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If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Judgments in Vacation - -Author: Edward Abbott Parry - -Release Date: March 21, 2021 [eBook #64898] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian - Libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDGMENTS IN VACATION *** - - - - - -JUDGMENTS IN VACATION - - - - - JUDGMENTS IN - VACATION - - BY - HIS HONOUR JUDGE - EDWARD ABBOTT PARRY - _Author of “Dorothy Osborne’s Letters,” “Life of Macklin,” - “The Scarlet Herring,” “Katawampus: Its Treatment and Cure,” - “Butterscotia,” etc._ - - LONDON - SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE - MANCHESTER: SHERRATT & HUGHES, 34 CROSS STREET - 1911 - - [All rights reserved] - - - - - TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD ALVERSTONE - LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND - THIS VOLUME IS - BY KIND PERMISSION - DEDICATED IN AFFECTION AND RESPECT - BY - THE AUTHOR - - - - -CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - ‘The Box Office’ 1 - - The Disadvantages of Education 21 - - Cookery Book Talk 45 - - A Day of my Life in the County Court 52 - - Dorothy Osborne 75 - - The Debtor of To-day 103 - - The Folk-Lore of the County Court 114 - - Concerning Daughters 129 - - The Future of the County Court 137 - - The Prevalence of Podsnap 158 - - An Elizabethan Recorder 165 - - The Funniest Thing I ever saw 190 - - The Playwright 196 - - Advice to Young Advocates 212 - - The Insolvent Poor 220 - - Why be an Author? 236 - - Which Way is the Tide? 265 - - Kissing the Book 273 - - A Welsh Rector of the Last Century 290 - - - - -PREFACE. - - -To a sane world one must offer some few words of excuse for writing -judgments in vacation. One has heard of the emancipated slave who -invested his savings in purchasing a share in another slave and of the -historical bus-driver who made use of his annual holiday to drive a bus -for a sick friend. And so it is with smaller men. One gets so used to -giving judgments upon matters, the essence and properties of which one -really knows very little about, that the habit remains after the sittings -are over into the vacation. And on that rainy day, when golf and the more -important pursuits of life are impossible, one finds oneself alone with -pen, ink and paper, and thoughts that voluntarily move towards written -judgments. And there is this excuse, that a Judge of a County Court can -offer which would not be possible to his ermined brother—or should it be -cousin, a poor relation had best be careful in claiming relationship—of -the High Court. If we have any lurking desire to write our judgments, -we shall not find leisure or opportunity to write them in term time. -There is such a vast number of cases to try that judgments must be given -forthwith, relying on authority perhaps rather than accuracy for the -kindly manner of their reception. Well do I remember a great Judge giving -a parting word of advice to a friend of mine on the Northern Circuit who -preceded me to the County Court Bench: “Better be strong and wrong than -weak and right.” The wisdom of the world is on the side of this epigram, -and demands that all judgments of real importance should be given -forthwith and spoken rather than written. Thus that most influential -arbitrator in the larger affairs of Englishmen, the umpire in the cricket -field, is never allowed to write his judgments. - -It must be a pleasant thing to listen for many days to the learned -arguments of the ablest minds at the bar, noting down here and there -an added thought of your own which is to find a place in the ultimate -judgment which some days hence you will write at leisure in your study -surrounded by the reports and text books necessary to give weight to -your written word. A poor Judge of the County Court can have no such -refinement of pleasure. Does Bill’s cat trespass in Thomas’s pigeon -loft, at Lambeth or Salford?—the twenty-five shilling claim is argued -in unison, certainly without harmony, until a skilful adjudication is -planted right between the disputants in a breathless pause in their -contest, and they are whirled out of Court speechless and astonished at -the result to revive the wordy argument in the street or to join their -voices in maledictions of the law and all her servants. How far otherwise -in the High Court? Should some millionaire’s malkin, some prize Angora -of Park Lane, slay the champion homer of a pigeon-flying Marquis—what a -summoning to the fray of Astburys and Carsons. How thoughtfully through -the long days of the hearing would learned counsel “watch” on behalf of -the London County Council. What ancient law concerning pigeons and cats -would be disentombed by hard-working juniors and submissively quoted -to the Bench by their leaders as matter “which I am sure your Lordship -remembers.” And then how interesting to write down the final just word of -the Law of England on cats and pigeons, and to read it amid a reverent -hush of learned approval, and finally to bring down the curtain on the -comedy, justifying the hours and treasure that had been expended to -obtain the judgment you had written, with some such tag of learning as: - - “Deliberare utilia mora utilissima est.” - -I am by no means suggesting that these delays of the law would be useful -in inferior Courts, or that Judges of the County Court have the wit and -ability to write judgments in term time of value to the world. Inferior -as they necessarily are in equipment of learning and worldly emolument -to the Judges of the High Court, they can only take a humble pleasure in -believing that they administer justice at least as indifferently. - -But if you are driven to writing judgments in vacation, there is this to -be said for it, that you can choose your own subject upon which you will -deliver your words of wisdom, you are not forced to listen to arguments -pro and con before retiring to the study with the text books, and you are -bound by no precedents governing your thoughts and driving your ideas -along some mistaken lane that you know in your own heart leads to No -Man’s Land. Nor are you tied down to the narrow, courtly and somewhat -pompous language in which it is the custom of the judiciary to publish -their wisdom. - -There is this further to be said about judgments written in vacation. No -one is bound to listen to them, no shorthand writer has to strain his -ear to take them down, no editor of the Law Reports has to disobey his -conscience to include them in the authorised version of the law; and, -best of all, no Court of Appeal can either reverse them or lessen their -authority by approving them. Indeed, it is only in one attribute that -judgments in vacation seem to me scarcely as satisfactory as judgments -delivered in term time. With the latter costs follow the event. - -Many of these papers have appeared in print before. The oldest of them, -Dorothy Osborne, appeared in the _English Illustrated Magazine_ as long -ago as April 1886, and I have reprinted it in the belief that many of -Dorothy’s servants may like to read the little essay that led to my -receiving from Mrs. Longe her copies of the original letters and her -notes upon them, whereby the full edition was at length published. The -quotations in it were taken from Courtenay’s extracts in his “Life of -Temple.” In reprinting the article here I have only amended actual errors -and misprints. In the paper on “An Elizabethan Recorder” the spelling has -been modernized. In reproducing the article on “The Insolvent Poor” which -was published originally in the _Fortnightly Review_ in May 1898, it has -not been thought necessary to modernize all the instances and figures -that were then used. Unhappily the situation of the Insolvent Poor is no -better to-day than it was in 1898, and the argument of that day remains -unaffected by any reform. “Kissing the Book” was published before the -recent alteration in the law, but even now the custom is not extinct, and -the folk-lore of it may still be entertaining. I have to thank Messrs. -Macmillan for leave to reprint the paper on “Dorothy Osborne,” and my -thanks are also due to the proprietors of the _Fortnightly Review_, _The -Cornhill_, _The Manchester Guardian_, _The Contemporary Review_, _The -Pall Mall Magazine_, and _The Rapid Review_, for their leave to reprint -other papers. - - EDWARD A. PARRY. - - - - -‘THE BOX OFFICE.’ - - Ah! let not censure term our fate our choice, - The stage but echoes back the public voice; - The drama’s laws, the drama’s patrons give, - For we that live to please must please to live. - - —_Samuel Johnson._ - - -I have a vague notion that I wrote this paper on the Box Office in some -former existence in the eighteenth century, and that it was entitled -‘The Box Office in relation to the Drama of Human Life,’ and that it was -printed in the Temple of the Muses which was, if I remember, in Finsbury -Square. - -But it is quite worth writing again with a snappy, up-to-date modern -title, and in a snappier, more up-to-date and modern spirit, for as I -discovered, to my surprise, in talking the other day to a meeting of -serious playgoers, the Box Office idea is as little understood to-day as -ever it was. All great first principles want re-stating every now and -then, and the Box Office principle is one of them, for, like many of the -great natural forces which govern human action, it seems to be entirely -unappreciated and misunderstood. - -Speaking of the actor and his profession, I pointed out that the only -real test of merit in an actor was the judgment of the Box Office, and -that therefore an actor is bound to play to a Box Office and succeed with -a Box Office if he wants to continue to be an actor. - -The suggestion was received with contempt and derision. No artist, I -was told, no man of any character would deign to think of so low a -thing as the Box Office. All the great men of the world were men who -had had a contempt for the Box Office, and the Box Office is, and must -in its nature be, a lowering and degrading influence. This opinion -seemed so widely held that I decided to hold an inquest upon my original -suggestion, and the result of this, I need hardly say, was not only to -confirm me in the view that I was entirely right, but to convince me that -my neighbours were sunk in the slough of a dangerous heresy, in which it -was my duty to preach at them whilst they slowly disappeared in the ooze -of their unpardonable error. - -There is something essentially English in the very name of the -institution—the Box Office. About the only thing an average Box Office -cannot sell is boxes. When it begins to sell boxes the happy proprietor -knows that, in American phrase, he has ‘got right there.’ But every sane -manager, every sane actor, and all sane individuals who minister to -the amusement of the people, close their ears to the wranglings of the -critics and listen attentively to the voice of the Box Office. The Box -Office is the barometer of public opinion, the machine that records the -_vox populi_, which is far nearer the _vox Dei_ than the voice of the -expert witness. - -Before discoursing of the Box Office in its widest sense, let us return -for a moment to the case of the actor. Here the Box Office must, in -the nature of things, decide his fate. It is the polling booth of the -playgoer, and it is the playgoer and not the critic who decides whether -an actor is great or otherwise. Why do we call Garrick a great actor? -Because the Box Office of his time acclaimed him one. Davies tells us -how his first performance of Richard III. was received with loud and -reiterated applause. How his ‘look and actions when he pronounced the -words, - - Off with his head: so much for Buckingham, - -were so significant and important from his visible enjoyment of the -incident, that several loud shouts of approbation proclaimed the triumph -of the actor and satisfaction of the audience.’ A modern purist would -have walked out of the playhouse when his ear was insulted by Cibber’s -tag; but from a theatre point of view it is a good tag, and I have always -thought it a pity that Shakespeare forgot to set it down himself, and -left to Cibber the burden of finishing the line. The tag is certainly -deserving of this recognition that it was the line with which Garrick -first captured the Box Office, and it is interesting that the best -Richard III. of my generation, Barry Sullivan, always used Cibber’s -version, for the joy, as I take it, of bringing down the house with ‘so -much for Buckingham.’ Shakespeare was so fond of improving other folk’s -work himself, and was such a keen business man, that he would certainly -have adopted as his own any line capable of such good Box Office results. - -Throughout Garrick’s career he was not without critics, and envious ones -at that; but no one to-day doubts that the verdict of the Box Office -was a right one, and it is an article of universal belief that Garrick -was a great actor. Of course one does not contend that the sudden -assault and capture of the Box Office by a young actor in one part is -conclusive evidence of merit. As the envious Quin said: ‘Garrick is a -new religion; Whitfield was followed for a time, but they would all come -to church again.’ Cibber, too, shook his head at the young gentleman, -but was overcome by that dear old lady, Mrs. Bracegirdle, who had left -the stage thirty years before Garrick arrived. ‘Come, come, Cibber,’ she -said, ‘tell me if there is not something like envy in your character of -this young gentleman. _The actor who pleases everybody must be a man of -merit._’ The old man felt the force of this sensible rebuke; he took a -pinch of snuff and frankly replied, ‘Why faith, Bracey, I believe you are -right, the young fellow is clever.’ - -In these anecdotes you have the critic mind annoyed by the Box Office -success of the actor, and the sane simple woman of the world laying down -the maxim ‘the actor who pleases everybody must be a man of merit.’ And -when one considers it, must it not necessarily be so? An actor can only -appeal to one generation of human beings, and if they do not applaud him -and support him, can it be reasonably said he is a great actor? If he -plays continually to empty benches, and if he never makes a Box Office -success, is it not absurd to say that as an actor he is of any account at -all? - -So far in the proceedings of my inquest it seemed to me clear that in -setting down the Box Office as the only sound test of merit in an actor, -my position was indisputable. Of course, there were, and are, Box Offices -and Box Offices. Cibber, Quin, Macklin, and Garrick appealed to different -audiences from Foote. An actor to-day has a hundred different Box Offices -to appeal to, but the point and the only point is, does he succeed with -the Box Office he attacks? Moreover, the more Box Offices he succeeds -with and the greater the public he can amuse, the better actor he is. -Garrick knew this when, in the spirit of a great artist, he said: ‘If you -won’t come to Lear and Hamlet I must give you Harlequin,’ and did it with -splendid success. - -How was it, then, when the thing seemed so clear to my mind, there should -be so many to dispute this Box Office test? The more one studied the -attitude of these unbelievers, the more certain it seemed that their -unbelief arose in a great measure as Cibber’s and Quin’s had arisen, -namely, from a certain spirit of natural envy. It is obvious that not -every one of us can achieve a great Box Office success, and that many -men who live laborious lives, without much prosperity of any kind, not -unnaturally dislike the success that an actor appears to attain so -easily. But the suggestion that Box Office success is or can be largely -attained by unworthy means is, it seems to me, a curious delusion of -the envious, insulting to the generation of which we are individuals, -inasmuch as it suggests that we are easily deceived and deluded, and -exhibiting unpleasantly that modern pessimism that spells—or should we -more accurately say smells?—degeneration. Garrick’s career is an eloquent -example of the fact that a great Box Office success can only be attained -by great attributes used with consummate power, and that pettiness and -meanness, chicanery and bombast are not the methods approved of by the -patrons of the Box Office. - -Of course it will be said by the envious ‘This man is a great success -to-day, wait and see what the next generation think of him.’ But why -should a man act or paint or write for any other generation but his own? -Common sense suggests that many men can successfully entertain their -own generation, but that only the work of the rare occasional genius -will survive in the future. Luckily for all artists of to-day, this is -and always was a law of Nature; equally fortunate for artists of the -future, that nothing that is being done to-day is in the least likely to -interfere with the workings of that law in days to come. - -There is undoubtedly a tendency—and probably there always has been a -tendency—to infer that because a man is rich therefore he is lucky, and -that a man who is successful is very likely a dishonest man; indeed, -it seems a common belief that to gain the verdict of the Box Office it -is necessary to do that which is unworthy. This idea being so widely -spread, it appears interesting to study the Box Office in relation to -other scenes in the human drama. What part does it play, for instance, in -literature or art or politics? - -Of course, a writer or painter is in a somewhat different position from -an actor. He can, if he wishes, appeal to a much smaller circle, or, in -an extreme case, he can refuse to appeal at all to the generation in -which he lives and make his appeal to posterity. The statesman, however, -is perhaps nearer akin to the actor. Let us consider how statesmen and -politicians have regarded the Box Office, and whether it can fairly be -said to have exercised a bad influence on their actions. - -And as Garrick is one of the high sounding names in the world of the -theatre, so Gladstone may not unfairly be taken as a type of English -politician, and it is curious that the whole evolution of his mind -is chiefly interesting in its gradual discovery of the fact that the -Box Office is the sole test of a statesman’s merit, that the _vox -populi_ is indeed the _vox Dei_, and that the superior person is of -no account in politics as against the will of the nation. As in the -theatre, so in politics, it is the people who pay to come in who have -to be catered for. In 1838, Gladstone was as superior—‘sniffy’ is the -modern phrase—about the Box Office as any latter-day journalist could -wish. He complimented the Speaker on putting down discussions upon -the presentation of petitions. The Speaker sagely said ‘that those -discussions greatly raised the influence of popular feeling on the -deliberation of the House; and that by stopping them he thought a wall -was erected—not as strong as might be wished.’ Young Mr. Gladstone -concurred, and quoted with approval an exclamation of Roebuck’s in -the House: ‘We, sir, are, or ought to be, the _élite_ of the people -of England, for mind; we are at the head of the mind of the people of -England.’ - -It took over forty years for Gladstone to discover that his early views -were a hopeless form of conceit, and that the only test of the merit of a -policy was the Box Office test. But when he recognised that the _élite_ -of the people were not in the House of Commons, but were really in the -pit and gallery of his audiences, he never wearied of putting forward and -explaining Box Office principles with the enthusiasm, and perhaps the -exaggeration, of a convert. - -Take that eloquent appeal in Midlothian as an instance: - - We cannot (he says) reckon on the wealth of the country, nor - upon the rank of the country, nor upon the influence which - rank and wealth usually bring. In the main these powers are - against us, for wherever there is a close corporation, wherever - there is a spirit of organised monopoly, wherever there is a - narrow and sectional interest—apart from that of the country, - and desiring to be set up above the interest of the public, - there we have no friendship and no tolerance to expect. Above - all these and behind all these, there is something greater - than these: there is the nation itself. This great trial is - now proceeding before the nation. The nation is a power hard - to rouse, but when roused, harder and still more hopeless to - resist. - -Now here is the Box Office test with a vengeance. Not in its soundest -form, perhaps, because the really ideal manager would have found a piece -and a company that would draw stalls and dress circle as well as pit -and gallery. For Bacon says: ‘If a man so temper his actions as in some -of them he do content every faction, the music will be the fuller.’ But -Gladstone at that time had neither the piece nor the company for this, -and, great artist as he was, his music did not in later years draw the -stalls and dress circle; but having mastered the eternal Box Office -principle, this did not disconcert him, for he knew that of the two the -pit and gallery were sounder business for a manager who wanted to succeed -in the provinces and was eager for a long run. - -This recognition by Mr. Gladstone of the Box Office as supreme comes with -especial interest when you consider that his education and instinct made -it peculiarly difficult for him to appreciate the truth. Disraeli jumped -at it more easily, as one might expect from a man of Hebrew descent, for -that great race have always held the soundest views on questions of the -Box Office. As a novelist, the novels he wrote were no doubt the best he -was capable of, but whatever may be their merits or demerits, they were -written with an eye to the Box Office and the Box Office responded. His -first appearance upon the political stage was not a success. The pit -and gallery howled at him. But this did not lead him to pretend that -he despised his audience, and that they were a mob whose approval was -unworthy of winning; on the contrary, he told them to their faces that -‘the time would come when they would be obliged to listen.’ A smaller man -would have shrunk with ready excuse from conquering such a Box Office, -but Disraeli knew that it was a condition precedent to greatness, and -he intended to be great. He had no visionary ideas about the political -game. As he said to a fellow-politician: ‘Look at it as you will, it is a -beastly career.’ Much the same may be said in moments of despondency of -any career. The only thing that ultimately sweetens the labour necessary -to success is the Box Office returns, not by any means solely because of -their value in money—though a man honest with himself does not despise -money—but because every shilling paid into the Box Office is a straight -testimonial from a fellow-citizen who believes in your work. Disraeli’s -Box Office returns were colossal and deservedly so—for he had worked hard -for them. - -When you come to think of it seriously, the Box Office principle in -the drama of politics is the right for that drama’s patrons to make its -laws, a thing that this nation has contended for through the centuries. -Indeed, there are only two possible methods of right choice open: either -to listen to the voice of public opinion—the Box Office principle—or to -leave affairs entirely to the arbitrament of chance. With sturdy English -common sense we have embodied both these principles in an excellent but -eccentric constitution. We allow public opinion to choose the members of -the House of Commons, and leave the choice of members of the House of -Lords entirely to chance. To an outside observer both methods seem to -give equally satisfactory results. - -In political matters we find that for all practical purposes the Box -Office reigns supreme. No misguided political impresario to-day would -plant some incompetent young actor into a star part because he was a -member of his own family. We may be thankful that all parties openly -recognise that any political play to be produced must please the pit -and gallery, and that any statesman actor, to be a success, must play -to their satisfaction. No one wants the stalls and dress circle of the -political circus to be empty, but it would be absurd to let a small -percentage of the audience exercise too great an influence on the -productions of the management. - -As in politics, so in business, for here no sane man will be heard to -deny that the Box Office test is the only test of merit. If the balance -sheet is adverse, the business man may be a man of culture, brain-power, -intellect, sentiment and good manners, but as a business man he is not -a success, and Nature kindly extinguishes him and automatically removes -him from a field of energy for which he is unfitted. It is really -unfortunate that one cannot have a moral, social, and literary Bankruptcy -Court, where, applying the Box Office test, actors, authors, artists, -and statesmen might file their petitions and be adjudged politically, -or histrionically, or artistically bankrupt, as the case might be, and -obtain a certificate of the Court, permitting them to open a fried-fish -shop, to start a newspaper, or to enter upon some simpler occupation -which, upon evidence given, it might appear they are really fitted for. - -It is the vogue to-day for those claiming to possess the literary and -artistic temperament to shrink with very theatrical emphasis from the -Box Office. They point out how the Box Office of to-day overrules the -Box Office of yesterday, forgetting that the Box Office of to-morrow may -reinstate the judgment of the inferior Court. Even if the Box Office is -as uncertain as the law, it is also as powerful as the law. Of course -a painter or writer has the advantage over the actor—if it be one—of -appealing to a smaller Box Office to-day, in the hopes of attracting a -large Box Office to-morrow. A man can write and paint to please a coming -generation, but a man cannot act, or bring in Bills in Parliament, or -bake or brew, or make candlesticks for anyone else than his fellow living -men. Not that, for myself, I think there have ever been many writers or -artists who wrote and painted for future generations. On the contrary, -they wrote and painted largely to please themselves, but in so far as -they cared for their wives and children, with an eye on the Box Office, -and in most cases it was only because their business arrangements were -mismanaged that their own generations failed to pay to come in. These -failures were the exception. The greatest men, such as Shakespeare and -Dickens, were immediate Box Office successes—others were Box Office -successes in their own day, but have not stood the test of time. -Nevertheless, it is something to succeed at any Box Office, even if the -success be only temporary. Every man cannot be a Prime Minister, but is -that any reason why he should not aspire to a seat on the Parish Council? -When one turns to the lives of authors and artists, one does not find -that the wisest and best were men who despised the test of the Box Office. - -Goldsmith had the good sense to ‘heartily wish to be rich,’ but he -scarcely went the right way about it. One remembers Dr. Johnson sending -him a guinea, and going across to his lodgings to find that his landlady -had arrested him for debt and that he had changed the guinea for a bottle -of Madeira. Dr. Johnson immediately makes across to the bookseller and -sells the ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ for sixty pounds. The Box Office test -absolutely settled the merit of the book in its own generation, and -from then until now. One may regret that Goldsmith reaped so poor a -reward, and that is what so constantly happens, not that the Box Office -test fails to be a true test at revealing merit, but that, owing to -superior business capacity, a very inferior author will for a time reap -a bigger reward than a better author. This is generally the result of -bad business management, and the cases even of authors and artists who -are not discovered in their own lifetime, and are discovered by future -generations, are rarer than one would suppose. It is an amusing modern -craze among the _cognoscenti_ to assess the ability of a writer or an -artist of to-day by the mere fact alone that he has few admirers of his -own generation. - -If one were to investigate the lives of great writers and painters, one -would find, I think, that the majority wrote and painted for money and -recognition, and that the one reward they really wished for was a Box -Office success. - -Dickens, who is perhaps the healthiest genius in English literature, -writing of a proposed new publication, says frankly: - - I say nothing of the novelty of such a publication, nowadays, - or its chance of success. Of course I think them great, very - great; indeed almost beyond calculation, or I should not seek - to bind myself to anything so extensive. The heads of the terms - which I should be prepared to go into the undertaking would - be—that I be made a proprietor in the work, and a sharer in - the profits. That when I bind myself to write a certain portion - of every number, I am ensured _for_ that writing in every - number, a certain sum of money. - -That is the wholesome way of approaching a piece of literary work from -the Box Office point of view. But Dickens well understood the inward -significance of Box Office success and why it is a thing good in itself. -As he puts it in answering the letter of a reader in the backwoods of -America: - - To be numbered among the household gods of one’s distant - countrymen and associated with their homes and quiet pleasures; - to be told that in each nook and corner of the world’s great - mass there lives one well-wisher who holds communion with me - in spirit is a worthy fame indeed, and one which I would not - barter for a mine of wealth. - -Dickens’s Box Office returns brought him a similar message from hundreds -and thousands of his fellow-men to that contained in the letter from the -backwoods of America, and though in the nature of things such messages -can only come in any number through the Box Office, Dickens understood -the meaning of a Box Office success, and had too honest a heart to -pretend that he despised it. - -Thackeray was of course absolutely dogmatic on the Box Office principle. -He rightly regarded the Box Office as the winnowing machine separating -chaff from wheat. He refused to whimper over imaginary men of genius who -failed to get a hearing from the world. One of the first duties of an -author, in his view, was that of any other citizen, namely, to pay his -way and earn his living. He puts his cold sensible views into the mouth -of Warrington reproving Pen for some maudlin observation about the wrongs -of genius at the hands of publishers. - - What is it you want? (asks Warrington). Do you want a body - of capitalists that shall be forced to purchase the works of - all authors who may present themselves, manuscript in hand? - Everybody who writes his epic, every driveller who can and - can’t spell and produces his novel or his tragedy—are they all - to come and find a bag of sovereigns in exchange for their - worthless reams of paper? Who is to settle what is good, bad, - saleable, or otherwise? Will you give the buyer leave in fine - to purchase or not?... I may have my own ideas of the value - of my Pegasus, and think him the most wonderful of animals, - but the dealer has a right to his opinion, too, and may want a - lady’s horse, or a cob for a heavy timid rider, or a sound hack - for the road, and my beast won’t suit him. - -One cannot have the Box Office principle more correctly stated than it -is in that passage. Nearly all the great writers seem to be of the same -opinion, and for the same reasons and without being such a ‘whole-hogger’ -as Dr. Johnson, who roundly asserted that ‘No man but a blockhead ever -wrote except for money,’ it seems undoubted that the motives of money and -recognition have produced the best work that has been done. - -Nor do we find that the painter is in this matter less sensible than his -artistic brethren. The late Sir John Millais expresses very accurately -the sensible spirit in which all great artists attend to the varied -voices of critics as against the unanimous voice of the Box Office. - - I have now lost all hope of gaining just appreciation in the - Press; but thank goodness ‘the proof of the pudding is in - the eating.’ Nothing could have been more adverse than the - criticism on ‘The Huguenot,’ yet the engraving is now selling - more rapidly than any other of recent time. I have great faith - in the mass of the public, although one hears now and then such - grossly ignorant remarks. - -The artist then gives instances of public criticism in other arts with -which he disagrees; but the only matter that I am concerned with is -that in his own art, and for himself, he has arrived at the Box Office -conclusion that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. - -I have searched through many biographies in hopes of finding the writer -or artist who was wholly uninfluenced by the Box Office. If he existed, -or was likely to exist, he would be found, one would think, in large -numbers among those well-to-do folk who had ample means and could devote -their lives to developing their genius and ability solely for the good -of mankind. It must seem curious to those who despise the Box Office to -find how little good work is achieved by men and women who are under no -necessity of appealing to that institution for support. - -If I had been asked to name any writer of my own time who was absolutely -free from any truck with the Box Office, I should, before I had read -his charming autobiography, have suggested Herbert Spencer. For indeed -one would not expect to find a Box Office within the curtilage of a -cathedral or a laboratory. Religion and science and their preachers have -necessarily very little to do with the Box Office. - -But Spencer was not only a great writer, but a keen scientific analyst of -the facts of human life. He could not deceive himself—as so many of the -literary folk do—as to his aims and objects. Looking back on the youthful -valleys of his life from the calm mountain slopes that a man may rest on -at the age of seventy-three, he asks himself - - What have been the motives prompting my career? how much have - they been egotistic, and how much altruistic? That they have - been mixed there can be no doubt. And in this case, as in most - cases, it is next to impossible to separate them mentally in - such a way as to preserve the relations of amount among them. - So deep down is the gratification which results from the - consciousness of efficiency, and the further consciousness of - the applause which recognised efficiency brings, that it is - impossible for anyone to exclude it. Certainly, in my own case, - the desire for such recognition has not been absent. - -He continues to point out that this desire for recognition was ‘not the -primary motive of my first efforts, nor has it been the primary motive -of my larger and later efforts,’ and concludes, ‘Still, as I have said, -the desire of achievement, and the honour which achievement brings, have -doubtless been large factors.’ - -It is very interesting to note that a man like Herbert Spencer recognises -what a large part the Box Office played in his own work—work which was -rather the work of a scientist than the work of a literary man. - -In the modern education and in the Socialist doctrines that are preached, -emulation, competition and success are spoken of almost as though they -were evils in themselves. People are to have without attaining. Children -and men and women are taught to forget that ‘they which run in a race run -all, but one receiveth the prize.’ It is considered bad form to remember -that there is a Box Office, that it is the world’s medium for deciding -human values; and that to gain prizes it is necessary to ‘so run that ye -may obtain.’ - -These old-world notions are worth repeating, for however we may wish -they were otherwise, they remain with us and have to be faced. And on -the whole they are good. Success at the Box Office is not only to be -desired on account of the money it brings in, but because it means an -appreciation and belief in one’s work by one’s fellow-men. In professions -such as the actor’s, the barrister’s, the politician’s, and to a great -extent the dramatist’s, and all those vocations where a man to succeed -at all must succeed in his own lifetime, the Box Office is, for all -practical purposes, the sole test of merit. The suggestion—a very common -one to-day—that a man can only make a Box Office success by pandering -to low tastes, or indulging in some form of dishonesty or chicanery, -is a form of cant invented by the man who has failed, to soothe his -self-esteem and to account pleasantly to himself for his own failure. A -study of the lives of great men will show that they all worked for the -two main things, popular recognition and substantial reward, that are -summed up in the modern phrase Box Office. - -It may be that in some ideal state the incentive to work may be found in -some other institution rather than the Box Office. It is the dream of -a growing number of people that a time is nearly at hand when the Box -Office results attained by the workers are to be taken away and shared -among those high-souled unemployables who prefer talking to toiling and -spinning. Such theories are nothing new, though just at the moment they -may be uttered in louder tones than usual. St. Paul knew that they were -troubling the Thessalonians when he reminded them ‘that if any would -not work neither should he eat,’ and he added, ‘for we hear that there -are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are -busybodies.’ St. Paul makes the sensible suggestion ‘that with quietness -they work and eat their own bread.’ To eat your own bread and not someone -else’s, you must work for it successfully and earn it. That really is the -Box Office principle. - - - - -THE DISADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION. - - “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: - But a broken spirit drieth the bones.” - - _Proverbs_ xvii., 22. - - -The Professors of dry bones have broken so many spirits in their machine -that they will not grudge me a laugh at their little failings. A mere -“man in the street” like myself can do little more than call attention -to some of the weaknesses of our educational system, well understanding -that the earnest Schoolmaster knows far more about the disadvantages -of education than anything he can learn from his surviving pupils. For -my part I have never made any secret of the fact that from my earliest -days I disliked education, and had a natural, and I hope not unhealthy, -distrust of schoolmasters. Let it here be understood with the greatest -respect to the sex that “schoolmaster” embraces “schoolmistress.” Most -school-boys that I remember have had that attitude of mind, but many -remained so long in scholastic cloisters that the sane belief of their -youth, that the schoolmaster was their natural enemy, became diminished -and was ultimately lost altogether. Indeed, there are few minds that -undergo the strain of years of toil among scholastic persons without -becoming dulled into the respectable belief that schoolmasters are in -themselves desirable social assets, like priests and policemen and -judges. Now no small boy with a healthy mind believes this. He knows that -the schoolmaster and the policeman are merely evidences of an imperfect -social system, that no progress is likely to be made until society is -able to dispense with their services, and though he cannot put these -ideas into words he can and does act upon that assumption, and continues -to do so until his natural alertness is destroyed and he is dragooned -into at all events an outward observance of the official belief in the -sanctity of schoolmasters. - -Personally I have always regarded it as a matter of congratulation that -I escaped from school at a comparatively early age, nor can I honestly -say that I remember to-day anything that I formerly learnt at school, or -that if I did remember anything I learnt, there,—except perhaps a few -irregular French verbs—that it would be of the slightest use to me in the -everyday business of life. - -If I were, for instance, to model my methods of trial in the County Court -upon the proceedings of Euclid, who spent his life in endeavouring to -prove by words, propositions that were self-evident even in his own very -rudimentary pictures, I should be justly blamed by a commercial community -for wasting their time. Yet how many of the most precious hours of the -best of my youth have been wasted for me by schoolmasters, who were so -dull as not to perceive that Euclid, like Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, -was the writer of a book of nonsense? Not nonsense that can possibly -appeal to the child of to-day, but nonsense that will always have its -place in the library of those to whom the Absurd is as precious in life -as the Beautiful. - -If you believe at all in evolution and progress, and the descent of -man from more primitive types, with its wonderfully hopeful corollary, -the ascent of man to higher things, you must acknowledge at once that -education has necessarily been, and always must be, a great set back to -onward movement. A schoolmaster can only teach what he knows, and if one -generation only learns what the last generation can teach there is not -much hope of onward movement. - -Schoolmasters are apt to believe that the hope of the younger generation -depends upon their assimilating the ideas of their pastors and masters, -whereas the true hope is that they will not be so long overborne by -authority, as to make their young brains incapable of rejecting at all -events some of the false teaching that each generation complacently -offers to the next. - -We need not accept the new generation entirely at its own valuation, -nor need we disturb ourselves about the exaggerated under-estimate with -which one-and-twenty sets down for naught the wisdom of fifty. But -unless we pursue education as a preparation for the betterment of the -human race we are beating the air. And the responsibility is a great -one. For the mind of a child, as Roger Ascham says, is “like the newest -wax, most able to receive the best and fairest printing!” But, alas! it -is equally able to receive printing of an inferior type. Every one of -us, I should imagine, half believes something to-day that he knows to -be untrue because it was impressed on the wax of his child-mind by some -well-meaning but ignorant schoolmaster. - -One of the gravest disadvantages about education is the way it thwarts -progress by teaching young folk that which, to say the least of it, is -uncertain. If education were to be strictly confined by the schoolmaster -to the things he really knew, what a quantity of lumber could be trundled -out of the schoolroom to-morrow. Teaching should be kept to arts, -accomplishments and facts—opinions and theories should have no place -whatever in the schoolroom. - -Open any school book of a hundred years ago and read its theories and -opinions, and remember that these were thrust down the throats of the -little ones with the same complacent conceit that our opinions and -theories of to-day are being taught in the schools. And yet we all know -that theories and opinions in the main become very dead sea-fruit in -fifty or a hundred years, whilst the multiplication table remains with us -like the Ten Commandments, a monument of everlasting truth. - -This chief disadvantage of education will probably continue with us for -many generations, until it is recognised as immoral and wicked to warp a -child’s mind by teaching things to it as facts which are at the best only -conjectures, in the hope that in after life it may take some side in the -affairs of the world, which the teacher, or the committee of the school, -is interested in. The true rule should of course be to teach children, -especially in State Schools, only ascertained facts, the truth of which -all citizens, who are not in asylums, agree to be true. - -My view of the ideal system of education is much the same as Mr. Weller -senior’s. You will remember that he said to Mr. Pickwick about his son -Sam, “I took a great deal of pains with his eddication, sir! I let him -run in the streets when he were very young and shift for his self. It’s -the only way to make a boy sharp, sir.” I could not ask any body of -schoolmasters to adopt this principle, though it is one that seems to me -thoroughly sound. Put into other and more scholastic words, it may be -made a copy-book sentiment. Emerson says much the same thing as old Tony -Weller, when he writes, “That which each can do best only his Maker can -teach him,” and the spirit of the Maker of the Universe seems to me at -least as likely to be met with in Market Street as in a committee room of -the Manchester Town Hall, where the destinies of our national education -are so ably managed by citizens of respectability and authority. - -Some such preface as this is needed if I am to make it clear to you why I -choose the disadvantages of education rather than the advantages, as the -subject matter of my essay. One should always try to speak on something -one really believes in heartily and thoroughly. The advantages of -education have been spread before us during the last fifty years by every -writer of importance—a writer of no importance may fairly give an idle -hour to the other side of the picture. - -In any commercial country it should not be necessary to apologise for the -endeavour to make a rough balance-sheet describing the liabilities of -education; even if we are all convinced that the assets of education are -more than enough to meet the liabilities and that we are educationally -solvent. Nor am I really stating anything very new or startling, for all -thinkers and writers on education seem beginning at last to discover that -education is only a means to an end, and that when you have no clear idea -of what end you hope to arrive at it is not very probable that you will -choose the right means. - -If a man wanted to travel to Blackpool and was so ignorant as to imagine -that Blackpool was in the neighbourhood of London, he would probably -in the length of his journey lose many beautiful hours of the sea-side -and spend them in the stuffy atmosphere of a railway train. This would -be of little importance to the community if it was only the case of an -individual man—a schoolmaster for instance. But what if the man had -taken a party of children with him? thereby losing for them wonderful -hours of digging on the sand, or seeing Punch or Judy, or listening to -a Bishop preaching—that indeed would be a serious state of things for -everyone. - -One of the great disadvantages of modern education is that few of its -professors and teachers, and fewer of its elected managers, have the -least idea where they are going to. The authorities shoot out codes and -prospectuses and minutes and rules and orders, and change their systems -with the inspired regularity of a War Office. - -Another of the disadvantages of education to-day is that there is too -much of it, and that what there is is in the hands of well-meaning -directors, who are either middle-aged and ignorant, or, what is worse, -middle-aged and academic. If we cannot reach the ideal of Tony Weller -and let the child shift for himself, let us at all events unshackle the -schoolmaster and allow him to shift for himself. The head master of a -great English school is a despot. He has at his back—and I use the phrase -“at his back” with deliberate care, not meaning “upon his shoulders”—he -has at his back a powerful board of citizens of position who are wise -enough and strong enough to leave the question of education to the man at -the wheel, and to remember that it is dangerous to speak to him whilst -he is steering the ship. Any system of education that is to be of any -avail at all must be a personal system in a great measure, and the -elementary head master should be in the same position as the head master -of our great public schools. The boards and committees should interfere -as little as possible with the schoolmasters they employ. A schoolmaster, -of all workmen, wants freedom and liberty to do his work his own way. And -who can teach anything, worth teaching, who is being constantly worried -and harassed by inspectors and committees? Education is not sewage, and -you cannot judge of its results by a chemical analysis of the mental -condition of the human effluent that pours out of the school gates into -the rivers of life. - -I have expressed my distrust of schoolmasters quite freely, but I must -confess that my detestation of boards and committees amounts almost to -a mania, though when I notice the pleasure and delight so many good -citizens have in sitting on a committee and preventing business from -being done, I fairly admit it is quite possible I am wrong about the -matter. It may well be that there is some hidden virtue in these boards -and committees, some divine purpose in them that I cannot see. I have -sometimes thought that in the course of evolution they will arrive at a -condition of permanent session without the transaction of any business -whatever. Then possibly the golden age will have arrived, and then the -individual servant, no longer hampered by their well meant interference, -will have a chance to do his best work. But for my part, so oppressed -am I by the futility of committees that I am tempted sometimes to doubt -the personality of the Evil One, in the sure belief that the affairs -of his territory would be governed more to his liking by a large -committee elected on a universal suffrage of both sexes. Who are our -ideal schoolmasters in the history of the profession? Roger Ascham, who, -learned man that he was, impressed on youth the necessity of riding, -running, wrestling, swimming, dancing, singing and the playing of -instruments cunningly; Arnold, of Rugby, whose whole method was founded -on the principle of awakening the intellect of every individual boy, and -who was the personal guide and friend of those of the scholars who could -appreciate the value of his friendship; Edward Thring, of Uppingham, -who thought “the most pitiful sight in the world was the slow, good -boy laboriously kneading himself into stupidity because he is good,” -and who stood firm for the individual master’s “liberty to teach.” Are -any of these schoolmasters men who could or would have tolerated any -interference in their life’s work from an unsympathetic inspector or a -prosy town councillor? The work of the committees should be devoted to -choosing a good man or woman to be head master of a school and then to -leaving him or her alone. The inspectors should be pensioned—and turned -off on the golf-links. - -Having dealt with these serious disadvantages to education, let me hasten -to say a little more about that grave disadvantage to education, the -schoolmaster himself. The schoolmaster is generally a man who, having -learnt to teach, has long ago ceased to learn. It is the past education -of the schoolmaster that generally stands in his way. He believes in -education, and thinks it a good thing in itself; he believes in rules -and orders and lessons as desirable, whereas they are only the necessary -outcome of Adam’s misconduct in the Garden of Eden. I cannot quite agree -with Tolstoi’s suggestion that all rules in a school are illegitimate, -and that the child’s liberty is inviolable. I do not think anarchy in a -school is more possible to-day than anarchy in a state. But I do think -that the schoolmaster of to-day should rule as far as possible by the -creation of a healthy public opinion among his scholars and make the -largest use of that public opinion as a moral and educational force. -Looking back on my own experience, it is not what I learnt from my -schoolmasters but what I learnt from my companions that has been of any -real value to me in after life. - -A child should go early to some good kindergarten presided over by some -delightfully bright and pleasant lady, merely to learn the lesson that -there are other children in the world besides itself. How important it -is in life to learn to sit cheerfully next to someone you cordially -detest without slapping him or her. And yet such a lesson, to be really -mastered, should be learnt before five or seven at the latest. After that -it can only be learned by much prayer and—dining out. At dinner parties, -and particularly public dinners, one can get the necessary practice in -this kind of self-control, but it is better to learn it whilst you are -young, when alone it is possible to master the great lessons of life -thoroughly and with comparatively little pain. Men have reached the -position of King’s Counsel without attaining this simple moral grace. - -If you come to think of it, all the really important things in life must -of necessity be self-taught. I suppose schoolmasters, being experts in -education, have never given serious thought to the fact that the child -teaches itself, with the aid of a mother, all the best and necessary -lessons of life in the first few years of its being. It learns to eat, -for instance. I have watched a baby struggling to find the way to its -mouth with a rusk, with intense interest and admiration. How it jabs -itself in the eye with the soft end of the biscuit and bedaubs its cheeks -and clothes with the debris, and kicks and fights in disgust and loses -the biscuit in a temper and if not assisted by an over indulgent mother, -finds the biscuit after infinite search and goes at it again with renewed -energy on its way, and at length is rewarded by success. What a smile of -victory, what a happy relapse into the dreamless sleep of the successful. -The child has learned a lesson it will never forget. It has found its -way to its mouth. One never learns anything as good as that from a -schoolmaster. And indeed if you think of it the baby is learning useful -things on its own every day of its life, and working hard at them. It -learns to talk, and that in spite of its father and mother, who insist -on cooing at it, and talking a wild baby language that must greatly -irritate and impede a conscientious self-educating baby endeavouring to -master the tongue of the land of its adoption. It learns to walk, too, -not without tumbles, and tumbles which inspire it to further effort. I -have very little doubt that some monkey schoolmaster of primeval days -checked some bright monkey scholar who endeavoured to walk into the first -primeval school on his hind legs, and threw back the progress of mankind -some thousands of years in the sacred name of discipline. If you think -of a child teaching itself those wonderful pursuits eating, walking, and -talking, are there any bounds to what it might continue to learn if there -were no schoolmaster? - -If you were to abolish the schoolmaster what would happen? I think the -answer is that the Burns, the Milton and the Sam Weller of a nation -would profit by the stimulus to self-education. The child whose father -was a musician or a carpenter or a ploughman who loved his art or craft, -would be found striving to become as good an artist or craftsman as -his father, and perhaps in the end bettering the paternal example. The -school and the schoolmaster can do little but hinder the evolution of any -worker in any art or craft. The real worker’s work must be the result of -self-education, and he must live from early childhood among the workers. -Read, for instance, the delightful account given by Miss Ellen Terry of -her early days in “The Story of My Life.” “At the time of my marriage,” -she writes, “I had never had the advantage—I assume it is an advantage—of -a single day’s schooling in a real school. What I have learned outside -my own profession I have learnt from environment. Perhaps it is this -that makes me think environment more valuable than a set education and a -stronger agent in forming character even than heredity.” Lives there even -the schoolmaster who believes that there was any school or schoolmistress -in Victorian days that could have done anything but hinder Miss Terry -in the triumph of her artistic career? A born actress like Miss Terry -could not be aided by Miss Melissa Wackles, with her “English grammar, -composition and geography,” even though in that day of lady’s education -it was tempered by the use of the dumb-bells. - -In the same way, if we could assure to a boy or girl an apprenticeship -from early days to a craftsman or farmer, it would probably be better for -the children and the State than any other form of education they receive -to-day. It is quite unlikely the world will ever see the minor arts and -crafts ever restored to their former glory, unless it encourages parents -who are themselves good craftsmen to keep their children away from the -schoolmaster in the better atmosphere of a good workshop. - -We talk largely about the melancholy increase of unemployment, but how -much of this is caused by the education of masses of people in useless -subjects. The bad boy who gets into trouble and has the good fortune to -be put in a reformatory and there learns a trade has a much better chance -of a useful and pleasurable life than the good boy who gains a County -Council prize in geography. - -I came across a servant in Cumberland whose education had resulted among -other things in a knowledge of the catechism and a list of the rivers on -the East coast of England, but who did not know the name of the river she -could see from the window and who had not the least idea how to light a -fire. What is the good of learning your duty to your neighbour when you -cannot light a fire to warm him when he is wet through, without