The accused, who was undefended, asked no questions of the witnesses, but at the conclusion of the evidenee addressed the jury. T drink pretty 'eavy, gentlemen, and when I'm on a hender, and I see a 'ouse with the dcor open, in I goes thinkin' it's me ovm place. I'm always doin' it. It's quite true what all these witnesses 'as said. I was there, but I 'ad no infention of stealin', and I'm innocent of this 'ere charge.' So Considerate. " 'Ah,' thought the old judge, 'here's my chance.' "In his summing up he closely reviewed all the evidenee, and then made the following comments: — ""The accused tells you that he has a weakness for going into the wrong house. He is a very considerate man. When he went into this house he didn't want to damage the walls by striking matches, so he took with him a dark lantern. He didn't want to disturb the people in the house, so he wore sneaker-slippers. " 'And I suppose that when he was found working along to the sideboard, it was to see if his crest was on the siiver.' "The jury," continued Mr. Gonsalves, "was out for about 12 minutes and a half, and brought back a verdict of not guilty, the foreman : explaining: 'We think the same as you, your Honour — he must have got into the wrong house by mistake.' So Innocent. "Old Judge Frank Rogers' peculiar ; brand of humour was to pose as a very innocent person to whom niany things had to be explained. A young woman, who described herself as an actress, was giving evidenee before him. The counsel for the defence demanded of her: 'Where were you an actress? Aren't you just a chairwarmer at the Tivoli ? ' That was in the days of the old Tivoli minstrel shows, and the witness replied that some people call them that. "Look, my gel," broke in Judge Rogers, "you told the court that you were ah actress and now you tell us that you are a charwoman. 'No, rnot a charwoman, V she retorted. 'Some people call us chairwarmers.' 'But tell me, my gel, who do you wairm chairs with?' demanded the judge. That Ham. "A slippery looking customer went into a suburban shop, and finding no one about, grabbed one of the dummy hams festooned across the roof, and bolted, never suspecting that it was a dummy. Two policemen saw him, caught him, and charged him with stealing the "ham" worth 6d. He refused summary jurisdiction, went before Judge Docker, and got six months. "The gaol ofiicials told me afterwards that that chap got into more frouble than any other prisoner they had. A little Cockney gaol bird started it by asking him one day: "What abart an 'am sandwidge ? ' The other prisoners took it up and at the mere mention of 'ham' he would go fighting mad. He lost all remissions and suffered several terms in the cells. "Incidentally, when the dummy hams became rather worse for wear, the firm supplying them used to send an old chap round to the shops vdth a cart to take them out to the tip. It was his one joy in life, as he saw someone approaching, to edge one of these discarded dummies off the cart and, out of the corner of his eye, watch the effect."