A Ludicrous Judge

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 248, 21 March 1888, Page 5

A Ludicrous Judge

Thackeray in his Paris sketches, it will be remembered, makes merry over the incapacity of Frenchmen to conduct a trial. i They do many things better in Franco than ! the English can do at home, but to conduct a trial solemnly, decorously, and justly is not one of them. We have heard many good stories of the French bench and bar, and we have heard tell of some queer achievements of that much-abuaed commodity called justices' justice ; but we uave never come across anything in judicia annals quite so surprising as the performance which is attributed to M. Vigneau, the Juge d'lnstruction, to whom the investigations of the charges againat M. Wilson was assigned. The occasion was in many ways a momentous one, for with M. Wilson fell M. Grevy, and with M. Grevy might have fallen tho French Republic. Though as the event went tho Republic stood, at any rate there was sufficient in the situation one would have supposed to have put the judge on his best behaviour. Xow, it chanced that among the witnesses who were examined wa9 a Monsieur Lcgrand, who was stated to have pui chased a decoration from M. Wilson. JM. Vigneau was not satisfied with his evidence, and il occurred to him that he might elicit the truth by a stratagem which was, for a judge, somewhat ingenious and acute. After M. Legrand had left the Court the judge rai.g him up on the telephone at his office, and pub himself in conversation with him. "Am 1 speaking to M. Legrand?" he asked. Yes, and who are you ?"' M. Legrand replied. "I am the man of the Avenue de Jena " (meaning M. Wilson), was the rejoinder, and under this disguise he tried to elicit the information he had failed to obtain from M. Legrand in the witness box. Such is the story a=* told by the correspondent of " The Times, ' yet, good as it if, it is if anything eclipsed by another story of the same Judge on the same occasion given on the &arne authority. After interrogating M. Ribeaudeau, M. Wilson's secretary, and one of his supposed agent:* in selling decorations, at some length, M. Vigneau suddenly stopped and suggested that as it was halt-past six they should adjourn. " Don't you think it dull, and time to stop ?" said the genial Judge. Riboaudcan concurred, and was honoured with an invitation to dine with him. M. Vigneau rang the bell, and ordered a sumptuous dinner, which was brought to his office, and magistrate and witness sat down together and regaled themselves for an hour an la-half on choice burgundy and champayne. All of which, says " The Times " correspondent, 13 said to have been done away with the object of eliciting admissions from Ribeaudeau. Such an stated to have been two incidents of the famous Wilson trial, and they cannot be i altogether apocryphal, for M. Vigneau was brought up before the Magisterial Disciplinary Tribunal for having acted contrary to law and professional dignity, and was reduced to the rank of an ordinary Magistrate. We do not wonder, for a brace of queerer stories we never heard. M. Vigneau at the telephone or uncorking the burgundy is as ludicrous a judge as any we have met, even in the ingenious verses of Mr Gilbert.

He Proved His Love. — Irate Father : " You remember you wanted to marry that book-keeper of mine about a year ago?" Daughter: "Yes, father." "A pretty sort of a man you picked, he has decamped with my whole fortune." " You remember, lather, that you told him he could not have me until he got rich, don't you ?" "Of course, the young — " "I have just received a letter from him from Spain saying that he is richer now, but is perfectly willing to marry a poor man's daughter. '