wasting -two bundles of sticks and a pint of paraffin oil? - -One must not however blame the girl, nor indeed her schoolmistress, for -probably she too could not light a fire, and both regarded the lighting -of a fire as a degrading thing to do. No doubt if you had pursued your -educational researches in Cumberland to the source of things, you would -have found that the committee could not light fires, and the inspector of -schools could not light fires—it may be the Minister of Education himself -cannot light a fire—and though there is plenty of material for fires in -every board room there is nothing in the code about teaching children to -make use of it. Yet I can conceive nothing a child would like better, in -his or her early days in school, than being a fire monitor and having -charge of the fire and learning to light and look after it. I have -made much of this little incident because it is typical of the school -education of to-day. - -In the old days of family life boys and girls, and especially the latter, -learnt in a good home a great deal of domestic work, and the boys could -help in their father’s shop or farm or inn as the case might be, and -learnt thereby many things that you cannot learn in schools. Mr. Squeers, -though not a moral character, was possessed of a practical mode of -teaching. “C-l-e-a-n clean, verb active to make bright, to scour. W-i-n -win, d-e-r der, winder a casement. When the boy knows this out of a book -he goes and does it.” And if you come to think of it, it is far more -important that a boy should know how to keep a window clean than that he -should know how to spell it. - -The schoolmaster of an elementary school therefore should be a man -of good domestic tastes, who wishes to see his home neat and clean -and well kept and tidy, who insists on having his food well cooked, -and prefers that his wife and daughter should be well dressed at the -smallest possible cost to himself. These virtues he should be urged to -put before scholars as being the first duties of life and the chiefest -honour of a good citizen. The false notion that reading and writing are -in themselves higher attainments than carpentering, cooking and sewing -should be sternly discouraged, and only teachers should be chosen capable -of some technical excellence in the practical work of crafts. For the -same reasons teachers should never be chosen for any academic degree they -possess, for every day it becomes more certain that the man who obtains -these degrees is the man who has deliberately failed to make himself a -master of any one subject. He is a man who has wasted precious hours in -getting a smattering of many useless branches of learning, and has been -forced by the sellers of degrees to abandon all hope of having sufficient -leisure to study music or painting or the workmanship of a craft, or even -to have read widely of English literature. In the education of the young -the man who can play the piano, or better still, the fiddle, is more -important to my purpose than the man who can make Latin verses; and the -man who can model a toy boat with a pocket-knife whilst he is telling -you a fairy tale is, from the standpoint of real education, a jewel -of rare price. The schoolmaster of to-day is one of the disadvantages -of education because he is interested mainly in subjects of smaller -importance and is not really a sound man in any one real pursuit, such as -music or drawing. - -Another disadvantage of English elementary education is that it places -the school course and literary things above the playing fields and -physical things. All men who have thought about education at all, and who -had any capacity for thinking wisely, have recognised that in training -a child to make and keep his body a healthy body we are proceeding upon -lines that experience tells us are right and sound lines. Here we can -teach something we know. Plato tells us that the experience of the past -in his day had discovered that right education consisted in gymnastics -for the body and music for the mind. I do not know that we can say with -certainty that we have ascertained to-day much more about education than -Plato knew. In our day I should put the arts and crafts of home life and -the practice—not preaching—of its virtues, first in the programme, and -secondly, to use Plato’s word, gymnastics. These should include cricket, -football, running, jumping, wrestling, dancing, fives, tennis, and all -manly and womanly associated games which exercise and develop the body, -and have by the public opinion of the players to be played with modesty -and self-restraint, and with a reasonable technical skill that can only -be arrived at by taking pains. All these things are far more useful -than any subjects that can be taught in a schoolroom. One of the great -advantages of middle-class public school life is that these things are -taught, and that the boys work at them in a healthy spirit of emulation -and a magnificent desire to succeed that would turn the whole nation -into a Latin-speaking race, if by any misfortune its motive power were -diverted into the schoolroom. - -Elementary education and its schoolmasters have but small opportunities -to foster this natural healthy training of the body in which all -young people are willing and ready to co-operate with their teachers. -Unfortunately, the men who obtain positions on educational committees -are too often men who have amassed wealth at the expense of their -livers, and who would look askance at the ideas of Plato, Roger Ascham, -or Tolstoi. Still, I think a day is coming when playing-fields and -playgrounds will be attached to every elementary school, and used not -only by existing scholars, but by the old boys and girls, who will -thereby keep in touch with the school and its good influences. - -But, you will say, nothing has been said hitherto about any lessons. -Are reading, writing, and arithmetic to be considered wholly as -disadvantages? It would be easy to take up such a position and hold it -in argument but it is not necessary. The advantages of educating the -masses in the three R’s are obvious and on the surface, but the grave -disadvantages are also there. It is no use teaching a person anything -that he is likely to make a bad use of, and experience tells us that many -people are ruined by learning to read. Since the Education Act of 1870, -a mass of low-class literature and journalism has sprung up to cater for -the tastes of a population that has undergone a compulsory training in -reading. Betting and gambling have been greatly fostered by the power -of reading and answering advertisements. In the same way quack remedies -for imaginary ailments must have done a lot of harm to the health of the -people, and the use of them is the direct result of teaching ignorant -people to read and not teaching them to disbelieve most things they -may happen to read. Writing in the same way by being made popular and -common has become debased. One seldom sees a good handwriting nowadays -and spelling is a lost art. Writing, however, must in a few years go -out in favour of machine writing. Penmanship will hardly be taught some -years hence when everyone will have a telephone and typewriter of his -own. I cannot see that the universal habit of writing has done very much -for the world. The great mass of written matter that circulates through -the post, the vast columns of newspaper reports that are contradicted -the next day—these things are the fruits of universal writing. There -is no evidence that in the past anything worth writing ever remained -unwritten. But there is strong evidence that since 1870 much has been -written that had better have remained unwritten, and would have so -remained but for State encouragement through its system of education. -As to arithmetic—if you saw the books of the small shopkeepers in the -County Court—you would recognise its small hold on the people. One chief -use of it by the simpler folk seems to be the calculations of the odds -on a horse race. In France and other more civilised countries this is -done more honestly by a machine called a totaliser, and gambling is -thereby kept within more reasonable limits. Elementary arithmetic has -been profitable to the bookmaker—but to how many besides? If you teach a -boy cooking or carpentering he is very unlikely to make an evil use of -these accomplishments in after life because they naturally minister to -the right enjoyment of life. Whereas if you teach a boy reading, writing, -and arithmetic, the surroundings of youth being what they are, he is at -least as likely to misuse these attainments as to use them to the benefit -of himself and his fellow creatures. Once recognise this and you must -admit not that the three R’s should be discontinued, but that much more -should be done to teach the young persons to whom you have imparted these -pleasant arts how to make use of them legitimately and honourably. It is -no use teaching young people any subject unless you see that in after -life they are to have opportunities of using their attainment for the -benefit of the State. Our fathers and grandfathers were all for education -as an end. We are face to face with the results of a national system of -elementary education with no system whatever of helping the educated to -make good use of their compulsory equipment. It is as though you gave a -boy a rifle and taught him to shoot and turned him out into the world to -shoot at anything he felt inclined. Such a boy would be a danger to the -community, whereas if you placed him in a cadet corps when he left school -he and his rifle might be a national asset. - -That learning without a proper outlet for its use may be a grave danger -to the individual and to the community is seen in the present state of -India, and Lord Morley of Blackburn, one of the greatest supporters of -education himself, called attention to the necessity of a community -which provides an education to a certain class allowing the citizens -so educated a proper opportunity of exercising the faculties it has -developed. As he said in the House of Lords, “I agree that those who made -education what it is in India are responsible for a great deal of what -has happened since.” And what is true of India is equally true of England. - -It is in providing healthy outlets and uses for the educational power -that has been created that the Boards and Committees who govern these -matters will have to turn immediate attention if they wish to justify -their existence. - -I know that these detached remarks of mine on education must necessarily -appear heretical—and they are to some extent intentionally so. I do not -agree with Mr. Chesterton that the heretic of old was proud of not being -a heretic, and believed himself orthodox and all the rest of the world -heretics. If he did he was indeed a madman. But there is a place in the -world for the utterer of heresies if only to awaken the orthodox from -slumber and to make him look around and see if there is any reform that -can be made without destroying the whole edifice. Reforms come slowly and -we, for our part, shall only see the dawn of a better era whose sunshine -will gladden the lives of our grandchildren. I am not a pessimist about -the English school though I have chosen to speak of its disadvantages. I -think, to use an American phrase, it is a “live” thing. - -If you go into an English village you find three great public -institutions, the Church, the Inn, and the School. Each is licensed to -some extent by the State and each is burdened by the connection. You -find as a rule that the Church has voluntarily locked its doors and put -up a notice that the key may be found at some old lady’s cottage half -a mile away. You go into the Inn and find it struggling to make itself -hospitable in spite of the mismanagement of brewers and the unsympathetic -bigotry of magistrates. But from the door of the School troop out merry -children, who some day will look back to that time of their life as the -happiest of all, and who will recognise the debt of gratitude they are -under to the schoolmaster, who in spite of the limitations of his system -and himself encourages his pupils to effort and self-reliance and teaches -them lessons of duty, reverence, and love. - -I am not greatly interested in the Church or the Inn, both of which -institutions seem well able to guard themselves from the disestablishment -they are said to deserve. But I am interested in the School—and I wish -to see it housed in fairer and more ample buildings with larger playing -fields around them. And I want to see a race of schoolmasters not only -better paid—but worth more. Men and women to whom the State can fairly -give a free hand, knowing that their object in education would be to -mould their pupils into self-reliant citizens rather than to teach them -scholastic tricks. “The schoolmaster is abroad,” said Lord Brougham, “and -I trust to him armed with his primer.” For my part, a schoolmaster armed -with a primer is an abomination of desolation standing in a holy place. -I differ from a Lord Chancellor with a very natural diffidence but his -Lordship was wrong. The schoolmaster of 1828 was not abroad, he was in -the same predicament as the schoolmaster of 1911—at sea. - -If I were Minister of Education, I would write over the door of every -school in the country the beautiful words, “Suffer little children and -forbid them not to come unto Me: for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” -Let us beware lest we forbid them by dogmas and creeds that lead only -to hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness; let us take heed lest we -forbid them by lessons and learning dull for to-day and dangerous for -to-morrow. Let us at least teach them as our grandmothers taught children -when there were no schools in the land, the simple duties of life that -we all know the meaning of, and the Christian duty of unselfishness -which we none of us practise. And in this, as in all things, let us -strive to teach by example rather than by word. And if we are to teach -by the Christian rule, then how great, how noble, how enduring is to be -the work of the schoolmaster in continuing the greatness of our nation. -And the man or woman we shall choose shall not be a pedant, whose long -ears are decorated by degrees, but an honest, simple person of any creed -whatsoever, who will humbly and reverently teach the children of his or -her school the few simple facts of life, and add to that something of -its arts and its crafts and so much or little of its learning as can be a -service and not a hindrance to the child’s career. - - - - -COOKERY BOOK TALK. - - _Arviragus._ How angel-like he sings! - - _Guiderius._ But his neat cookery! he cut our roots in characters, - And sauc’d our broths as Juno had been sick - And he her dieter. - - _Cymbeline_ iv. 2. - - -In this passage Shakespeare exalts cookery above songs that are merely -angel-like, and anyone who has dined at a modern restaurant with “music -off” as part of the stage directions will agree with Guiderius that it is -impertinent to consider the merit of song at moments that should be given -to the praise of cookery. Incidentally, too, the passage has a value for -the cuisinologist of an antiquarian turn of mind by pointing out that the -decoration of dishes with alphabetical carrots and turnips, “roots cut in -characters,” was a commonplace of the Shakespearean table. - -And if in a detached passage from a dramatic writer we can find so much -culinary thought, how much more remains to be sought after in those -masterpieces of kitchen literature given to the world by the great artist -cooks of bygone centuries. - -It has always been a matter of considerable surprise to me that so few -people really read their Cookery Book with any diligence and attention. -There is no subject of conversation so popular as Cookery Book. It -blends together all persons in a common chorus of talk irrespective of -rank, age, sex, religion and education. The dullest eye lights up and a -ripple crosses the most stagnant mind when the dying embers of formal -conversation are called into brilliant flames by a few pages from the -Cookery Book. Every one lays claim to take a hand at Cookery Book talk, -no one is too bashful or ignorant in his own seeming, and yet how few -really bring to the discussion a sound literary knowledge of even Mrs. -Beeton and Francatelli, and how many prate of cookery to whom Mrs. Glasse -and John Farley are unknown names. No one will talk of Shakespeare and -the musical glasses without at least a slight knowledge of Charles Lamb’s -delightful nursery tales and the study of an article on the theory of -music in “Snippy Bits.” But if Cookery Book is mentioned—and in ordinary -society the subject is generally reached in the first ten minutes after -the introduction—the humblest and most ignorant is found laying down the -law with the misplaced confidence of a county magistrate. And yet with -Cookery Book as with lower forms of learning one can never tell whence -illumination may spring. True indeed is it that out of the mouths of -babes and sucklings strength is ordained. - -I remember a beautiful and remarkable instance of this which occurred -but recently. I was privileged to dine at the family table of a great -artist and there were present besides myself several others of sound -learning and religious education from whom might be expected stimulating -and rational conversation. We began I remember with the Pre-Raphaelites -and ox-tail soup. Albert Durer started with the fish but “failed to -stay the course,” as a sporting friend of my host remarked. He it was -who brought the conversation round to the haven and heaven of all -conversation—Cookery Book. He told a story of a haggis which drew from -my host—an ardent Scotsman—a learned and literary defence of the haggis, -which in common with the thistle, the bagpipes and Burns poetry it is a -matter of patriotism for a Scotsman to uphold in the company of aliens. -There was no doubt that my friend broke down in cross-examination -as to the actual contents of the haggis, but as to the necessity of -drinking raw whisky at short intervals during its consumption he was -eloquent and convincing. When he had finished—or maybe before—I began -to describe the inward beauties of a well-grilled mutton chop, and to -detail an interesting discussion I had had the week before with a Dean -of the Church of England on the respective merits of Sam’s Chop House -in Manchester and the South Kensington Museum Grill Room. Listening is -I fear a lost art for my entertaining reminiscences were broken into by -a babel of tongues. Every one named his or her particular and favourite -dish which was discussed rejected, laughed at and dismissed by the rest -of the company. So loud was the clash of tongues that you might have -imagined you were taking part in a solemn council at Pandemonium, when -suddenly the shower of Cookery Book talk dried up and there was a pause, -a lull—a silence. At that moment the youngest son of the house whose -little curly head—like one of those heads of Sir Joshua’s angels—rested -on his hands as he listened to the earnest converse of his grave -elders—this child threw down before us a pearl of simple wisdom—“Surely -you have forgotten bread sauce and chicken!” And so we had. The artist -also remembered that we had left out sucking pig. The conversation -started with renewed force. The whole question of onions in bread sauce -was exhaustively debated and a happy evening was spent in congenial and -intellectual conversation. - -But how seldom it is that you find yourself among persons capable of -discussing with knowledge any of the nicer problems of the kitchen. -At my own table the other day a graduate of Cambridge actually asked -my wife whether she put maraschino or curaçoa in the Hock cup. Yet -in educational affairs this man passes for a rational and highly -cultivated man. Colossal ignorance of this type is but too common. I -have stayed—but never for more than one week-end—with families of the -highest respectability to whom tarragon vinegar is unknown, and I once -entertained a Judge of the High Court who did not know the difference -between Nepaul and Cayenne pepper,—yet in his daily life he must have -been called upon to decide differences of graver importance. - -I wish I had the pen and the inspiration of one of the early prophets -to rouse my countrymen to urge upon Education Committees, schools and -universities their duty in dealing with this national ignorance. But one -may at least make a practical suggestion. Why should not “What to do with -the Cold Mutton” be read as a first reader in our elementary schools? It -touches on no points of doctrine and teaches truths that both Anglican -and Nonconformist could discuss pleasantly at a common board. - -Once the young mind has tasted of the delight of the literary side of -cookery a demand would spring up for the re-publication of many earnest, -eloquent and scientific Cookery books of olden time. The eighteenth -century was a golden age in the literature of cookery, and the works -of Charlotte Mason, Sarah Harrison’s “Housekeeper’s Pocket Book,” and -Elizabeth Marshall’s “Young Ladies’ Guide in the Art of Cookery,”—these -are books that should be in every polite library. For myself I prefer -what may be called the Archæology of Cookery and the study of “The Proper -New Book of Cookery, 1546,” or Partridge’s “Treasury of Commodious -Conceits and Hidden Secrets, 1580?” will have a charm for all who like to -pierce the veil that hides the old world from us. We have moved on since -then it is true, but for my part I like to learn how to “pot a Swan” or -“make an Olio Pye,” though such learning is no longer practical. - -To those who have not access to the original editions of the classics, -let me commend that charming volume of the Book Lovers’ Library, Mr. W. -Carew Hazlitt’s “Old Cookery Books.” Problems are there touched upon that -when we have a serious business Government untrammelled by party ties -will be solved by Royal Commissions dealing with the various aspects of -cookery which, as an old writer says, is “The Key of Living.” It was -Tobias Venner, as long ago as 1620, who endeavoured to dissuade the poor -from eating partridges, because they were calculated to promote asthma. -Many Poor Law Commissions have sat since then, but the truth of Venner’s -theory has never yet been subjected to modern scientific criticism, -and every year from September to February the poor continue to remain -under the shadow of asthma. The Government give us volumes of historical -records, but I search in vain among them for the way to make Mrs. Leed’s -Cheesecakes and “The Lord Conway, His Lordship’s receipt for the making -of Amber Pudding.” Thus are we trifled with by our rulers, few of whom I -think could tell us without research why the porpoise and the peacock no -longer grace the tables of Royal persons. - -But see how Nature supplements the mistakes of mankind. True it is that -Governments do nothing for our greatest art, sadly true it is that -the great masterpieces of culinary writing remain on the shelves, and -disgracefully true it is that among the idle rich of our universities -there is not one Professor of Cookery—though there be many ignorant -critics of the Art at high tables. And yet, round every board, simple -or noble, with the steam that rises from the cooked meats comes the -heartfelt praise of mankind rejoicing to lift up the voice in that -Cookery Book talk, which is the oral tradition that carries on the -religion of the “Key of Living.” - -Indeed, there is only one human being who does not talk about Cookery, -and that is the high Priestess herself—the Cook. This I have on the -evidence of a policeman. - - - - -A DAY OF MY LIFE IN THE COUNTY COURT. - - “We take no note of time - But from its loss.” - - _Young’s Night Thoughts._ - - -It is a difficult task to describe to others the everyday affairs of -one’s own life. The difficulty seems to me to arise in discovering what -it is that is new and strange to a person who finds himself for the -first time in a place where the writer has spent the best part of the -last twenty years. The events in a County Court are to me so familiar -that it is hard to appreciate the interest shown in our daily routine by -some casual onlooker whom curiosity, or a subpœna, has brought within -our walls. Still, in so far as the County Court is a poor man’s Court, -it is a good thing that the outside world should take an interest in its -proceedings, for much goes on there that has an immediate bearing on the -social welfare of the working classes, and a morning in the Manchester -County Court would throw a strong light on the ways and means of the poor -and the fiscal problems by which they are surrounded. - -An urban County Court is a wholly different thing from the same -institution in a country town. Here in Manchester we have to deal with -a large number of bankruptcy cases, proceedings under special Acts of -Parliament, cases remitted from the High Court, and litigation similar in -character to, but smaller in importance than the ordinary civil list of -an Assize Court. Cases such as these are contested in much the same way -as they are in the High Court, counsel and solicitors appear—the latter -having a right of audience in the County Court—and all things are done -in legal decency and order. The litigants very seldom desire a jury, -having perhaps the idea that a common judge is as a good tribunal as a -common jury, whereas a special judge wants a common jury to find out the -everyday facts of his case for him. I could never see why juries are -divided into two classes, special and common, and judges are not. It is a -fruitful idea for the legal reformer to follow out. - -The practice in Manchester is to have special days for the bigger class -of cases, and to try to give clear days for the smaller matters where -most of the parties appear in person. The former are printed in red -on the Court Calendar, and the latter in black, and locally the days -are known as red-letter days and black-letter days. On a black-letter -day counsel and solicitors indeed often appear—for it is a practical -impossibility to sort out the cases into two exact classes—but the -professions know that on a black-letter day they have no precedence, and -very cheerfully acquiesce in the arrangement, since it is obvious that -to the community at large it is at least as important that a working -woman should be home in time to give her children their dinner as that a -solicitor should return to his office or a barrister lunch at his club. - -Let me try, then, to bring home to your mind what happens on a -black-letter day. - -We are early risers in Manchester, and the Court sits at ten. I used to -get down to my Court about twenty minutes earlier, as on a black-letter -day there are sure to be several letters from debtors who are unable to -be at Court, and these are always addressed to me personally. Having -disposed of the correspondence there is generally an “application in -chambers” consisting of one or more widows whose compensation under -the Workman’s Compensation Act remains in Court to be dealt with for -their benefit. I am rather proud of the interest and industry the chief -clerks of my Court have shown in the affairs of these poor women and -children, and the general “liberty to apply” is largely made use of that -I may discuss with the widows or the guardians of orphans plans for the -maintenance and education of the children, and the best way to make the -most of their money. - -You would expect to find the Court buildings geographically in the centre -of Manchester, but they are placed almost on the boundary. Turning out -of Deansgate down Quay Street, which, as its name implies, leads towards -the river Irwell, you come across a street with an historic name, Byrom -Street. The name recalls to us the worthy Manchester doctor and the days -when even Manchester was on the fringe of a world of romance, and John -Byrom made his clever epigram: - - God bless the King, I mean the faith’s defender, - God bless—no harm in blessing—the Pretender. - But who Pretender is, and who the King, - God bless us all—that’s quite another thing. - -It is a far cry from Jacobites to judgment debtors, but it is a pleasant -thought to know that one lives in an historic neighbourhood, even if the -building you work in is not exactly fitted for the modern purpose for -which it is used. - -At the corner of Byrom Street and Quay Street is the Manchester County -Court. It is an old brick building with some new brick additions. Some -architect, we may suppose, designed it, therefore let it pass for a -house. It was built, as far as I can make out, in the early part of last -century, when the brick box with holes in it was the standard form of the -better class domestic dwelling house. Still it is an historic building. -In 1836 it was No. 21 Quay Street, the residence of Richard Cobden, -calico printer, whose next door neighbour was a Miss Eleanora Byrom. -Cobden sold it to Mr. Faulkner for the purposes of the Owens College, so -it was the first home of the present Victoria University. It is now a -County Court. _Facilis descensus._ It still contains several very fine -mahogany doors that give it the air of a house that has seen better days. - -You will see groups of women making their way down to the Court, many -with a baby in one arm and a door key slung on the finger. The wife is -the solicitor and the advocate of the working class household, and very -cleverly she does her work as a rule. The group of substantial-looking -men chatting in the street are debt-collecting agents and travelling -drapers discussing the state of trade. These are the Plaintiffs and their -representatives, the women are the Defendants. Here and there you will -see a well-dressed lady, probably summoned to the Court by a servant or -a dressmaker. There will always be a few miscellaneous cases, but the -trivial round and common task of the day is collecting the debts of small -tradesmen from the working class. - -I have no doubt that a County Court Judge gets an exaggerated view of the -evils of the indiscriminate credit given to the poor. They seem to paddle -all their lives ankle-deep in debt, and never get a chance of walking the -clean parapet of solvency. But that is because one sees only the seamy -side of the debt-collecting world, and knows nothing of the folk who pay -without process. At the same time, that indiscriminate credit-giving as -practised in Manchester is an evil, no one, I think, can doubt, and it -seems strange that social reformers pay so little attention to the matter. - -The whole thing turns, of course, upon imprisonment for debt. Without -imprisonment for debt there would be little credit given, except to -persons of good character, and good character would be an asset. As it -is, however, our first business in the morning will be to hear a hundred -judgment summonses in which creditors are seeking to imprison their -debtors. There are some ten thousand judgment summonses in Manchester -and Salford in a year, but they have to be personally served, and not -nearly that number come for trial. We start with a hundred this morning, -of which say sixty are served. It is well to sit punctually, and we will -start on the stroke of ten. - -A debt collector enters the Plaintiff’s box, and, refreshing his memory -from a note book, tells you what the Defendant’s position is, where he -works, and what he earns. The minute book before you tells you the amount -of his debt, that he has been ordered to pay 2s. a month, and has not -paid anything for six months. His wife now enters into all the troubles -of her household, and makes the worst of them. One tries to sift the true -from the false, the result being that one is generally convinced that the -Defendant has had means to pay the 2s. a month, or whatever the amount -may be, since the date when the order was made. The law demands that the -debtor should be imprisoned for not having paid, but no one wants him to -go to prison, so an order is made of seven or fourteen days, and it is -suspended, and is not to issue if he pays the arrears and fees, say in -three monthly instalments. The wife is satisfied that the evil day is put -off and goes away home, and the creditor generally gets his money. He may -have to issue a warrant, but the Defendant generally manages to pay by -hook or by crook, rather than go to Knutsford Gaol, where the debtors are -imprisoned, and as a matter of fact only a few actually go to gaol. Of -course, the money is often borrowed or paid by friends, which is another -evil of the system. The matter is more difficult when, as often happens, -the Defendants do not appear. It is extraordinary how few people can read -and understand a comparatively simple legal notice or summons. Mistakes -are constantly made. A collier once brought me an official schedule -of his creditors, in which in the column for “description,” where he -should have entered “grocer,” “butcher,” etc., he had filled in the -best literary description he could achieve of his different creditors, -and one figured as “little lame man with sandy whiskers.” There are of -course many illiterates, and they have to call in the assistance of a -“scholard.” An amusing old gentleman came before me once, who was very -much perturbed to know if, to use his own phrase, he was “entaitled to -pay this ’ere debt.” The incident occurred at a time when the citizens of -Manchester were being polled to vote on a “culvert scheme” of drainage, -which excited much popular interest. - -“I don’t deny owing the debt,” he said, “and I’ll pay reet enow, what -your Honour thinks reet, if I’m entaitled to pay.” - -I suggested that if he owed the money he was clearly “entitled” to pay. - -“Well,” he continued, “I thowt as I should ’ave a summons first.” - -“But you must have had a summons,” I said, “or how did you get here?” - -“’E towd me case wor on,” he said, pointing to the Plaintiff, “so I coom.” - -I looked up matters and discovered that service of the summons was duly -reported, and informed the Defendant, who seemed much relieved. - -“You see,” he said, “I’m no scholard, and we got a paaper left at our -’ouse, and I took it up to Bill Thomas in our street, a mon as con read, -an’ ’e looks at it, an’ says as ’ow may be it’s a coolvert paaper. ‘I’m -not certain,’ ’e says, ‘but I think it’s a coolvert paaper.’ So I asks -him what to do wi’ it, and he says, ‘Put a cross on it, and put it in a -pillar box,’ and that wor done. But if you say it wor a summons, Bill -must a bin wrong.” - -One can gather something from this poor fellow’s difficulties of the -trouble that a summons of any kind must cause in a domestic household, -and one can only hope for the day when England will follow the example of -other civilised countries and at least do away with the judgment summons -and imprisonment for debt. - -The hundred judgment summonses will have taken us until about eleven -o’clock, and meanwhile in an adjoining Court the Registrar has been -dealing with a list of about four hundred cases. The bulk of these are -undefended, and the Registrar enters up judgment and makes orders -against the Defendant to pay the debt by instalments at so much a month. -A small percentage—say from five to ten per cent. of the cases—are sent -across to the Judge’s Court for trial, and small knots of folk come into -Court to take the seats vacated by the judgment debtors and wait for the -trials to come on. - -The trial of a County Court action on a black-letter day, where Plaintiff -and Defendant appear in person, where neither understands law, evidence, -or procedure, and where the main object of each party is to overwhelm -his opponent by a reckless fire of irrelevant statements, is not easy -to conduct with suavity and dignity. The chief object of a County Court -Judge, as it seems to me—I speak from many years’ experience—should be -to suffer fools gladly without betraying any suspicion that he considers -himself wise. Ninety-nine per cent. of the cases are like recurring -decimals. They have happened, and will happen again and again. The same -defence is raised under the same circumstances. To the shallow-witted -Defendant it is an inspiration of mendacity, to the Judge it is a -commonplace and expected deceit. All prisoners in a Police Court who -are found with stolen goods upon them tell you that they have bought -them from a man whose name they do not know. There is no copyright in -such a defence, and it sounds satisfactory to each succeeding publisher -of it. No doubt it is disappointing to find that the judge and jury -have heard it before and are not disposed to believe it. In the same -way in the County Court there are certain lines of defence that I feel -sure students of folk-lore could tell us were put forward beneath the -oak trees when the Druids sat in County Courts in prehistoric times. -The serious difficulty lies in continuing to believe that a Defendant -may arise who actually has a defence, and in discovering and rescuing a -specimen of a properly defended action from a crowded museum of antique -mendacities. Counter-claims, for instance, which of course are only filed -in the bigger cases, are very largely imaginative. The betting against -a valid counter-claim must be at least ten to one. It is, of course, in -finding the one that there is scope for ingenuity. It is the necessity -for constant alertness that makes the work interesting. - -The women are the best advocates. Here, for instance, is a case in point. - -A woman Plaintiff with a shawl over her head comes into the box, and an -elderly collier, the Defendant, is opposite to her. The action is brought -for nine shillings. I ask her to state her case. - -“I lent yon mon’s missus my mon’s Sunday trousers to pay ’is rent, an’ I -want ’em back.” - -That seems to me, as a matter of pleading, as crisp and sound as can be. -If the trousers had been worth five hundred pounds, a barrister would -have printed several pages of statement of claim over them, but could -not have stated his case better. My sympathies are with the lady. I know -well the kindness of the poor to each other, and, won by the businesslike -statement of the case, I turn round to the Defendant and ask him why the -trousers are not returned and what his defence may be. - -He smiles and shakes his head. He is a rough, stupid fellow, and -something amuses him. I ask him to stop chuckling and tell me his defence. - -“There’s nowt in it all,” is his answer. - -I point out that this is vague and unsatisfactory, and that the words do -not embody any defence to an action of detinue known to the law. - -He is not disturbed. The lady gazes at him triumphantly. He is a slow -man, and casually mentions “The ’ole street knows about them trousers.” - -I point out to him that I have never lived in the street, and know -nothing about it. He seems to disbelieve this and says with a chuckle, -“Everyone knows about them trousers.” - -I press him to tell me the story, but he can scarcely believe that I do -not know all about it. At length he satisfies my curiosity. - -“Why yon woman an’ my missus drank them trousers.” - -The woman vociferates, desires to be struck dead and continues to live, -but bit by bit the story is got at. Two ladies pawn the husband’s -trousers, and quench an afternoon’s thirst with the proceeds. The owner -of the Sunday trousers is told by his wife a story of destitution and -want of rent, and the generous loan of garments. Every one in the street -but the husband enjoys the joke. The indignant husband, believing in -his wife, sues for the trousers and sends his wife to Court. The street -comes down to see the fun, and when I decide for the Defendant there is -an uprising of men, women, and babies, and the parties and their friends -disappear while we call the next case. These are the little matters where -it is easy to make a blunder, and where patience and attention and a -knowledge of the ways and customs of the “’ole street” are worth much -legal learning. - -One must learn to sympathise with domestic frailties. I was rebuking -a man, the other day, for backing up his wife in what was not only an -absurd story, but one in which I could see he had no belief. - -“You should really be more careful,” I said, “and I tell you candidly I -don’t believe a word of your wife’s story.” - -“You may do as yer like,” he said, mournfully, “but I’ve got to.” - -The sigh of envy at the comparative freedom of my position as compared -with his own was full of pathos. - -A case of a workman who was being sued for lodging money gave me a new -insight into the point of view of the clever but dissipated workman. His -late landlady was suing for arrears run up when, as she said, he was “out -of work.” - -The phrase made him very angry. - -“Look ’ere,” he said, “can that wumman kiss the book agen? She’s swearin’ -false. I’ve never been out o’ wark i’ my life. Never.” - -“Tummas,” says the old lady, in a soothingly irritating voice. “Think, -Tummas.” - -“Never been out o’ wark i’ my life,” he shouts. - -“Oh, Tummas,” says the old lady, more in sorrow than in anger. “You -remember Queen’s funeral. You were on the spree a whole fortneet.” - -“Oh, ay!” says Thomas unabashed; “but you said out o’ wark. If you’re -sayin’ on the spree I’m with yer, but I’ve never been out o’ wark i’ my -life.” - -It was a sad distinction for a clever working man to make, but a true one -and to him an important one, and I rather fancy the nice old lady knew -well what she was doing in her choice of phrase and hoped to score off -Thomas by irritating him into an unseemly exhibition by the use of it. - -A class of case that becomes very familiar arises out of the sale of -a small business. A fried-fish shop is regarded by an enterprising -widow who does not possess one as a mine of untold gold. She purchases -one at a price above its value, fails from want of knowledge to -conduct it successfully, and then brings an action for fraudulent -misrepresentation against the seller. Of course, there are cases of fraud -and misrepresentation; but, as a rule, there is nothing more than the -natural optimistic statements of a seller followed by incompetence of the -purchaser and the disgust of old customers. In a case of this sort, in -which up to a point it was difficult to know where the truth lay, owing -to the vague nature of the evidence, a graphic butcher gave a convincing -account of the reason of the failure of the new management. He had come -down to the Court in the interests of justice, leaving the abattoir—or as -he called it “habbitoyre”—on his busiest morning. - -“Yer see,” he said, “I knew the old shop well. I was in the ’abit of -takin’ in a crowd of my pals on Saturday neet. So when the old Missus -gave it up, I promised to give it a try wi’ the new Missus. Well, I went -in twice, an’ there wor no sort o’ choice at all. There worn’t no penny -fish, what there wor, wor ’a-penny fish, and bad at that, an’ the chips -wor putty.” - -It was obvious that the Plaintiff had started on a career for which -Nature did not intend her, and that the cause of the failure of -the business was not the fraud of the Defendant, but the culinary -incompetence of the Plaintiff. - -It is amazing how, apart altogether from perjury, two witnesses will -give entirely different accounts of the same matter. No doubt there is a -great deal of reckless evidence given and some perjury committed, but a -great deal of the contradictory swearing arises from “natural causes,” -as it were. A man is very ready to take sides, and discusses the facts -of a case with his friend until he remembers more than he ever saw. In -“running down” cases, where the witnesses are often independent folk -and give their own evidence their own way, widely different testimony -is given about the same event. One curious circumstance I have noticed -in “running down” cases is that a large percentage of witnesses give -evidence against the vehicle coming towards them. That is to say, if a -man is walking along, and a brougham is in front of him and going the -same way as he is, and a cab coming in the opposite direction collides -with the brougham, I should expect that man to give evidence against -the cab. I suppose the reason of that is that to a man so situated the -brougham appears stationary and the cab aggressively dangerous, but -whatever the reason may be the fact is very noticeable. - -On the whole the uneducated man in the street is a better witness of -outdoor facts than the clerk or warehouseman. The outdoor workers have, -I fancy, a more retentive memory for things seen, and are more observant -than the indoor workers. They do not want to refresh their memory with -notes. - -A story is told of a blacksmith who came to the farriery classes held -by the Manchester Education authorities. The clerk in charge gave him a -notebook and a pencil. - -“Wot’s this ’ere for?” asks the blacksmith. - -“To take notes,” replied the clerk. - -“Notes? Wot sort o’ notes?” - -“Why, anything that the lecturer says which you think important and want -to remember, you make a note of it,” said the clerk. - -“Oh,” was the scornful reply, “anything I want to remember I must make -a note of in this ’ere book, must I? Then wot do you think my blooming -yed’s for?” - -It is the use and exercise of the “blooming yed” that makes the -Lancashire workman the strong character he is. May it be long before -the mother wit inside it is dulled by the undue use of the scholastic -notebook. - -Witnesses are often discursive, and the greatest ingenuity is devoted -to keeping them to the point without breaking the thread of their -discourse. Only long practice and a certain instinct which comes from -having undergone many weary hours of listening can give you the knack of -getting the pith and marrow of a witness’s story without the domestic and -genealogical details with which he—and especially she—desires to garnish -it. - -I remember soon after I took my seat on the bench having an amusing -dialogue with a collier. He had been sued for twelve shillings for three -weeks’ rent. One week he admitted, and the week in lieu of notice, -which leads to more friction between landlord and tenant than any other -incident in their contract, was duly wrangled over and decided upon. Then -came the third week, and the collier proudly handed in four years’ rent -books to show nothing else was owing. The landlord’s agent pointed out -that two years back a week’s rent was missing, and sure enough in the -rent book was the usual cross instead of a four, showing that no rent had -been paid for that week. - -“How did that week come to be missed?” I asked the collier. - -“I’ll never pay that week,” he said, shaking his head stubbornly. “Not -laikely.” - -“But,” I said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to. You see you admit it’s owing.” - -“Well, I’ll just tell yer ’ow it was. You see we wor ’aving rabbit for -supper, an’ my wife——” - -He looked as if he was settling down for a long yarn, so I interposed: -“Never mind about the rabbit, tell me about the rent.” - -“I’m telling yer. Yer see we wor ’aving rabbit for supper, an’ my wife -’ad got a noo kettle, an’ we don’t ’ave rabbit every——” - -“Oh, come, come,” I said impatiently, “just tell me about the rent.” - -He looked at me rather contemptuously, and began again at the very -beginning. - -“I’m telling yer, if yer’ll only listen. We wor ’aving rabbit for supper, -an’ my wife ’ad got a noo kettle, an’ we don’t ’ave rabbit every neet for -supper, an’ my wife ’ad just put the kettle, the noo kettle——” - -“Oh, never mind about the kettle, do please get to the rent,” I said, and -was immediately sorry I had spoken. - -“I’m getting to it, ain’t I?” he asked, rather angrily. “We wor ’aving -rabbit for supper”—I groaned inwardly and resolved to sit it out without -another word—“an’ my wife ’ad got a noo kettle, an’ we don’t ’ave rabbit -every neet for supper, an’ my wife ’ad just put the kettle—the noo kettle -with the rabbit—on to th’ fire, when down coom chimley an’ aw into middle -o’ room. Was I going to pay rent for that week? Not laikely!” - -It turned out that I was wholly in the wrong, and that the destruction -of the rabbit was a kind of equitable plea in defence to the action for -rent. When I am tempted now to burst in too soon upon an irrelevant -story, I think of the rabbit and am patient. Of course all rabbit stories -are not even equitable defences, but the diagnosis of what is purely -domestic and dilatory and of what is apparently anecdotal but in reality -relevant gives a distinct charm to one’s daily work. - -One day of my life every month is given up to the trial of Yiddish cases. -The Yiddisher is a litigious person, and his best friend would not -describe him as a very accurate witness. One ought to remember, however, -that he has not had generations of justice administered to him, that he -is a child and beginner in a court of law, and that the idea of a judge -listening to his story and deciding for him upon the evidence is, in -some cases from personal experience and in all cases from hereditary -instinct, an utterly unfamiliar thing. The fact, too, that he speaks -Yiddish, or very broken English, and never answers a question except -by asking another, always gives his evidence an indirect flavour. One -strong point about a Yiddisher is his family affection, and he swears in -tribes, so to speak. A Christian in a family dispute will too often swear -anything against his brother, and is often wickedly reckless in his sworn -aspersions. A Yiddisher, on the other hand, will swear anything for his -brother, and most Yiddish evidence could be discounted by an accurate -percentage according to the exact relationship by blood or marriage of -the witness to the Plaintiff or Defendant. - -It is needless to say a foreign-speaking race such as this gives one some -anxiety and trouble in a small-debt court. One of my earliest Yiddish -experiences was a case in which two Yiddishers each brought his own -interpreter. A small scrap of paper cropped up in the case with some -Hebrew writing on it. One interpreter swore it was a receipt, the other -that it was an order for a new pair of boots. Without knowing anything of -Hebrew, it occurred to me that these divergent readings were improbable. -The case was adjourned. I applied to some of my friends on that excellent -body, the Jewish Board of Guardians, a respectable interpreter was -obtained, and the Hebrew document properly translated. There is now an -official interpreter attached to the Manchester Court, and I think I can -safely congratulate the Yiddish community on a distinct improvement in -their education in the proper use of English law courts. - -That some of them have the very vaguest notions of the principles on -which we administer justice may be seen from the following story which -happened some years ago. A little flashy Yiddish jeweller who spoke very -bad English, had taken out a judgment summons against an old man who -appeared broken down in health and pocket. I asked the little man for -evidence of means which would justify me in committing the debtor to -prison. - -“Vell,” he says, “I vill tell you. He ish in a very larsh vay of pizness -indeed. He has zree daughters vorking for him and several hands as vell, -and zare is a great deal of monish coming into ze house.” - -The old man told a sad story of ill-health, loss of business, and said -that his daughters had to keep him. It turned out that there was a -Yiddish gentleman in Court, Mr. X., who knew him, and Mr. X. corroborated -the defendant’s story in every particular. He had had a good business, -but was now being kept by his daughters, having broken down in health. - -I turned to the little jeweller and said: “You have made a mistake here.” - -“It ish no mishtake at all,” he cried excitedly. “Mr. X. ish a very bad -man. He and the Defendant are both cap makers, and are vot you call in -English a long firm.” - -This was too much for Mr. X.—a most respectable tradesman—and he called -out: “My Lorts, may I speak?” Without waiting for leave, he continued -very solemnly: “My Lorts, I have sworn by Jehovah that every vord I say -ish true, but I vill go furder than that. I vill put down ten pounds in -cash, and it may be taken avay from me if vot I say ish not true.” - -The offer was made with such fervour and sincerity that I thought it best -to enter into the spirit of the thing. - -Turning to the little man, I asked: “Are you ready to put down ten pounds -that what you say is true?” - -He looked blank and lost, and, shaking his head, murmured sadly, “No, it -ish too motch.” - -I pointed out to him how his attitude about the ten pounds went to -confirm the evidence for the Defendant, and seeing his case slipping away -from under his feet, he cried out, as if catching at the last straw, “My -Lorts thish ish not mine own case, thish ish mine farder’s case, and I -vill put down ten pounds of mine farder’s monish that vot I say ish true.” - -The offer was not accepted, and the Defendant was not committed. But the -story throws light on the rudimentary ideas that some Yiddishers have of -the administration of justice. - -And now we have finished the list of cases, but there are a few -stragglers left in Court. Some of them have been in the wrong Court, or -come on the wrong day; some have applications to make, or advice to ask. -I always make a point now of finding out what these folk want before -leaving the bench. I remember in my early days a man coming before me the -first thing one morning, and saying he had sat in my Court until the end -of yesterday’s proceedings. - -“Why didn’t you come up at the end of the day,” I asked, “and make your -application then?” - -“I was coming,” he replied, “but at the end of last case you was off your -chair an’ bolted through yon door like a rabbit.” I think his description -was exaggerated, but I rise in a more leisurely way nowadays, though I am -still glad when the day’s work is over. - -I do not know that what I have written will convey any clear idea of the -day of my life that I have been asked to portray. I know it is in many -respects a very dull grey life, but it has its brighter moments in the -possibilities of usefulness to others. I am not at all sure that the -black-letter jurisdiction of a big urban County Court ought not to be -worked by a parish priest rather than by a lawyer. I know that it wants a -patience, a sympathy, and a belief in the goodness of human nature that -we find in those rare characters who give up the good things in this -world for the sake of working for others. I am very conscious of my own -imperfections; but I was once greatly encouraged by a criticism passed -upon me which I accidentally overheard, and which I am conceited enough -to repeat. I was going away from the Court, and passed two men walking -slowly away. I had decided against them, and they were discussing why I -had done so. - -“Well, ’ow on earth ’e could do it I don’t see, do you, Bill?” - -“’E’s a fool.” - -“Yes, ’e’s a fool, a —— fool, but ’e did ’is best.” - -“Ay. I think ’e did ’is best.” - -After all, coming from such source or indeed from any source, the -suggestion contained in the conversation was very gratifying. I have -often thought that one might rest beneath an unkinder epitaph than this: - - HE WAS - A —— FOOL, - BUT - HE DID HIS BEST. - - - - -DOROTHY OSBORNE. - - _Iachimo._ Here are letters for you. - - _Posthumus._ Their tenor good, I trust. - - _Iachimo._ ’Tis very like. - - _Cymbeline_ ii. 4. - - -They had set (it is years ago now) the Period of the Restoration as -subject for the Historical Essay Prize at Oxbridge. I had been advised -to read Courtenay’s _Life of Sir William Temple_. It would give me an -insight into the times, and a thorough knowledge of the Triple Alliance. - -It was in my uncle’s library that I found the book—two octavo volumes of -memoirs bound in plain green cloth, with mouldy yellow backs. I remember -it well, and the circumstances surrounding it. - -I threw open the windows, piled all the red cushions into one window -seat, placed a chair for my feet, and took up the volumes. I cast my -eyes over the contents of Vol. I.: a portrait of Temple—a handsome -fellow—engraved by one Dean, after Sir Peter; a genealogical table. Ugh! -And twenty chapters of negotiations to follow. My uncle was right, it was -undoubtedly a dull book. - -The second volume looked more interesting; there was something in it -about Swift. Memory asserting herself, I remembered Temple to be Swift’s -first patron, and Stella, I fancy, was Lady Temple’s maid. Happy Stella! -At that moment a piece of paper fluttered out of the volume in my hand on -to the floor, driving the Dean and his affairs out of my head. I picked -it up. An old paper, brown at its edges and foldings, singed by time. On -it were some verses—a sonnet. It ran thus:— - - “TO DOROTHY OSBORNE, - - “Why has no laureate, in golden song, - Wreathed rhythmic honours for her name alone, - Who worships now anear a purer throne? - And chosen, from that lovely, loyal throng - Of wantons ambling devilward along - At beck of God’s Anointed, one to praise, - Of brightest wit, yet pure through works and days, - Constant in love, in every virtue strong. - Dorothy, gift of God, it was not meant, - That thy bright light should shine upon the few, - Within the straitened circle of thy life; - Failing to reach mankind and represent - His own ideal, manifest in you, - Of holy woman and the perfect wife.” - -I was a sonneteer myself, and therefore critical. This effort (was it my -uncle’s?) did not seem to me of portentous genius. I hate your sonneteer -who has more than two rhymes in his octett. It proves him a coward at the -measure, one who is burdened by those shackles in which he should move as -skilfully and lightly as a clever dancer bound to the knees on stilts. -Those two subdominant rhymes were misplaced; so was the sudden stop in -the sixth line, the violent _cæsura_ in the sense, sending a cold shiver -through the cultured mind. I did not admire the sestett either in its -arrangement, but much liberty has always been allowed in the management -of the sestett. For an amateur sonnet, I had read, nay, I will be just, I -had written worse. - -But whom does this sonnet describe? Dorothy Osborne, who is she? Lady -Temple, answers Courtenay, and says little more. But she has written her -own life, and painted her own character, as none else could have done it -for her, in letters written to her husband before marriage. When I had -read these, I pitied the unknown, and forbore to criticise his sonnet. -I, too, could have written sonnets, roundels, ballads by the score to -celebrate her praise. But I remembered Pope’s chill warning about those -who “rush in where angels fear to tread,” and, full of humility I did not -apply it to my friend the sonneteer, but—to myself. - -These letters of Dorothy Osborne were, at one time, lying at Coddenham -Vicarage, Suffolk. Forty-two of them has Courtenay transferred to an -appendix, without arrangement or any form of editing, as he candidly -confesses, but not without misgivings as to how they will be received -by a people thirsting to read the details of the negotiations which -took place in connection with the Triple Alliance. Poor Courtenay! Did -he live to learn that the world had other things to do than pore over -dull excerpts from inhuman state papers? For the lighting of fires, for -the rag-bag, or, if of stout paper or parchment, for the due covering of -preserves and pickles, much of these Temple correspondences and treaties -would be eminently fitted, but for the making of books they are all but -useless; book-making of such material is not to be achieved by Courtenay, -nay, nor by the cunningest publisher’s devil in Grub Street. Here, -beneath poor blind Courtenay’s eye, were papers and negotiations, not -about a triple alliance between states, but concerning a dual alliance -between souls. Here, even for the dull historian, were chat, gossip, -the witty portrayal of neighbours, the customs, manners, thoughts, the -very life itself, of English human beings of that time, set out by the -living pen of Dorothy Osborne. Surely it was within his power at least to -edit carefully for us those letters? Alas, no! All that he can do is to -produce a book in two unreadable octavo volumes, and to set down in an -appendix, not without misgivings but forty-two of these charming letters. - -But I will dare to put it to the touch to gain or lose it all. I cannot, -I know, make her glorious by _my_ pen, but I can let her own pen have -free play, and try to draw from her letters, and what other data there -are at hand, some living presentment of a beautiful woman, pure in -dissolute days, passing a quiet domestic existence among her own family; -a loyalist, leading, in Cromwell’s days, a home-life of which those who -draw their history from the pleasant pages of Sir Walter’s historical -novels can have little idea. To confirmed novel readers it will be, -I think, an awakening to learn that there was ever cessation of the -“clashing of rapiers” and “heavy tramp of cavalry” in the middle of the -seventeenth century. - -Dorothy Osborne, born in 1627, was the daughter of Sir Peter Osborne, -Lord Treasurer’s Remembrancer (an inherited office) and Governor of -Guernsey in the days of James I. and Charles his son. She was the only -daughter now (1650) unmarried, and had been named after her mother, -Dorothy, without further addition. Much more could be collected of this -sort from the lumber in Baronetages and Herald’s manuals; but to what -purpose? William Temple was born in 1628. - -It was in 1648, when the King was imprisoned at Carisbrook, in Colonel -Hammond’s charge, that Dorothy first met her constant lover. They met -in the Isle of Wight. She and her brother were on their way to St. -Malo. Temple was starting on his travels. A little incident, almost a -Waverley incident, took place here, worth reciting, perhaps. The Osbornes -and Temple were loyalists. Young Osborne, more loyal than intelligent, -remained behind at an inn where they had halted, that he might write on a -window pane with a diamond “And Haman was hanged upon the gallows he had -prepared for Mordecai.” This attack on Colonel Hammond, and the audacity -of a cavalier daring to apply the Scriptures after the Puritanical -method, caused the whole party to be arrested by the Roundheads, and a -very pretty adventure was spoilt by the ready wit of our Dorothy taking -the offence upon herself, when, through the gallantry of the Roundhead -officer, the whole party was suffered to depart. “This incident,” says -Courtenay, on good authority, “was not lost upon Temple.” Indeed, I think -with Courtenay; but would add that much else besides was not lost upon -him. Travelling with her and her brother, staying with her at St. Malo, -is it to be wondered that Temple was attracted by the bright wit, clear -faith and honesty of Dorothy; or that the brilliant parts and seriousness -of Temple—a great contrast to many of the bibulous, rowdy cavaliers whom -she must have met with—made her find in him one worthy of her friendship -and her love? That Temple at this time openly declared his love I doubt. -Love grew between them unknown to either. Years afterwards Dorothy -writes:— - -“For God’s sake, when we meet let us design one day to remember old -stories in, to ask one another by what degrees our friendship grew to -this height ’tis at. In earnest I am at a loss sometimes in thinking -on’t; and though I can never repent of the share you have in my heart, I -know not whether I gave it you willingly or not at first. No; to speak -ingenuously, I think you got an interest there a good while before I -thought you had any, and it grew so insensibly, and yet so fast, that -all the traverses it has met with since, have served rather to discover -it to me than at all to hinder it.” - -The further circumstances necessary to the understanding of Dorothy’s -letters, are shortly, these: Dorothy lived at Chicksands Priory, -where her father was in ill-health, and there she received suitors at -her parent’s commands. The Osbornes, it seemed, disliked Temple, and -objected to him on the score of want of means; whilst Temple’s father -had planned for his son an advantageous match in another quarter. Alas! -for the frowardness of young couples! They held their course, and waited -successfully. - -Hardly can we do better that you may picture Dorothy and her mode of life -clearly to yourself, than copy this important letter for you at length: - -“You ask me how I pass my time here. I can give you a perfect account, -not only of what I do for the present, but of what I am likely to do this -seven years if I stay here so long. I rise in the morning reasonably -early, and before I am ready I go round the house till I am weary of -that, and then in the garden till it grows too hot for me. About ten -o’clock I think of making me ready; and when that’s done I go into my -father’s chamber; from thence to dinner, where my cousin Molle and I sit -in great state in a room and at a table that would hold a great many -more. After dinner we sit and talk till Mr. B. comes in question, and -then I am gone. The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and -about six or seven o’clock I walk out into a common that lies hard by -the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep and cows, and sit -in the shade singing of ballads; I go to them, and compare their voices -and beauty to some ancient shepherdesses that I have read of, and find a -vast difference there; but, trust me, I think these are as innocent as -those could be. I talk to them, and find _they want nothing to make them -the happiest people in the world but the knowledge that they are so_. -Most commonly, while we are in the middle of our discourse, one looks -about her, and spies her cows going into the corn, and then away they all -run as if they had wings at their heels. I, that am not so nimble, stay -behind, and when I see them driving home their cattle I think ’tis time -for me to retire too. When I have supped I go into the garden, and so to -the side of a small river that runs by it, where I sit down and wish you -with me (you had best say this is not kind, neither). In earnest, ’tis a -pleasant place, and would be more so to me if I had your company. I sit -there sometimes till I am lost with thinking; and were it not for some -cruel thought of the crossness of our fortune, that will not let me sleep -there, I should forget there were such a thing to be done as going to -bed.” - -Truly a quiet country life, in a quiet country house; poor lonely Dorothy! - -Chicksands Priory, Bedfordshire, is a low-built sacro-secular edifice, -well fitted for its former service Its priestly denizens were turned -out in Henry VIII’s monk-hunting reign (1538). To the joy or sorrow of -the neighbourhood: who knows now? Granted then to one, Richard Snow, -of whom the records are silent; by him sold, in Elizabeth’s reign, to -Sir John Osborne, Knt. (Dorothy’s brother was first baronet); thus it -becomes the ancestral home of our Dorothy. There is a crisp etching of -the house in Fisher’s Collections of Bedfordshire. The very exterior of -it is Catholic, unpuritanical, no methodism about the square windows set -here and there, at undecided intervals, wheresoever they may be wanted. -Six attic windows jut out from the low-tiled roof. At the corner of the -house a high pinnacled buttress rising the full height of the wall; -five buttresses flank the side wall, built so that they shade the lower -windows from the morning sun, in one place reaching to the sill of an -upper window. Perhaps Mrs. Dorothy’s window; how tempting to scale and -see. What a spot for the happier realisation of Romeo and Juliet, or of -Sigismonde and Guichard, if this were romance. In one end of the wall -are two Gothic windows, claustral remnants, lighting now, perhaps, the -dining-hall, where cousin Molle and Dorothy sat in state; or the saloon, -where the latter received her servants. There are old cloisters attached -to the house; at the other side of it may be. Yes! a sleepy country -house, the warm earth and her shrubs creeping close up to the very sills -of the lower windows, sending in morning fragrance, I doubt not, when -Dorothy thrust back the lattice after breakfast. A quiet place, “slow” -is the accurate modern epithet for it, “awfully slow.” But to Dorothy, a -quite suitable home at which she never repines. - -This etching of Thomas Fisher, of December 26th, 1816, is a godsend to -me, hearing as I do that Chicksands Priory no longer remains to us, -having suffered martyrdom at the bloody hands of the restorer. For -through this, partly, we have attained to a knowledge of Dorothy’s -surroundings, and may now safely let Dorothy herself tell us of the -servants visiting her at Chicksands during those long seven years through -which she remains constant to Temple. See what she expects in a lover! -Have we not here some local squires hit off to the life? Could George -Eliot have done more for us in like space? - -“There are a great many ingredients must go to the making me happy in a -husband. First, as my Cousin Franklin says our humours must agree, and to -do that he must have that kind of breeding that I have had, and used that -kind of company. That is, he must not be so much a country gentleman as -to understand nothing but hawks and dogs, and be fonder of either than -of his wife; nor of the next sort of them, whose aim reaches no farther -than to be Justice of Peace, and once in his life High Sheriff, who reads -no books but statutes, and studies nothing but how to make a speech -interlarded with Latin, that may amaze his disagreeing poor neighbours, -and fright them rather than persuade them into quietness. He must not be -a thing that began the world in a free school, was sent from thence to -the university, and is at his furthest when he reaches the Inns of Court, -has no acquaintance but those of his form in those places, speaks the -French he has picked out of old laws, and admires nothing but the stories -he has heard of the revels that were kept there before his time. He must -not be a town gallant neither, that lives in a tavern and an ordinary, -that cannot imagine how an hour should be spent without company unless -it be in sleeping, that makes court to all the women he sees, thinks -they believe him, and laughs and is laughed at equally. Nor a travelled -Monsieur, whose head is feather inside and outside, that can talk of -nothing but of dances and duels, and has courage enough to wear slashes, -when everybody else dies with cold to see him. He must not be a fool of -no sort, nor peevish, nor ill-natured, nor proud, nor courteous; and to -all this must be added, that he must love me, and I him, as much as we -are capable of loving. Without all this his fortune, though never so -great, would not satisfy me; and with it a very moderate one would keep -me from ever repenting my disposal.” - -These negative needs doubtless excluded many of the neighbours who were -ready to throw themselves at her feet. But, from far and near, came many -suitors, Cromwell’s son, Henry, among others; who will be “as acceptable -to her,” she thinks, “as anybody else.” He seems almost worthy of her, -if we believe most accounts of him, and allow for the Presbyterian -animosity of good Mrs. Hutchinson. However, Henry Cromwell disappears -from the scene, marrying elsewhere; whereby English history is possibly -considerably modified. Temple is ordered to get her a dog, an Irish -greyhound. “Henry Cromwell undertook to write to his brother Fleetwood, -for another for me; but I have lost my hopes there; whomsoever it is that -you employ, he will need no other instruction, but to get the biggest he -can meet with. ’Tis all the beauty of those dogs, or of any, indeed, I -think. A mastiff is handsomer to me than the most exact little dog that -ever lady played withal.” Temple, no doubt, procured the biggest dog in -Ireland, not the less joyfully that “she has lost her hopes of Henry -Cromwell.” - -There is another lover worthy of special mention—a widower—Sir Justinian -Isham, of Lamport, Northamptonshire, pragmatical enough in his love suit, -causing Mrs. Dorothy much amusement. She writes of him to Temple under -the nickname “The Emperor.” This is the character she gives him: “He was -the vainest, impertinent, self-conceited, learned coxcomb that ever yet I -saw.” Hard words these! - -The Emperor, it appears, caused further disagreement between Dorothy and -her brother. Like the kettle in the _Cricket on the Hearth_, the Emperor -began it. “The Emperor and his proposals began it; I talked merrily -on’t till I saw my brother put on his sober face, and could hardly then -believe he was in earnest. It seems he was; for when I had spoke freely -my meaning, it wrought so with him, as to fetch up all that lay upon his -stomach. All the people that I had ever in my life refused were brought -again upon the stage, like Richard the III’s ghosts to reproach me -withal, and all the kindness his discoveries could make I had for you was -laid to my charge. My best qualities, if I have any that are good, served -but for aggravations of my fault, and I was allowed to have wit, and -understanding, and discretions, in all other things, that it might appear -I had none in this. Well, ’twas a pretty lecture, and I grew warm with it -after a while. In short, we came so near to an absolute falling out that -’twas time to give over, and we said so much then that we have hardly -spoken a word together since. But ’tis wonderful to see what curtseys and -legs pass between us, and as before we were thought the kindest brother -and sister, we are certainly now the most complimental couple in England. -’Tis a strange change, and I am very sorry for it, but I’ll swear I know -not how to help it.” - -It is doubtless unpleasant to be pestered by an unwelcome suitor; however -Dorothy has this compensation, that the Emperor’s proposals and letters -give her mighty amusement. - -“In my opinion, these great scholars are not the best writers (of -letters I mean, of books perhaps they are); I never had, I think, but one -letter from Sir Jus, but ’twas worth twenty of anybody’s else to make -me sport. It was the most sublime nonsense that in my life I ever read, -and yet I believe he descended as low as he could to come near my weak -understanding. ’Twill be no compliment after this to say I like your -letters in themselves, not as they come from one that is not indifferent -to me, but seriously I do. All letters, methinks, should be free and easy -as one’s discourse; not studied as an oration, nor made up of hard words -like a charm. ’Tis an admirable thing to see how some people will labour -to find out terms that may obscure a plain sense, like a gentleman I -know, who would never say ‘the weather grew cold,’ but that ‘winter began -to salute us.’ I have no patience at such coxcombs, and cannot blame an -old uncle of mine that threw the standish at his man’s head, because -he writ a letter for him, where, instead of saying (as his master bid -him) ‘that he would have writ himself but that he had gout in his hand,’ -he said, ‘that the gout in his hand would not permit him to put pen to -paper.’” - -The Emperor, it seems, this much to his credit, is much enamoured of -Mrs. Dorothy; and does not take a refusal quietly. Or is she playing the -coquette with him? - -“Would you think it, that I have an ambassador from the Emperor -Justinian, that comes to renew the treaty? In earnest ’tis true, and I -want your counsel extremely what to do in it. You told me once that of -all my servants you liked him the best. If I could so too, there were no -dispute in’t. Well, I’ll think on’t, and if it succeed I will be as good -as my word: you shall take your choice of my four daughters. Am not I -beholding to him, think you? He says he has made addresses, ’tis true, in -several places since we parted, but could not fix anywhere, and in his -opinion he sees nobody that would make so fit a wife for himself as I. He -has often inquired after me to know if I were not marrying: and somebody -told him I had an ague, and he presently fell sick of one too, so natural -a sympathy there is between us, and yet for all this, on my conscience -we shall never marry. He desires to know whether I am at liberty or -not. What shall I tell him, or shall I send him to you to know? I think -that will be best. I’ll say that you are much my friend, and that I am -resolved not to dispose of myself but with your consent and approbation; -and therefore he must make all his court to you, and when he can bring me -a certificate under your hand that you think him a fit husband for me, -’tis very likely I may have him; till then I am his humble servant, and -your faithful friend.” - -But, at length Sir Justinian marries some other fair neighbour, and -vanishes from these pages; leaving, however, other lovers in the field -seeking Dorothy’s hand. “I have a squire now,” she writes, “that is as -good as a knight. He was coming as fast as a coach and six horses could -bring him, but I desired him to stay till my ague was gone, and give -me a little time to recover my good looks, for I protest if he saw me -now he would never desire to see me again. Oh, me! I cannot think how I -shall sit like the lady of the lobster, and give audience at Babram; you -have been there, I am sure, nobody at Cambridge ’scapes it, but you were -never so welcome thither as you shall be when I am mistress of it.” Also -there comes to woo her “a modest, melancholy, reserved man, whose head -is so taken up with little philosophical studies, that I admire how I -found a room there.” A new servant is offered to her: “who had £2000 a -year in present, with £2000 more to come. I had not the curiosity to ask -who he was, which they took so ill that I think I shall hear no more of -it.” Thus in one way or another, she gets rid of them all. But they are -very importunate, these “servants,” as they style themselves, requiring -wit and determination to send them about their business. Dorothy is -determined to marry where she loves. “Surely,” she says, “the whole world -could never persuade me (unless a parent commanded it) to marry one that -I had no esteem for.” It is doubtful if a parent’s command would suffice, -did Dorothy come face to face with such. - -Here is a sharp refusal dramatically given to one importunate servant, -Mr. James Fish by name (fancy Dorothy Osborne as Mrs. Fish), who would -fain have become master. “I cannot forbear telling you the other day he -made me a visit; and I, to prevent his making discourses to me, made -Mrs. Goldsmith and Jane sit by all the while. But he came better provided -than I could have imagined. He brought a letter with him, and gave it -me as one that he had met with, directed to me; he thought it came out -of Northamptonshire. I was upon my guard, and suspecting all he said, -examined him so strictly where he had it, before I would open it, that he -was hugely confounded, and I confirmed that ’twas his. I laid it by, and -wished then that they would have left us, that I might have taken notice -on’t to him. But I had forbid it them so strictly before, that they -offered not to stir further than to look out of window, as not thinking -there was any necessity of giving us their eyes as well as their ears; -but he, that thought himself discovered, took that time to confess to me -(in a whispering voice that I could hardly hear myself), that the letter -(as my Lord Broghill says) was of great concern to him, and begged I -would read it, and give him my answer. I took it up presently, as if I -had meant it, but threw it sealed as it was into the fire, and told him -(as softly as he had spoke to me) I thought that the quickest and best -way of answering it. He sat awhile in great disorder without speaking -a word, and so rose and took his leave. Now what think you; shall I -ever hear of him more?” We think not, decidedly. He, like the others, -recovers, doubtless to marry elsewhere. - -But Temple’s father, Dorothy’s brother, and her solicitous servants, are -not the only obstacles these lovers meet with. There are long separations -at great distances when the lovers can hear but little of each other. Few -meetings, and these at long intervals, break the monotony of Dorothy’s -life of love. - - ’Tis not the loss of love’s assurance, - It is not doubting what thou art, - But ’tis the too, too long endurance - Of absence, that afflicts my heart. - -Thus would Dorothy have written, perhaps, had she rhymed her thoughts in -these days. - -Now and again, indeed, Mrs. Dorothy is in London, “engaged to play and -sup at the Three Kings,” or at Spring Gardens, Foxhall; enjoying for the -time, as gay a life as is possible, in these Puritan days. But this is -not the life for our Dorothy. “We go abroad all day,” she writes, “and -play all night, and say our prayers when we have time. Well, in sober -earnest, now, I would not live thus a twelvemonth, _to gain all that -the king has lost, unless it was to give it him again_.” No! Dorothy’s -life is at Chicksands tending her father, writing to her lover, reading -romances sent to her by him, and crying real tears over the miseries of -their poor pasteboard heroines. In those days Fielding was not, and the -glories of fiction were unknown and quite unconceivable. Mr. Cowley’s -verses reach her (in MS. Courtenay thinks), and occasional news of -political matters. Here, set down in this dull priory house, she lives a -calm domestic life without repining, without sympathy in her troubles. -Is not this difficult; impossible to most, and worthy of a heroine? But, -though her life is at Chicksands, her heart is far away with Temple; -though her eyes are brimming with tears for the sorrows of Almanzar, -it is because they mirror her troubles in their own weak fashion; and, -whilst her soul is longing to commune with her lover, is it marvellous -that by some mesmeric culture, she, quite untrained in literary skill, so -portrays her thoughts that not only were they clearly uttered for Temple, -but remain to us, clothed in the power of clear intention, honesty of -expression, and kindly wit? - -Perhaps, in these seven long apprentice years to matrimony, Dorothy -had no trouble causing her more real anguish than her fears concerning -Temple’s religious belief. Gossiping Bishop Burnet, in one of his more -ill-natured passages, tells us that Temple was an Epicurean, thinking -religion to be fit only for the mob; and a corrupter of all that came -near him. Unkind words these, with just perhaps those dregs of truth -in them, which make gossip so hard to bear patiently. Temple, I take -it, was too intelligent not to see the hollow, noisy, drum nature of -much of the religion around him; preferred also, as young men will -do, to air speculative opinions rather than consider them; hence the -bishop’s censure. Was it true, as Courtenay thinks, that jealousy of -King William’s attachment to Temple, disturbed the episcopal equipoise -of soul, rendering his Lordship slanderous, even a backbiter? To us, -brother servants of Dorothy, this matters not. Sufficient pity is it, -that Dorothy is forced to write to her lover in such words as these: “I -tremble at the desperate things you say in your letter: for the love of -God, consider seriously with yourself what can enter into comparison with -the safety of your soul? Are a thousand women or ten thousand worlds -worth it? No, you cannot have so little reason left as you pretend, nor -so little religion; for God’s sake let us not neglect what can only make -us happy for a trifle. If God had seen it fit to have satisfied our -desires, we should have had them, and everything would not have conspired -thus to cross them; since He has decreed it otherwise (at least as far as -we are able to judge by events) we must submit, and not by striving make -an innocent passion a sin, and show a childish stubbornness. I could say -a thousand things more to this purpose if I were not in haste to send -this away, that it may come to you at least as soon as the other. - - Adieu.” - -Thus, you see, Dorothy is not without her fears; but, though she can -write thus to her lover, yet, when he is attacked by her brother, -she is ready to defend him; having at heart that real faith in his -righteousness, without which there could be no love. “All this,” she -writes in another letter, “I can say to you; but when my brother disputes -it with me, I have other arguments for him, and I drove him up so -close t’other night, that for want of a better gap to get out at, he -was fain to say that he feared as much your having a fortune as your -having none, for he saw you held my Lord S.’s principles; that religion -and honour were things you did not consider at all; and that he was -confident you would take any engagement, serve in any employment, or do -anything to advance yourself. I had no patience for this: to say you were -a beggar, your father not worth £4,000 in the whole world, was nothing -in comparison of having no religion, nor no honour. I forgot all my -disguise, and we talked ourselves weary; he renounced me again, and I -defied him.” - -There is no religious twaddle in Dorothy’s letters; her religion grew -from within herself, and was not the distorted reflection of Scriptural -beliefs coloured by modern sympathies and antipathies. She does not -satisfy her tendency towards righteousness by the mock humility of -constant self-abasement, or by the juggling misapplication of texts of -Scripture. Indeed, the depth of her faith and belief is not to be seen -on the surface of these letters—hardly, indeed, to be understood at -all, I think, except from the charitable tendency of her thoughts, her -deep silences and self-restraint. Dorothy, it appears, sees with her -clear smiling eyes quite through the loudly-expressed longings for the -next world, which had helped to put some prominent men of the time in -high places in this. “We complain,” she writes, “of this world and the -variety of crosses and afflictions it abounds in and yet for all this -who is weary on’t (more than in discourse), who thinks with pleasure of -leaving it or preparing for the next? We see old folks that have outlived -all the comforts of life desire to continue it and nothing can wean us -from the folly of preferring a mortal being, subject to great infirmity -and unavoidable decays, before an immortal one, and all the glories -that are promised with it. Is this not very like preaching? Well, ’tis -too good for you—you shall have no more on’t. I am afraid you are not -mortified enough for such discourses to work upon, though I am not of my -brother’s opinion neither, that you have no religion in you. In earnest, -I never took anything he ever said half so ill, as nothing is so great an -injury. It must suppose one to be the devil in human shape.” - -Seven long years! Which of you, my readers, has waited this time without -a murmur and without a doubt? Was not this an acting of faith far -higher than any letter writing of it? Let us think so, and honour it -as such. Here is a letter, written when doubt almost overwhelmed, when -the _spleen_ (a disease as common now as then, though we have lost the -good name for it) was upon her, when the world looked blank, and life a -drifting mist of despair. - -“Let me tell you that if I could help it I would not love you, and that -as long as I live I shall strive against it, as against that which has -been my ruin, and was certainly sent me as a punishment for my sins. -But I shall always have a sense of your misfortunes equal if not above -my own; I shall pray that you may obtain quiet I never hope for but in -my grave, and I shall never change my condition but with my life. Yet -let not this give you a hope. Nothing can ever persuade me to enter -the world again; I shall in a short time have disengaged myself of all -my little affairs in it and settled myself in a condition to apprehend -nothing but too long a life, and therefore I wish you to forget me, and -to induce you to it let me tell you freely that I deserve you should. -If I remember anybody ’tis against my will; I am possessed with that -strange insensibility that my nearest relations have no tie upon me, -and I find myself no more concerned in those that I have heretofore had -great tenderness of affection for, than if they had died long before I -was born; leave me to this, and seek a better fortune: I beg it of you -as heartily as I forgive you all those strange thoughts you have had of -me; think me so still if that will do anything towards it, for God’s sake -so, take any course that may make you happy, or if that cannot be, less -unfortunate at least than - - Your friend and humble servant, - - D. OSBORNE.” - -Such letters are, happily, not numerous. Here is another, of a quite -different nature, in which you can read the practical English sense of -our Dorothy, and her thoughts about love in a cottage:— - -“I have not lived thus long in the world, and in this age of changes, -but certainly I know what an estate is; I have seen my father’s reduced -better than £4,000 to not £400 a year, and I thank God I never felt the -change in anything that I thought necessary. I never wanted, and am -confident I never shall. But yet I would not be thought so inconsiderate -a person as not to remember that it is expected from all people that -have sense that they should act with reason; that to all persons some -proportion of fortune is necessary, according to their several qualities, -and though it is not required that one should tie oneself to just so -much, and something is left for one’s inclination, and the difference -in the persons to make, yet still within such a compass; (a little -incoherent this, meaning, I think, that Dorothy does not believe that -even the world would have you choose by money and goods alone), and -such as lay more upon these considerations than they will bear, shall -infallibly be condemned by all sober persons. If any accident out of my -power should bring me to necessity though never so great, I should not -doubt with God’s assistance, but to bear it as well as anybody, and I -should never be ashamed on’t if He pleased to send it me; but if by my -own folly I had put it upon myself, the case would be extremely altered.” -But this is Dorothy in her serious strain; often (how often?) she plays -the lover, and though I disapprove of peeping into such letters, -doubting if Cupid recognises any statute of limitations in these affairs, -yet to complete the fabric we must play eavesdropper for once. - -“It will be pleasinger to you, I am sure, to tell you how fond I am of -your lock. Well, in earnest now, and setting aside all compliment I never -saw finer hair, nor of a better colour; but cut no more of it. I would -not have it spoiled for the world; if you love me be careful of it; I am -combing and curling and kissing this lock all day, and dreaming of it all -night. The ring, too, is very well, only a little of the biggest. Send -me a tortoiseshell one to keep it on, that is a little less than that I -sent for a pattern. I would not have the rule absolutely true without -exception, that hard hairs are ill-natured, for then I should be so; -but I can allow that all soft hairs are good, and so are you, or I am -deceived as much as you are, if you think I do not love you enough. Tell -me, my dearest, am I? You will not be if you think I am not yours.” - -Space! space! how narrow, how harsh, and ungallant thou art; not ready to -give place, even to Dorothy herself. We must hasten to the end. Dorothy, -it appears, unlike some of her sex, does not like playing the Mrs. Bride -in a public wedding. “I never yet,” she writes, “saw anyone that did not -look simply and out of countenance, nor ever knew a wedding well designed -but one, and that was of two persons who had time enough I confess to -contrive it, and nobody to please in’t but themselves. He came down into -the country where she was upon a visit, and one morning married her. As -soon as they came out of the church, they took coach and came for the -town, dined at an inn by the way, and at night came into lodgings that -were provided for them, where nobody knew them, and where they passed for -married people of seven years’ standing. The truth is I could not endure -to be Mrs. Bride in a public wedding, to be made the happiest person on -earth; do not take it ill, for I would endure it if I could, rather than -fail, but in earnest I do not think it were possible for me.” - -But her father is now dead. Her brother, Peyton, is to make the treaty -for her. Here is the letter, dated for once (Oct. 2, 1654), inviting -Temple to come, and she will name the day; at least, Courtenay tells -us, that in this interview the preliminaries were settled. “After a -long debate with myself how to satisfy you, and remove that rock (as -you call it) which in your apprehensions is of no great danger, I am at -last resolved to let you see that I value your affection for me at as -high a rate as you yourself can set it, and that you cannot have more -of tenderness for me and my interests than I shall ever have for yours. -The particulars how I intend to make this good, you shall know when I -see you, which, since I find them here more irresolute in point of time -(though not as to the journey itself) than I hoped they would have been, -notwithstanding your quarrel to me, and the apprehensions you would make -me believe you have that I do not care to see you—pray come hither, and -try whether you shall be welcome or not.” - -And now one moment of suspense. A last trial to the lover’s constancy. -The bride is taken dangerously ill. So seriously ill that the doctors -rejoice when the disease pronounces itself to be small-pox. Alas! who -shall now say what are the inmost thoughts of our Dorothy? Does she not -now need all her faith in her lover, in herself, ay, and in God, to -uphold her in this new affliction. She rises from her bed, her beauty -of face destroyed; her fair looks living only on the painter’s canvas, -unless we may believe that they were etched in deeply bitten lines on -Temple’s heart. But this skin beauty is not the firmest hold she has -on Temple’s affections; this was not the beauty that had attracted her -lover, and held him enchained in her service for seven years of waiting -and suspense; this was not the only light leading him through dark days -of doubt, almost of despair, constant, unwavering in his troth to her. -Other beauty, not outward, of which I may not write, having seen it but -darkly, only through these letters; knowing it indeed to be there, but -quite unable to visualise it fully, or to paint it clearly on these -pages; other beauty it is, than that of face and form, that made Dorothy -to Temple and to all men, in fact, as she was in name—the gift of God. - -They are wedded, says Courtenay, at the end of 1654; and thus my task -ends. Of Lady Temple there is little to know, and this is not the -place to set it down. She lies on the north side of the west aisle at -Westminster, with her husband and children. - - “Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument, - And her immortal past with angels lives.” - -You, reading for yourself, will perhaps gaze upon the darkened tablet, -with new interest; and may, perhaps, thank him who has shown you this -picture. Yes, thank him, not as author or historian, but as a servant -holding a lamp, but ill-trimmed may be, before a glowing picture, careful -that what light he holds, may not glisten on its shining surface, -and hide the painting from sight; or as a menial, drawing aside with -difficulty the heavy, dusty curtain of intervening ages which has veiled -from human eyes the beautiful figure of Dorothy Osborne. She herself is -the picture, and the painter of it; the historian of her own history. But -not even to her are the real thanks due; these must be humbly offered to -Him from whom she came to represent - - “A holy woman and the perfect wife.” - - - - -THE DEBTOR OF TO-DAY. - - “He that dies pays all debts.” - - _Tempest_ iii., 2. - - -The debtor is a slave. In the nature of things he always has been and -must be a slave. The debtor of to-day is not such a direct slave as his -ancestor of remote ages, but he is, in political phrase, a relic of -barbarism living under servile conditions. As he has no organisation, -and as, in the picturesque analogy of the man in the street, he is a -bottom-dog in every sense of the word, no one worries about him. Eleven -thousand of him go to gaol every year, and process is issued against -three or four hundred thousand, but there is no party capital to be made -out of the subject, no one statesman can abuse any other statesman for -neglecting the question, and the churches and chapels are so keen about -fighting over the technicalities of catechisms that they have no time to -worry over the sorrows of the debtor of to-day. - -It was not always so. Elisha the Prophet thought it worth while to -perform a miracle on one well-known occasion in order to pay the bailiffs -out. The creditor, if you remember, had come to the widow’s house “to -take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.” In those days you took in -execution not only the debtor himself, but his wife and family. Elisha -was indignant. He orders the widow to borrow her neighbour’s vessels and -fills them miraculously with oil. Then he says: “Go, sell the oil and -pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest.” One does not -expect miracles from our clergy of to-day, but a consideration of the -subject, and the discussion of its social aspects, would be a following -out of Elisha’s example. I for one have never yet heard a sermon on -imprisonment for debt, but the texts are plentiful, and to any intending -preacher I will willingly supply the references. - -As in Hebrew times, so in the days of Greece and Rome, you find the -slavery of the debtor continue, and what seems to be wanting in the -legislator of to-day, an anxiety to relieve his condition. Solon, the -Greek law-giver, had sounder notions of the matter than any modern Home -Secretary whose views I have come across. It would be interesting to -trace the evolution of our poor unfortunate County Court debtor of to-day -across the spacious pages of history, through the various degrees of -ignominy, slavery, and misery that the debtor has been made to suffer, -until we see him what he is to-day—not a very ill-used martyr, perhaps, -but the victim of an utterly out-of-date system, the remnant of the cruel -laws of the Middle Ages. - -To Charles Dickens must be awarded a great portion of the honour that is -due to those who abolished the horrible incidents of the imprisonment -for debt that existed in his day. - -The picture of the old debtor dying in the Fleet after twenty years -of captivity must have haunted even the most callous official the -Circumlocution Office ever produced. Great reforms followed, but in -the usual English way, in scraps and portions by means of compromise -and amendment, and by degrees. At last, in 1869, came the start of the -present system of imprisonment for debt which abolished a great deal of -imprisonment, but left the very poorest still under threat of the gaol if -they did not pay their debts. There were many great reformers of that day -who saw that the time was even then ripe for total abolition, and that -the House of Commons was legislating on too conservative lines. - -Jessel, a great lawyer and a sound law-giver, laid down the principle -that has always been to me a statement of the true gospel on this -question. “In no case,” he says, “should a man suffer penal imprisonment -because he failed to pay a certain sum of money on a private contract -with which the public had nothing to do.” When we have legislated to that -effect we shall get rid of this relic of the barbarous ages that is still -with us—imprisonment for debt. - -And a word to explain what the system means. It must be remembered that -the smaller debts in County Courts are generally ordered to be paid by -instalments. Where a debt or instalment is in arrear, and it is proved -to the satisfaction of the Court that the person making default either -has, or has had since the date of the order or judgment, the means to -pay the sum in respect of which he has made default, and has refused -or neglected to pay, the Judge may commit him to prison for a period -of not more than forty-two days. In practice the wind is very much -tempered to the shorn lamb, and a period of twenty-one days is generally -the maximum imprisonment ordered. In practice, also, debtors will beg, -borrow, and perhaps do worse rather than go to prison, and the result is -that the percentage actually imprisoned is small. This, to my mind, has -very little bearing on the question whether the system is a wise one in -the interests of the State and of the working-man. For it must not be -forgotten that the system is in practice a system of collecting debts -from the wage-earning class, and the wage-earning class only. It is, of -course, incidentally used against small tradesmen and others, but the -bulk of those against whom orders are made are working-men. As the late -Mr. Commissioner Kerr said in 1873, “The rich man makes a clean sweep of -it, and begins again, and the poor man has a miserable debt hanging round -his neck all his life.” - -For the rich bankrupt is really rather a pampered creature. Here you have -the younger son of a duke whose creditors are mostly money-lenders and -tradesmen, whose downfall is due to betting, and who has known of his -insolvency for a long period, owing £36,631, and his assets are £100. -The Official Receiver drops a silent tear of pity over the statement -of affairs, and, like the tear of the recording angel, it blots out -the record and the younger son goes forth ducally to prey upon a new -generation of creditors. Here, again, you have a bankrupt, an ex-Army -officer, living on his wife’s income, and betting, and winding up with -debts £27,741, and assets £667. These are not fancy cases, they come out -of the stern, dull reports of the Inspector-General of Bankruptcy. And as -long as such men are allowed to live without fear of imprisonment day by -day, we cannot sit down and say with a clear conscience that we have only -one law for rich and poor. - -The chief evil of the present system of imprisonment for debt is -the undesirable class of trade and traders that it encourages: the -money-lenders, the credit drapers, the “Scotchmen,” the travelling -jewellers, the furniture hirers, and all those firms who tout their -goods round the streets for sale by small weekly instalments, relying -on imprisonment for debt to enable them to plant their goods out on the -weaklings. The law as it stands assists the knave at the expense of the -fool. I was discussing with a rather slow-minded working-man and his wife -why he had purchased a showy and unsatisfactory sideboard wholly beyond -his means. It had been seized and sold for rent, and he had this burden -of a few pounds debt to clear off as best he might. - -“Why buy it?” I asked. - -“My wife would have it,” he replied. - -“Why did she want it?” I asked. - -“She didn’t want it, but yon man (the shopman) seemed to _instil_ the -sideboard into her.” - -The shopman was a clever salesman, no doubt, but does anyone suppose he -would have _instilled_ a sideboard into the workman’s wife if it had not -been for imprisonment for debt. To a working-man on small weekly wages no -credit can be given in any commercial sense. His only asset is character, -and there are many retail traders who never come near the County Court at -all, because they make it a rule only to give credit after inquiry. - -Constantly one finds goods taken by women, and immediately pawned, -the proceeds being spent on drink. How can a workman prevent this? He -probably never hears of the matter until a judgment summons is served -on him. I asked such a man the other day if his wife had had the goods, -mentioning the date when they were said to be delivered. - -“I don’t doubt she had the goods. Indeed, she must have got some goods -that day,” he admitted. - -I asked why. - -“Because that day she got locked up for being drunk and disorderly, and I -never knew until now where she got the money.” - -This is by no means an isolated case. I have been several times applied -to by quite respectable men whose wives had run up debts with as many -as twelve to nineteen different drapers for relief under the power -permitting of small bankruptcies. One man told me he was putting a -nail in the wall, and on moving a picture he found some County Court -summonses. I asked him what he did. - -“I upbraided my wife,” he replied, in a rather melancholy tone, “and she -ran away, and I have never seen her since.” - -A creditor corroborated the fact, and it was clear that debt had -destroyed that household. The man had no idea that there were any debts -owing, they had been hidden from him, but he thought it right to arrange -honestly enough to pay them all off. Many a man removes, or has his house -sold over his head, or his wife leaves him through misunderstanding -arising out of credit recklessly given for useless articles, and the law -as it stands encourages this kind of thing. - -Nor can it be said that the wife is always to blame. The husband finds -that his wife can obtain credit at any grocer’s for the week’s food, -and the necessity of carrying home his wages to the chancellor of his -domestic exchequer is less apparent. The temptation to spend wages on -drink or gambling is distinctly encouraged in the debtor of to-day by a -system that makes credit so readily obtainable by the unthrifty and unfit. - -There was a story illustrating this aspect of the matter told me by a -member of a relief committee during the late war. The committee were -paying women half wages whilst the men were at the front. The wife of a -working-man refused a sovereign saying, “That ain’t half my man’s wages.” - -It was explained that he earned forty shillings. - -The honest woman shook her head. “Nay, he didn’t,” she said. “Nowt o’ -sort. He never earned more than twenty-five. Twenty-three he give me, and -two shillings spending money.” - -After some time and examination of the books, the good lady was convinced -that she was entitled to a sovereign, and she went away aghast at her -husband’s deceit, and murmured, “Eh, but if yon Boers don’t kill him, -wait till I get him back!” - -One reason why imprisonment should be abolished in relation, at all -events, to amounts under forty shillings is the dangerous and slippery -paths of evidence along which a Judge has to walk in dealing with -small cases. Some witnesses have not the remotest idea of their duties -and responsibilities. On one occasion a low-class Jewish workman was -sufficiently impressed with his responsibilities to make the following -demand after he was sworn. - -“My lort, I cannot be a vitness in this case.” - -“Why not?” I asked. “Don’t you know anything about it?” - -“Oh, yes, I know all about it, but I don’t vant to speak.” - -After a good deal of trouble I obtained from him the reason of his -reticence. - -“You see,” he said, “Moses (the plaintiff) is mine brother-in-law, and -little Isaac (the defendant) he is mine vife’s nephew, and if I speak -about this case, vy, I must give vun of them avay.” - -I condoled with him about his family difficulties, and tried to persuade -him that his duty was to speak the truth, but my only recollection of his -evidence is that it was of no service to anyone, and that he certainly -succeeded in giving himself away. - -In a family dispute the greatest care must be taken to accept nothing as -true that can possibly be prompted by hatred or malice. To do justice -to the Jews they do not, as a rule, bring family disputes into court. A -cynical registrar once told me that a Jew would swear anything for his -brother, and a Christian anything against his brother. Without endorsing -this epigrammatic exaggeration, I must sorrowfully admit that a downright -North Country fight between blood relations over club money or the cost -of a funeral tea or the furniture of a deceased parent is one of the -saddest exhibitions of uncharitableness that I know. - -The recklessness with which good ladies of unblemished character will -commit what technical-minded lawyers might be inclined to consider -perjury, and on occasion even stoop to something like forgery, would -surprise anyone who was not conversant with it. In ordinary matters -these good people are honest citizens enough, but in a family dispute -honour requires that no iniquity must be left undone in order to gain the -day. I remember in my early days a fat old dame of cheerful countenance -suing her son-in-law, a young workman, for £2 17s. 9d. The odd shillings -and pence were admitted, but the £2, which figured through two or three -greasy books as “ballanse of account,” could not be traced to any -particular source. - -The old lady swore it was a grocery account. The young man denied it with -emphasis, and said it was spite. Sarah, the old lady’s elder daughter, -remembered some of the items of it, and with a great relish swore to them -in detail. The young wife, who had been keeping a very lively baby quiet, -and trying in between whiles to give evidence from the body of the court, -at last got into the witness-box. Flinging the baby into her husband’s -arms, and kissing the book with a smack, she shot out the following -testimony at her mother and myself: “Look ’ere, mother, you know reet -enow what that there balance is; it ain’t no balance at all—it’s my ’at -and the wedding-dress, and the shoes to match, and the pair o’ greys -what druv us to church, which I paid for when I was in service for three -years, putting by ’arf-a-crown a month, which mother kep’ for me, and -well she knows it, which it’s Sarah’s spite as ain’t got married yet.” - -What was the real truth may be doubtful, but I was clear the “ballanse -of account” was not groceries, and struck it out; yet, had the mother -succeeded, she would have pursued her son-in-law to prison in an -endeavour to collect the money. - -For my part I think it is bad business for the community that homes -should be broken up in order that a creditor may collect a trumpery debt -that should never have been incurred, and it is because I believe it is -the interest of the State to keep together the home of the working-man, -and to deliver him from temptation, that I hope to see imprisonment -for debt diminished, if not abolished altogether. An intelligent -landlord wishing to preserve game kills off birds of prey and puts down -poachers. An intelligent State, if it wishes to preserve the home of the -working-man and his wife and children, should make it illegal for him to -mortgage his future earnings, and to place his liberty in jeopardy in -order to possess for the moment some shoddy piece of jewellery or drapery -for which he has no real use. - - - - -THE FOLK-LORE OF THE COUNTY COURT. - - “To those athirst the whole world seems - A spring of water in their dreams.” - - _From the Arabic._ - - -Being snowed up in a library, well stocked with modern scientific -folk-lore, I began a serious study of the subject. I started with -enthusiasm. I saw myself propounding a new theory for every variant -text, and pictured myself triumphantly riding through the otherworld -on the Ossianic cycle. After a few days of it, however, I found that, -wonderful as the science was, it was not made for me. I ran into a -thick German fog, I got mixed up with _sagzug_ and _märchen_, I failed -to appreciate the true differences between those holy men, Zimmer and -Rohde, and I wandered aimlessly among parallels and analogues of varying -age and _provenance_. When I emerged from the German fog I found myself -staggering about a bleak Irish moor in company with a fellow named -Cormac—or was it Finn? We were studying the _Dinnshenchas_, or playing -with an _Agallamh_ or looking for a _Leprechaun_. It was worse than -political economy, or logic, or the lost tribes. The fiscal problem is -merriment compared to folk-lore. I finished my holiday with Trollope and -have put folk-lore on my index _expurgatorius_. - -One thing, however, haunts me still. I seem to have escaped from the -learned confusions of this dismal science with a belief that the world -is certainly not progressing. They took a lot of trouble at school to -persuade me that the world kept going round. Since I have dipped into -folk-lore I find this to be only part of the truth. The fact seems to -be that the world does nothing else but go round and round and round, -reiterating its old ideas in a very tiresome way indeed. The things we -do and gossip and preach about to-day are much the same as the things -they worried over in the ages of caves and mammoths and flint implements. -I feel sorry that I cannot explore folk-lore further, for there are -evidently great possibilities in it. But folk-lore is like collecting -stamps, or keeping gold-fish or guinea-pigs. It is a “fancy,” and if you -don’t fancy it you cannot be of the “fancy.” The slang of the science -is too difficult for most of us, and if you cannot master the technical -terms of a game, how can you hope to play it? Even football would be dull -if you had no elementary conception of “off-side,” and it is easier to -get “off-side” at folk-lore than it is at football. Then these scientists -are so solemn. Euclid has his pictures and occasionally admits that -things are absurd; but the smiles of folk-lore are in the otherworld, and -even their ghosts do not appear to the latter-day student. - -I should never have troubled further about folk-lore had not I met one of -its greatest professors. To him I unburdened myself and told my trouble. -“Folk-lore books,” he explained, “are not made to read. They are written -to amuse the writer. You write about folk-lore—then you will begin to -enjoy it.” I remembered that Lord Foppington held similar views when he -said: “To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one’s self with the -forced product of another man’s brain. Now, I think a man of quality and -breeding may be much amused with the natural sprouts of his own.” An idea -held in common by a peer and a professor must be precious indeed. - -I modestly murmured that I knew nothing about folk-lore. To which the -Professor encouragingly remarked that I should “approach the subject -with an open mind.” “There is one royal road to success,” he said, as we -parted, “have a theory of your own, and whatever happens, stick to it.” - -Now curiously enough, I had a theory about folk-lore. It was the -simple common idea that comes to many children even in their earliest -school-days. The schoolmasters were all wrong. The professors of -folk-lore were teaching it upside down. Instead of beginning with ancient -legends and working back towards to-day, they should begin with to-day -and march forward into the past. I wired to the Professor about it—reply -prepaid. His answer was encouraging. “Theory probably Celtic origin; -stick.” - -As my business is to preside over a County Court, I went down to my work -full of my theory and determined at all costs to stick to it. I know -that to the pathologist a County Court is merely a gathering-place for -microbes, and a centre point of infection; that the reformer sees in it -only a cumbrous institution for deciding unnecessary disputes, whilst the -facile reporter comes there to wash from its social dirt a few ounces of -golden humour for his latest headline. These are but surface views. I -went there like the poet, “whose seed-field is Time,” to find folk-lore, -and I was overwhelmed. - -No sooner did I enter the Court, as I had done many and many a hundred -times, than the High Bailiff, rising in his place, called out, as -he, too, had done many a hundred times, “Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes! All -persons having business in the Manchester County Court draw near and -give attention.” At once I knew that the place I was in belonged to the -old days of fairies and knights, and ladies and giants, and heroes and -dragons. The “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!” struck my certain ear and told me I was -in the presence of folk-lore. The creeping voice of the old world came -stealing across the ages, calling upon me “Oyez!” “Hear!” and if you can -“Understand!” It seemed to bring its message with a sly chuckle as if to -say, “There you are, my modern, up-to-date, twentieth century judicial -person, beginning your day’s work with the same old cry that has called -men together to listen to official wisdom for centuries of time.” - -My friend the High Bailiff has not, I am sure, the least notion that he -is, from a folk-lore point of view, a man of parallels and analogues, -or that the “fancy” would undoubtedly classify him along with that most -beautiful of human fritillaries, the Herald. For indeed, in everything -but glory of costume, he is one of those delightful figures of the middle -ages who carried challenges and messages of peace and war, and set out -the lists in jousts and tournaments, and witnessed combats and wagers of -battle—which my friend sits and watches to-day—and recorded the names -of those who did valiantly, and remembered the dead when the fight was -over—which to-day he leaves to the reporters. Here in this dingy court -in a Manchester back street students of folk lore may see a real Herald -calling out “Oyez! Oyez!” announcing that the lists are open, and that -anyone may come prancing into Court and throw down his glove—with the -post-heroic gloss of a treasury hearing fee upon it—and that if the -challenge be taken up, the fight may proceed according to the custom of -County Courts. - -I would inaugurate a movement to apparel the High Bailiff in scarlet -and gold lace, and I would have him ride into Court on a white palfrey, -sounding a trumpet, but that I fear it would lead to jealousy among -Registrars. Besides, some envious German Professor will, I know, point -out that as a crier my High Bailiff is more akin to the _Praeco_ of a -Roman auction, and that the village town crier is his poor relation. The -answer to this is that his auctioneering tendencies really belong to his -bailiff cycle, as the “fancy” would say. And as a bailiff we could, did -time permit, trace him in dry-as-dust glossaries and abridgments, through -a line of sheriffs of counties, and stewards of manors, and in various -forms of governors and superintendents, until we lose sight of him as a -kind of tutor to the sons of emperors in the twilight of the gods. - -Let the High Bailiff call on the first case, and say with Richard -Plantagenet, Duke of York: - - This is the day appointed for the combat, - And ready are the appellant and defendant, - The armourer and his man to enter the lists; - So please your Highness to behold the fight. - -It seems a real pity that we no longer follow the rubric of the Second -Part of Henry VI., and that we cannot see Horner enter with his -neighbours “bearing his staff with a sand-bag fastened to it,” on the -other side, “Peter with a drum and a sand-bag.” Horner and Peter to-day -would make a much better fight of it, thumping each other with sand-bags, -than they do “barging” at each other with tongues, and they would be -better friends afterwards. With a small charge for admission, too, and -two houses a night, the County Courts might be self-supporting. - -But we have not got very far away from the wager of battle after all. -The hired champion is still with us from the house of the old Knights -Templars, but he breaks his wit against his adversary instead of a lance. -In another hundred years or so our methods of settling disputes may seem -as laughable and melodramatic to our more reasonable great grandchildren -as our grandfathers’ romantic methods seem to us. They may think that -fees paid to eminent counsel, dressed in antique shapes, to exhibit their -powers before packed galleries, according to the ancient and musty rules -of a game that is wholly out of date, is an absurd way of endeavouring to -reconcile human differences. The whole thing must before long, one would -think, tumble into the dustbin of history and become folk-lore. But the -legendary charm of the absurdity will always remain. Sir Edward Clarke -or Mr. Rufus Isaacs, appearing for an injured ballet-girl in a breach of -promise case against a faithless and wicked peer, is only a new setting -of the story of Perseus and Andromeda, with the golden addition of a -special fee. Perhaps there is even a parallel for the special fee in the -old myth, for may it not be said that in a sense Perseus was moved to -leave his usual circuit, and appear against the dragon by the tempting -special fee of Andromeda herself? Could such a glorious figure be marked -on the brief of to-day, what eloquence we should listen to. - -The longer one stays in a County Court, the more does the atmosphere seem -charged with folk-lore. Sagas seem to float in the air with the soot -of our smoky chimneys, and wraiths of old customs swim in the draughty -currents of cold that whistle under our doors. No sooner does a witness -step into the box than one perceives that he too is an eternal type, and -our methods of dealing with him as everlasting as the forms of the waves. -The Greeks with all their noble ideals were a practical people, and the -exactitude of their terminology is beyond praise; with a true instinct -they described their witness as μάρτυς, a martyr. For, in the Golden Age, -and equally I take it, in the Bronze, Stone, and Flint Chip period, the -only way to stimulate your witness to truth was by blood or fire. These -rough, kind-hearted, jovial, out-of-door fellows had not considered the -superior and more subtle torture of cross-examination. The rack and the -stake were good enough for them. Yet I feel sorry for the Greeks. How an -Athenian mob would have enjoyed the intellectual entertainment of Mr. -Hawkins, Q.C., administering one of those searching cross-examinations -so lovingly described in Lord Brampton’s “Book of Martyrs.” Many others -I have heard greatly skilled in this truly gentle art, but no one who -played the game with such sporting strictness or approached his task -with such loving joy. To see a witness in his hands made one feel almost -jealous of the victim. To say this is only to say that to be a great -advocate you must also be a great sportsman. How many moderns could -handle a witness after the manner of Master Izaak Walton dealing with -his frog? “I say, put your hook, I mean the arming-wire, through his -mouth and out at his gills, and then with a fine needle and silk sew the -upper part of his leg, with only one stitch, to the arming-wire of your -hook; or tie the frog’s leg above the upper joint to the armed wire; and, -in so doing, use him as though you loved him, that is, harm him as little -as you may possibly that he may live the longer.” Alas! Lord Brampton’s -arming-wire is laid on the shelf, and the pike in his pool mourns for -Master Izaak—but what sportsmen they were. Really, when I think of the -sorrows of the human frog in the witness-box, I begin to think the hour -is coming to start a Witness Preservation Society with a paid secretary -and a London office. It would be a charity—and there is a lot of money in -charity nowadays. - -Some day I will write a book the size of a Wensleydale cheese on the -folk-lore of evidence. It should be written in German, but unfortunately -I am such a bigoted Imperialist that I have patriotically avoided the -study of the tongue. It should perhaps be published in several cheeses, -and the biggest cheese should be all about the Oath. It was the flood -of folk-lore on this subject that overwhelmed me when I first began to -consider the matter. - -In our County Court we administered two oaths.[1] The Scotch oath, with -uplifted hand, and the English oath, with its undesirable ceremony of -kissing the Book. The Scotch form is incomparably the older, and though -some maintain that the hand of the witness is lifted to show he has no -weapon about him, there seems no doubt that the sounder view is that -both Judge and witness are really each lifting his hand in appeal to the -Deity. In this way did the Greeks lift their hands at the altars of their -gods when they made sacrifice. In similar fashion was the oath to Wodin -administered in the Orkneys by two persons joining their hands through -the hole in the ring-stone of Stennis. So also Aaron “lifted up his hand -toward the people.” And it is no stretch of imagination to suppose the -lifting of the hands to the sun to have been one of the most natural and -solemn attitudes of early man. In the Scotch form of oath we seem to have -a ceremony that has been with us from the earliest dawn of humanity. I -have seen this oath administered in a Scotch Court, and it certainly -still retains many of the solemn incidents of a religious ceremony, and -compares very favourably from a serious dramatic point of view with the -English oath as administered here. The fact that the Judge administers -the oath himself, standing with hand uplifted, is impressive, at all -events to those to whom it is not made stale by custom. To me it seems a -very appropriate ceremony in an old-world system of law such as prevails -in Scotland, where there are numerous judges and not too much work to -do. In a busy English urban County Court, it would render the life of a -Judge uninsurable. - -Our English oath is a much younger branch of the family. I have made my -own theory of its incidents, and remembering my professor’s advice, I -propose to stick to it. It is a quite modern idea that the oath should be -taken on the New Testament. Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, writing to John Paston -in 1460, says that the late Sir John Falstafe in his place at Suffolk, -“by his othe made on his primer then granted and promitted me to have -his manner of Gunton.” Even as late as 1681, Coke’s “Institutes” print a -form of oath with the Roman Catholic adjuration, “So help you God and all -Saints.” An Irish woman in Salford County Court quite recently objected -to kiss the Book, and desired to kiss a crucifix. But the “kissing” idea -is very modern. In 1681 it seems clear that kissing the Book was not a -necessary official act. All that was necessary was to place the hand upon -the Bible. “It is called a corporall oath,” writes Coke, “because he -toucheth with his hand some part of the Holy Scripture.” - -The efficacy of the “touch” runs through all the old legends, and we have -an amusing survival of it to-day when a punctilious Crier insists upon -a nervous lady struggling out of her glove before he will hand her the -Book, and again, in the peremptory order constantly given by a clerk when -handing the Book to a witness, “Right hand, if you please.” For these -demands there is as far as I know no legal sanction, and I take them to -be echoes of the social system of these islands that prevailed some time -prior to the building of Stonehenge. - -Touching a sacred object seems a world-wide method of oath-taking. The -Somali—who are not yesterday’s children—have a special sacred stone, and -observe a very beautiful ceremony. One party says, “God is before us, and -this stone is from Amr Bur,” naming a fabulous and sacred mountain. The -other party receiving the stone says, “I shall not lie in this agreement, -and therefore take this stone from you.” Let us hope that what follows is -more satisfactory than are my everyday experiences. - -The exact origin of kissing the Book in English Courts, though modern, is -obscure. It is not, I should say, a matter of legal obligation, but seems -to be merely a custom dating from the middle or end of the eighteenth -century. If a witness claims to follow the law according to Coke, and -to take his “corporall oath” by touching the Book, who shall refuse him -his right? The “kissing” act seems akin indeed to what the “fancy” call, -somewhat unpleasantly, a saliva custom, which in modern western life -exists in very few forms, though many of the lower classes still “spit” -on a coin for luck. The subject is a very large one, but the fundamental -idea of all customs relating to saliva seems to have been a desire for -union with divinity, and if the Book were always kissed in our Courts -with that aspiration, the custom might well be retained. - -Unfortunately, the practical value of an oath depends in almost exact -ratio upon the depth of superstition of the person to whom it is -administered. The moral man will speak truth for practical moral reasons. -The immoral man will lie for practical immoral reasons. The latter in the -old days was hindered by the oath from lying, because he firmly believed -in the practical evil effects of breaking the oath. The perjurer of old -was certainly “looking for trouble.” This is not a phrase of the “fancy,” -but it exactly describes the oath-breaker’s position. Some of the few -minor _sequelæ_ of perjury were such domestic troubles as a curse which -ran on to the seventh generation, or the perjurer’s death from lingering -disease in twelve months, or that he would be turned into stone, or that -the earth might swallow him up and that after death he would wander round -as a vampire. These simple beliefs, which were no doubt part of the -cave-dwellers’ early religious education, must have done a great deal to -render the evidence of early man more trustworthy and accurate than that -of his degenerate younger brother. - -Though in an occasional burst of atavism an uneducated man may kiss -his thumb instead of the Book, the bulk of humanity take any oath that -is offered without any deep feeling of religious sanction, nor any -particular fear of supernatural results. It is not altogether a matter -of regret that this should be so. Our ceremony of oath-taking is really -a Pagan one. Our very verb “to swear” takes us back to the pre-Christian -days when man’s strength and his sword were the masters, and peace and -goodwill had come to conquer the earth. To swear was a vow to Heaven -upon a sword. When we offer the Book to a witness to swear upon, we -really tender him, not a Christian thought, but the old Pagan oath which, -splendid as it was, is no longer of force. It was a fine thing in its -day when a knight vowed upon his sword “to serve the King right well by -day and night, on field, on wave, at ting, at board—in peace, in war, in -life or death; so help him Thor and Odin, likewise _his own good sword_.” -It is no use replacing the sword by the Book if you retain the spirit of -the sword in the old Pagan ceremony. The word “to swear” is very closely -related to the word “sword,” and the very essence of swearing, deep down -in the root form of the thing and the word itself, is to take one’s -sword in one’s right hand, and fight for one’s own side with an energy -that will make the Pagan gods shout with joy in the Valhalla. Medical -witnesses and land surveyors are real Vikings in this respect, especially -as it seems to me those of Celtic origin. - -But of a truth it is not only the oath and the witnesses that want -amendment. For when I suggest that it would be well in Court if we obeyed -the command, “Swear not at all,” and that the outward use of the Book -in the County Court is undesirable, it is because I feel that some such -thing as a Court on the lines of the teaching of the Book ought not to -be wholly impossible after 1,900 years of endeavour. You must drive out -of the Court all the folk-lore with its Pagan notions of fighting and -hired champions and oaths, and witnesses and heralds, and above all you -must get rid of the anachronism of a Judge, and appoint in his place a -peace-maker or official reconciler. The idea is not wholly Quixotic. Lord -Brougham, a very practical reformer, had hopes of constructing Courts of -Reconciliation in this country seventy years ago. We shall not close the -courts of litigation and replace them by courts of reconciliation in a -day. But I am optimist enough to hope that I may go down to my work one -morning to find that we have been taken over by a new department called -the Office of Peace, and that under the Royal Arms is our new official -motto, “Blessed are the Peacemakers.” - - - - -CONCERNING DAUGHTERS. - - “As is the mother so is the daughter.” - - _Ezekiel_ xvi., 44. - - -I am far from thinking Ezekiel knew much about it. True he was a married -man and a householder, but I remember no evidence of his being the -father of daughters. At all events if he thought that the education and -bringing up of daughters was an inferior thing because of the authority -of mothers, I think he was gravely mistaken. When the daughters of the -middle ages were part of the household plant their mothers turned them -out with certain practical qualities that made them a valuable asset to -the comfort of mankind. - -It was when unthinking fathers began to meddle in the affair and to -consider the subject of the education of their daughters that the -trouble began. The fathers—particularly the middle class Early Victorian -father—discovered that it was a desirable thing to be a gentleman. -Remembering and misapplying one of the catch words of his own education -that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, -he thought it was equally important to the success of his family that as -his sons were to be gentlemen his daughters should be gentlewomen. - -And this is where he missed it. The word “gentlewoman” is obscure, but -it is certainly not the grammatical feminine of gentleman. True it has -a narrow technical dictionary meaning, but it is used popularly to -signify the result of a well-to-do middle class father’s education of -his daughters, as in the phrase “Gentlewoman’s Employment Association” -the name of an excellent society for helping daughters of the well-to-do -father when he is deceased or has ceased to be well-to-do. - -Concerning daughters then, and to help their fathers to bring them up -as gentlewomen I take upon myself as one who has given grave personal -consideration to the subject, to offer a few suggestions of a practical -nature; for I have found the gentleman father in the matter of the -education of girls—like his namesake the gentleman farmer in matters of -agriculture—to be an enthusiastic and amiable, but eccentric amateur. - -And remember my dear sir, that there are two main objects to be kept in -view in the education of a daughter. The first is to fit her for the -ultimate ownership of a well-to-do husband, the second is to guard her -from acquiring any knowledge or capacity that might take her out of the -ranks of the unemployable. - -And first of marriage. Charlotte Lucas when she has made up her mind -to the inevitable Mr. Collins, “was,” writes Jane Austen, “tolerably -composed. She had gained her point and had time to consider it. Her -reflections were in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, -was neither sensible nor agreeable: his society was irksome and his -attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. -Without thinking highly of either man or of matrimony, marriage had -always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well -educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving -happiness must be their pleasantest preservative from want.” - -How refreshing in these neurotic days is Charlotte’s old-fashioned -commonsense. And once recognising that marriage is the “pleasantest -preservative from want” a father may be wise to leave the affair to -mothers and daughters and chance. Holding, as I do, the extreme doctrine -that anything that a mother does is of necessity absolutely right, I -do not propose to enlarge upon this branch of the subject. There is a -belief, however, among social naturalists that the solvent son-in-law is -fast becoming extinct. This may be from the fact that he has been hunted -with too great rigour in the past. The handsome but non-solvent variety -though ornamental in the house is vastly expensive. Then there is the -larger question of grandchildren. Here, too, sentiment finds itself again -opposed by considerations of economy. - -The problem of training one’s daughters to become in Charlotte -Lucas’s phrase “well educated” or as Miss Austen and Miss Edgeworth -so constantly word it “gentlewomen” is a far easier matter, and may -therefore be the more safely left in the hands of a father. Still in -this, as in the more serious amusements of life, there are principles to -be followed. - -The main object of such education to-day should be to give girls what -their brothers describe as “a good all round time.” Avoid anything -that hints of serious work, eschew “grind,” choose a multitude of -accomplishments rather than any one serious study, encourage the -collection of useless objects and the manufacture of much fancy-work, -and by this means there will be little fear of your girls attaining any -real knowledge of affairs. So may your daughter be as one of the polished -corners of the Temple, in the world and of the world, and in her you will -see reflected the delightful patterns of the society by which she is -surrounded. - -But to descend to particulars. In early life commence with home-training. -Beware of kindergartens. They are too often taught by women trained from -early life in habits of work. They are apt to instil ways of industry, -and to cultivate a socialistic tendency towards unselfishness, and -might even at an early age suggest to the girl baby that the mission -of women is to work as well as to weep. The poet must not however be -taken too literally about this. Men _must_ work and women _must_ weep, -but intervals ought clearly to be allowed for joint amusement, and -the length of these is for one’s own decision. In her young days then -let the girl be taught that she alone exists in the world, and that -other human beings are mere dream persons. The difference, never to be -bridged over, between herself and the household servants, ought to be -constantly insisted upon. A nursery governess is a suitable companion. -Some of these neither know nor desire to know how to scrub a nursery, -and teaching is not their mission. Obtain one if possible, who is a -nursery governess only in name, she will be cheap, and what is more -important to you—ladylike. In a few years a school becomes a necessity; -partly from the irksomeness of constant association with a spoiled -child, but more immediately in the real interests of the girl herself. -Choose by all means a school that you cannot well afford. Here your -daughter will meet with companionship that must fill her young mind with -ideals of life and society that cannot possibly be attained by her in -after life. Be careful, too, not to thwart her expenditure in dress or -amusement. Shun the modern craze—sprung up now I fear even among the -wealthiest—for instruction in such subjects as cookery, dressmaking, and -the like. A camera is a necessity. It enables inaccurate representations -to be produced without skill or labour, and checks that desire for -detailed information, which might easily develop into scientific study. -The presence of a camera has saved many a young person from serious -attention to art. It is an excellent plaything. By all means let your -daughter learn French, for it is the language of the _menu_, and there -is no great harm in a little Latin, but let it be ladylike. Whenever you -are in difficulties, Mrs. Malaprop—who is always with us—will be only too -glad to tell you in further detail what kind of education becomes a young -woman, and the school where it can be found. - -If you are “carriage people”—and by all means be “carriage people” if -your wealthier neighbours are—then of course your daughter will not learn -to cycle, but will rather learn to regard the cyclist as the curse of -the highway, which was obviously built for her pleasure. The omnibus or -tramcar will, I hope, always be regarded as impossible. Remember that -people who nowadays possess motor-cars are not necessarily “carriage -people.” It is becoming daily more difficult to diagnose “carriage -people” by the symptoms of their outward circumstances. - -When your daughter leaves school, if your income is less than £_x_, and -you are spending more, you should certainly have your daughter presented -at Court. She will naturally desire it, and it may for the moment go far -towards appeasing your creditors who, I take it, will by this time be -pressing you after the vulgar fashion of such people. - -Bring out your daughter at a ball, similar in cost and style—but -especially the former—to that given by Mrs. Goldberg Dives, when your -daughter’s dear school friend, Aurora “came out,” as the saying is. You -remember that on that occasion young Dives brought home Lord Bareacre’s -youngest son from Oxford, and the marriage that ensued, was followed by -that entertaining case so recently decided in the third division of the -Probate and Admiralty Court. Who knows what good fortune your daughter -may have if you follow these high examples. - -But if during the prolonged pursuit of pleasure—which after her careful -education your daughter ought now to be able to plan and carry out for -herself—no son-in-law solvent or insolvent appears, then when you have -departed to another sphere leaving behind assets insufficient to meet -your worldly liabilities, or—as we may hope will be your case, dear -reader,—when you have called together the callous creditors into an upper -chamber of some persuasive accountant who can explain to them cheerily -the true inwardness of your estate, and tender, with fitting apology, the -pence that now represent the pound that was,—think not with the austere -moralist that this costly education of your daughter has been a rash -and hazardous speculation. Let us be thankful that the world is not at -one with the Inspector-General of Bankruptcy with his sallow views of -the possibilities of life. True your daughter will know nothing, and be -fit for nothing, true it will take her years of misery to make herself -capable of the meanest employment. She has eaten dinners she cannot -cook, she has worn dresses she cannot make, she has lived in rooms she -cannot sweep, and she has grumbled at the service of others she could not -herself perform, but at least you can say that she has been brought up as -other gentlewomen are, and that shall be your boast. - - - - -THE FUTURE OF THE COUNTY COURT. - - “Had I God’s leave, how I would alter things!” - - —_Robert Browning._ - - -The County Court like the poor in whose interests it was invented is -always with you if you have one of those perverted minds that wastes its -moments on dreams of legal reform. Seventeen years ago I studied the -question with earnest enthusiasm under the strange hallucination that it -was a real business question ripe for a business solution. It seemed to -me nearer to the lives of people than the Veto, or Tariff Reform or the -Ornaments Rubric. That is the result of leading a narrow self-centred -life. In a word, without knowing it, I must have been a Whig, for, as -Sir Walter Scott remarks, “Whigs will live and die in the heresy that -the world is ruled by little pamphlets and speeches, and that if you can -sufficiently demonstrate that a line of conduct is most consistent with -men’s interest you have therefore and thereby demonstrated that they will -at length after a few speeches adopt it of course.” Thus for many years -I have pegged away with papers and speeches and like a true Whig find -myself still hopefully at it, playing the same game perhaps but with -slightly increased handicap. To-day I have learned by experience that the -future of the County Court is not to come in my time and to doubt if I -shall ever climb into some sufficiently high place to see the promised -land that I shall certainly never enter. - -I have come to regard the question with the same child-like affection -and belief in its possibility, but also in a sense archæologically, as -becomes one whose first childhood is but a dream and who feels himself -pausing on the threshold of a second. Had I any political foresight -seventeen years ago I should have recognised that the reform of the -County Court system is not a party matter, it is eminently a matter -of greater interest to the poor than to the rich, to the business man -than to the man of leisure. Now, more and more, Parliament has become -a machine for registering the decrees of the prevailing party and -one cannot find that the poor are in any way directly represented in -Parliament and business men only in a small degree, whilst the interests -of the rich and of men of leisure have an overwhelming representation. -Moreover Legal Reform has to fight for its hand against that band of -brothers, the lawyers in Parliament, who from generation to generation we -find stalwart and faithful in their clear-sighted optimism that all is -well with the law—and lawyers. - -The story of the evolution of the County Court is not without -entertainment for those who are interested in the practical affairs of -the community. In its struggle for existence we find a warfare being -carried on between the business man and the lawyer in which, foot by -foot, the business man gains and places his pet tribunal in a more secure -position whilst he takes breath for a new encounter. Still, although -the building up of the County Court to its present story of usefulness -has been the work in the main of business men, yet few realise that the -County Court of to-day with its £100 jurisdiction is only a belated -attainment of the ideals of Lord Brougham in 1830. It was in that year -that Brougham brought in a Bill in the Commons—he was then member for -Yorkshire—to establish “Local District Courts,” with a jurisdiction -limited to £100 in contract, £50 in injury to person or property, and an -unlimited jurisdiction by consent. It has taken us seventy-five years to -arrive at the position that was thought practicable by a great reforming -Chancellor in 1830. And yet there are many Englishmen in daily terror -lest we should reform anything too hurriedly. Lord Brougham’s ruling idea -was free law. He was in a sense a legal socialist. Law to him was one of -those things that every member of an ideal community should have without -paying for it individually, like fresh air and sunshine, and the Church -of England and the British Museum, and gaslight (in urban streets), and -roads, and the police, and the education of your children—all which -things an English citizen is entitled to have to-day without the payment -of any fees. He admitted the over-ruling necessity of fees in his day, -owing to the poverty of the Exchequer, but he said, “he must enter his -protest against the principle, and insist that any tax no matter what, -for the purpose of drawing the payment from the public rather than from -the suitor would be better than fixing it on legal proceedings.” Free law -is, of course, a grand ideal, and may again attract legal reformers; but, -without attaining that ideal, it might be possible to abandon in a great -measure the fees collected from poor suitors. Law, like medicine and -surgery, might be free to the poor—not merely to paupers, but to all who -are unable to pay fees and costs without running into debt. It will take -a Savonarola to convert the Treasury to this view, but it is an enticing -subject for a youthful legal missionary full of ardent zeal and possessed -of what the insurance world calls “a good life.” - -The dramatic duel between Lord Brougham and Lord Lyndhurst over the -former’s Bill in 1833 is full of historical interest, but Lord Brougham -was unsuccessful, and it remained for Lord Cottenham in 1847 to establish -County Courts with a jurisdiction of £20. These are the Courts that we -use to-day, with an enlarged jurisdiction up to £100 in common law, £500 -in equity matters, and the added jurisdictions given by the Workmen’s -Compensation Acts and many other statutes which have chosen for their -tribunal the County Court. - -Throughout the country we are face to face with two statistical facts -which, if our reforms were moved by scientific considerations, would -lead the legal reformer to turn his serious consideration to the County -Court. We find in the great centres of population in the north and the -midlands, firstly, that there is a slight shrinkage or perhaps only -stagnation in the world of the High Court, and secondly, that there -is a continuous increase of business keeping pace with the growth of -population in the County Courts. I am far from saying that all the -expansion of County Court work is progress—much of it is the reverse and -in order to understand how far it is good and how far it is bad, it is -worth while trying to understand what the County Courts do. - -These Courts lead as it were a double life. They have extended their -energies along two different branches of business. Each Court has -become a huge debt-collecting machine for minor tradesmen and at the -same time has developed into an important and trusted tribunal for -deciding disputes between citizens. Both these functions are important -ones, but the two branches have nothing to do with each other. In the -debt-collecting branch the cases are, for the most part, undefended; in -the other branch the cases are nearly all fought out. In the first branch -the judicial work is unimportant, the machine works automatically; in the -second branch the vitality of the Court depends almost entirely on the -quality of the judicial work. - -In considering the future of the debt-collecting branch of the Court it -will be necessary to consider the whole question of imprisonment for -debt, which is the ultimate sanction of the business. The point to be -considered is, I think, How far is it right for the State to provide a -machine to collect the class of debts that are, in fact, collected by -the County Courts? The point is a practical one, for if imprisonment -for debt were abolished or mitigated, a great deal of the work of the -County Courts would undoubtedly fall away, leaving reasonable time at -the disposal of the Courts to try cases under the present extended -jurisdiction, and possibly making room for a further extension, if that -were thought desirable. - -Let me try and describe the present system in a few words. A grocer, -draper, or jeweller hands over to a debt-collector a large number of -debts to collect; the customers are, from a business point of view, the -“undesirables.” The debt-collector makes some effort to collect the -debts outside the Court, and then issues a batch of summonses against -all who are or pretend to be impecunious. It is no uncommon thing for -one collector to issue a few hundred summonses in one day. On the day of -trial the cases are either undefended, or the wife appears and consents -to judgment, and an order is made of so many shillings a month. The -defended cases are, I should say, less than five per cent. of the total -summonses issued, and those successfully defended are a negligible -quantity. In Manchester and Salford, where we used to divide this class -of work from real litigation, the lists were seldom less than 400 cases -a day. When the judgments are obtained, the duty of the defendant is to -pay the monthly instalment into Court, and a ledger account is opened, -the Court becoming a sort of banker for the purpose of collecting and -paying out the money. Whenever the debtor fails to pay an instalment, -the collector is entitled to take out a judgment summons, calling on -the debtor to show cause why he should not be committed to prison for -non-payment. On proof that the debtor has means to pay, or has had means -since the judgment, the judge’s duty is to commit him to prison. - -Two things are clear about this system. It is not a system of deciding -disputes, but a system of collecting debts, and in the cases of -workpeople without property it could never be carried out without -imprisonment for debt. When the legal reformer looks at the figures -relating to imprisonment for debt, he will see at a glance that if he -could get rid of a large quantity of the debt-collecting, there would -be more time for the real litigation. Many people still seem to think -that imprisonment for debt is abolished. In France and the United States -and in most civilised countries I believe it is, but in England it is -not only not abolished, but is greatly increased. The actual number -of debtors imprisoned has recently decreased, owing no doubt to the -fact that Judges are more and more inclined to temper the wind of the -statute to the shorn lamb. But the number of summonses issued and heard -increases, and there is no doubt the credit habit grows upon the working -classes, and is encouraged by the system of imprisonment for debt. -In 1909, the last year of statistics before me, no less than 375,254 -summonses were issued. It is the commercial and domestic waste which lies -hid in these figures that distresses me. They reduce me to the despair of -those two immortals, the Walrus and the Carpenter, who - - “Wept like anything to see - Such quantities of sand. - ‘If this were only cleared away,’ - They said, ‘it would be grand.’” - -But ought it to be cleared away? In the main I think it should. One might -lay down the principle that where the debt was not necessarily incurred -the State should not assist the creditor to collect it by imprisoning -the debtor. For the system is used, in the majority of cases, by a very -undesirable class of creditor. I analysed a list of 460 summonses heard -by me in one day. There were 284 drapers and general dealers. These -include all the instalment and hire system creditors. There were sixty -jewellers, thirty-five grocers, twenty-four money-lenders, and ten -doctors. Now, with the exception of the doctors, and possibly in a few -instances the grocers, it was not in the least desirable, from the point -of view of the State, that these debts should be collected at all. Why -should taxes be imposed and work done at the public expense to enable a -jeweller to persuade a man to buy a watch he does not want? Why should -the State collect the jeweller’s money for him by imprisonment for debt? -If there had been no imprisonment for debt the jeweller’s business -wouldn’t pay, and the workman would have one chance less of mortgaging -his wages for the immediate delight of possessing a third-rate piece of -jewellery. This would be better for the State and the workman, and for -everybody but the jeweller. But why should his interests prevail over -those of the rest of the community, and why should we spend money in -promoting a business of which most of us disapprove? Everyone must have -noticed of late years the enormous growth of firms whose main business -seems to be to tempt people of small means to purchase things they do not -want, or, at all events, cannot afford. Take up any newspaper or magazine -circulating among the lower middle classes, or among working men, and -you will find it crowded with advertisements of musical instruments, -cycles, furniture on the hire system, packets of cutlery, all of which -can be obtained by a small payment down and smaller instalments to -follow. Remember, too, that over and above these there exists a huge -army of “tally men” and travelling touts, who are pushing on commission, -clothing, sewing machines, Family Bibles in expensive series, jewellery, -and a host of unnecessaries. What chance has the working-man to keep out -of debt? Not one of these transactions has any commercial sanction. -Credit is given merely because there is imprisonment for debt. And -there is a further aspect of this question which I am surprised has -never attracted the attention of temperance reformers. As long as a man -can get credit for groceries and clothes there is not the same urgent -reason to spend his cash upon these things. But cash is necessary in the -public-house, because, by the Tippling Acts, no action can be brought for -the price of drink consumed at a public-house. So the obvious result too -often follows: the wages are spent at the public-house, and the credit -for the week’s groceries and the children’s boots is obtained under the -sanction of imprisonment for debt. - -Much more might be said in objection to the system of imprisonment for -debt, but we have enough before us, I think, to show a strong case for -reform. The next question will be: Should that reform be abolition? -Although I am personally in favour of the abolition of imprisonment for -debt, I am in doubt whether it is desirable at the moment; and I am -so eager to see some reform that I would welcome any measure, however -meagre, that did something to mitigate the misfortunes of the insolvent -poor. I have suggested as a practical measure that no summons should -be issued or committal made for a less sum than forty shillings. One -must remember that there are a huge number of traders giving reasonable -credit to their fellow-traders, who find, when they seek to recover -the debt, that the goods in the house or shop are in the wife’s name. -This is really a quasi-fraudulent obtaining of credit, and there are -many similar cases not within the criminal law where imprisonment for -debt seems a natural remedy. Moreover, if one studies the evidence -given before the Commissioners on the subject, and if one discusses it, -as I have, with men in business, one finds that abolition would meet -with great opposition from powerful trade interests, whereas the “forty -shilling” proposal is generally regarded as a fair experiment, which -would injure no one but traders who deliberately give credit to the -poorer working class under the sanction of imprisonment for debt. In my -own experience, I have found hardly any cases of judgments summonses -taken out for more than two pounds where there was not ample evidence -of means, and where the non-payment was not more or less of the nature -of a contempt of Court. In the smaller cases the means, though proved -to have existed since the judgment, have disappeared, and the debtor -is only saved from imprisonment by the leniency of the Court. Total -abolition of imprisonment for debt would probably never be carried by -consent. It would mean more commissions, inquiries, reports, and the -waste of time that these things necessitate. Abolition of imprisonment -for debt for sums under forty shillings—a great practical reform for the -very poor—would, I believe, be carried by consent. That is why I put it -forward. It is utterly illogical but intensely practical; and when one -has been face to face with the misery of others for many years, one cares -more for business than logic. - -Assuming, therefore, that the future of the County Court as a -debt-collecting machine is to be a future of decrease, that the -legislature are going to save the taxpayer’s money and encourage thrift -by refusing to collect undesirable debts, what will be its future as a -litigating machine? - -I may commend to anyone desirous of studying in further detail -the arguments for and against the extension of County Courts, the -proceedings of the Norwood Commission on County Courts in 1878. There -is no doubt that if the business man had had his way the County Court -in urban centres would have long ago been a district Court for all but -cases of some peculiar public or legal importance. The great enemy to -such an extension has always been the lawyer, and the London lawyer -in particular. A very eminent solicitor, giving evidence before the -Commission in 1878, had no confidence whatever in County Courts. His -evidence was very typical, and shows how carefully one should criticise -the evidence of a professional man who is also a very superior person. -His view was that “When occasionally a client of mine of position who -has been summoned to the County Court comes to me, I am unable to leave -him in the lurch, but I never go into the County Court myself.” Asked -whether he thought it “undignified,” he replied enigmatically: “It is -not a matter of dignity, but a man of position cannot go into the County -Court.” It turned out later that it was a physical difficulty, for it -was “quite inconsistent with the position of a professional man to stand -in the County Court with women bringing cases about washing-tubs, and -servants summoning their masters for wages.” - - He called them untaught knaves unmannerly - To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse, - Betwixt the wind and his nobility. - -Dozens of times, he told the Commission, barristers had declined to go -into the County Court, and his clerk had gone to half-a-dozen barristers -before he could find one who would demean himself by taking a case in the -County Court. County Courts were, in his view, “inherently incapable of -conducting important litigation.” The County Court Judges had not, in his -opinion, the confidence of the country, because they are not taken from -the successful members of the Bar, it is known that their salary is an -extremely small one, there is no Bar attending before them, there is no -report of their proceedings, and there are difficulties of appeal. One -thing I find very delightful in the eminent solicitor’s evidence. - - _Question._—Some of the County Court Judges are very competent - men, are they not? - - _Answer._—Extremely. - - _Question._—You think that there are some who are not equal to - the others? - - _Answer._—Yes. - - _Question._—Is not the same thing true in regard to the - Superior Courts? - - _Answer._—You will not expect me to answer that question, I - think. - -Even in the dark ages of 1878 one would have thought he might have risked -an affirmative. - -One does not quote the eminent solicitor’s opinion merely for the humour -that attaches to old-fashioned ideas and prophecies that are brought to -light in a new age and found to be absurd. No doubt he was fighting for -a substantial thing, in a word—costs, and he was fighting the wreckers -that wanted to break up the machinery that made costs, for he naturally -disliked to see the smooth, well-oiled machine that worked so well for -him replaced by some cheap machinery of one-horse “costs” power. In one -thing I confess to his statesmanlike insight. If you want to improve -the County Courts, he said, the “only improvement would be to double -the salary of the judges at least,” and let the judge reside in his -district, “but then you would be establishing superior Courts all over -the country.” And the idea of the “country” having similar facilities to -London for the trial of actions was too preposterous. It had only to be -stated, it was self-condemned, and the matter dropped. - -One must not suppose that there were no champions of saner methods in -1878. On the contrary, I think the reformers were the better team of -the two, and pressed their opponents hard, although they did not score -greatly in the end. What could be more interesting or important than the -opinion of Lord Bramwell, who was concerned in several of the Judicature -Commissions prior to 1878? His view was that the County Courts should -be made constituent branches of the High Court of Justice, and that as -a consequence of that, the existing jurisdiction in common law should -be unlimited. That is to say every action would commence in the County -Court and be tried there unless the defendant chose to remove it to the -High Court. It was pointed out that this would practically mean giving -to every district, local Courts with full powers, and among other things -that it would lead to the “deterioration of the Bar.” Lord Bramwell -objected to the phrase, and answered his opponents by saying that the -then Attorney-General (Sir John Holker) and Mr. Gully and Mr. Pope and -Mr. Higgins, one of her Majesty’s counsel, have belonged to the local -Bar, “and I think I may say of my knowledge, that the local Bar of -Liverpool is as good as the London Bar.” This is important testimony, -inasmuch as any evolution towards district Courts that will injure the -assize system is sure to be opposed by those barristers—and there are -many in Parliament—who are interested in the assize system, and one -argument will be that the client will be deprived of the advantage of -London “silk” if his case is tried in the County Court. Lord Bramwell -disposes of that argument very shortly. “If there is any disparagement -or injury to the Bar for the benefit of the public, the Bar must undergo -it; that is all.” - -In other words, the Courts of the future must be made convenient to the -public as well as convenient to the profession; and where interests clash -the public interest must be considered before the professional interest. -This looks when written down an obvious platitude, but the history of the -efforts to obtain and improve County Courts since 1830 will convince the -legal reformer that it is worth re-stating. - -Some years ago I made some elaborate calculations from the Blue -Books, the results of which were rather surprising even to myself. I -investigated the figures of ten typical urban Circuits in the centres of -industry and of ten typical rural Circuits in agricultural districts. I -found that in the former Circuits in ten years there had been a large -increase in business. Nearly £40,000 a year more was paid to the Treasury -in fees, and more than £150,000 was the increase in monies collected for -suitors. In the same ten years similar figures for the rural districts -showed a marked decrease. When one compared the turnover of the ten urban -Circuits as against the turnover of the ten rural Circuits, it was as ten -to one. I wondered what a Harrod or a Lipton or a Whiteley would have -done with these Courts if he had found in auditing their accounts over -many years that ten of them were non-increasing in a business sense, and -that the other ten were increasing; if he found that he drew £150,000 -as an income from one set and £40,000 from the other set. Would he not -consider whether there was not a class of business being done by the -urban circuits worthy of special consideration and encouragement? - -For what did these figures show? They showed on the one hand a stagnant -and non-increasing business, and on the other a business increasing by -leaps and bounds. What business man would hesitate to extend ten branch -concerns capable of so great an improvement in turnover in the course of -a few years? I am frankly an enemy to making the suitor pay for his law. -I believe, as Lord Brougham did, in free law; but if the system is to -continue, why should a suitor in Birmingham pay more for his law than is -necessary in order that a suitor in Ambleside may pay less for his law -than it costs? - -The Courts are, no doubt, not paying concerns, but how far some Circuits -are run at a profit it is impossible for anyone outside the Treasury to -ascertain. There is no doubt, however, that the loss in small Courts is -very great, and whether they are of any great value to a district in -these days of postal facilities and cheap railway transit I have grave -doubts. I have always thought that the Post Office might work a great -deal of the pure debt-collecting business in connection with the County -Court, if it were thought desirable. It would, to my mind, be a natural -co-ordination of two public offices, and might adapt itself very well to -the needs of rural districts. If a country debtor could pay his debt to -the nearest post office, and get an official receipt there, many small -Courts and offices would become wholly unnecessary, and with a post -office cash on delivery system one excuse for giving credit would be -removed. - -Why one little town has a Court and another has none it is as impossible -to say, as why one little pig went to market and the other little pig -stayed at home. These ancient myths are part of our history, and any -effort to dislodge them is rightly made difficult. But whilst the Courts -of London and the Midlands and the North are overcrowded, there are -actually ten Courts issuing less than 100 plaints each—their average is -57!—and thirty-two Courts with less than 200. Alston, in Cumberland, is -the holder of the record. This Court issued twenty-seven plaints and -four actions were heard. It heard two judgment summonses, and made a -commitment order in one. And the Court collected sixteen pounds in fees. -To cope with this annual business the Judge sat once and the Registrar -three times. It will take a long time to persuade these small communities -that it is necessary they should give up conditions such as these to -which they have become accustomed. I think it would be more readily done -if the districts that had no real use for a County Court or an Assize -Court were only allowed to retain them on payment of what they cost to -the community. - -The endeavour to bring justice to the poor man’s door is more -praiseworthy than practical. I remember explaining to a collier’s wife -that her husband must attend with her, and adjourned the case to a Monday -for that purpose. Monday is often kept by colliers as a saint’s day. -“Eh!” she replied. “It will be very onconvanient. My maister winna like -coming on a Monday. Besides, it’s my weshing-day.” - -I expressed my regret, but said it must be. - -“Well, it’s very onconvanient our coming here. Couldn’t yo call?” - -The idea of calling personally on the litigants—especially in these days -of motor-cars, when every registrar is probably an expert chauffeur—is a -very attractive one, and not much more absurd that the present system of -sending Judges to Courts that have no real use for them. - -But from my point of view, the difficulties of dealing with the smaller -Courts, if they exist, should not hinder the development of the larger -Circuits. It is clear that the problems of providing adequate Civil -Courts for Central Wales and Norfolk is not the same as the problem of -providing similar tribunals for Manchester, Birmingham, and Leeds. I have -shown that there are a large number of districts where the Courts are -increasing yearly in usefulness and in public favour, and there is, I -think, a strong case that from a business point of view Circuits that are -dealing with large amounts of work should be specially considered. - -I do not think there will be any great difficulty in dealing with the -great urban centres when the legislature makes up its mind to make the -County Courts district Courts working directly in touch with the High -Courts. No doubt it will mean the providing of money for further and -better equipment, but it has certainly to come about, and there are -signs that it is being faced. The problem of the rural Courts is more -difficult, but I think the grouping of several Courts under one resident -permanent registrar with extended powers and allowing him to gather -together in one place a day’s work for the Judge who is to travel his -Circuit with a business regard for the actual wants of litigants from -time to time is a statement of the general lines upon which reforms can -be carried out. The rural Courts will always be costly to the community, -out of all proportion to the services rendered, but they are necessary -and the expense must be borne; the urban Courts, on the other hand, might -be made to pay their way, and might be of far greater service to the -business communities around them than they already are. - -It is difficult, of course, to write upon such a subject without personal -bias, and it has been my lot to take an official position for the sake -of its comparative leisure, and to find that leisure taken away by -successive Acts of Parliament without compensation for disturbance. -Still, experience of legal reform leads me to believe that I cannot be -writing this with any personal motive, for I cannot hope to be presiding -in any County Court in the latter part of the twentieth century, when, -according to recorded precedent, such reforms as I propose will be about -due. - -Why, then, do I commend the future of the County Court to the attention -of the legal reformer? Because I see in the County Court, and in that -Court only, a growing and popular tribunal favoured by the business men -of the country. Because in that Court there is a crying abuse calling -aloud for reform, namely, imprisonment for debt, which abuse, when -abolished or mitigated, will release Judges from odious duties, and give -them time for more honourable services. Because in great urban centres -there has long been a demand for continued sittings, which the High -Court has been unable to comply with, but which the County Court already -satisfies to some extent, and with reasonable equipment could supply in -full measure. The record of the County Courts in the last fifty years -is a very remarkable one. In the face of keen professional opposition, -Parliament has given them year by year more important and onerous duties. -These have been carried out in the main to the satisfaction of the -business man in the business centres. It is because the urban County -Courts are live business concerns, carrying on their business to the -satisfaction of their customers, that I believe in the future of the -County Court. - - - - -THE PREVALENCE OF PODSNAP. - - “The question about everything was would it bring about a blush - into the cheek of the young person? And the inconvenience of - the young person was that according to Mr. Podsnap she seemed - always liable to burst into blushes when there was no need at - all.” - - —_Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend._ - - -There seems an alarming recrudescence of Podsnappery at the present -moment. Perhaps in a measure it is a protest against things that are -wrong. If some novel-writers exceed the limits of reasonable plain -speech, and some dramatists seek publicly to exhibit the results of moral -leprosy, they challenge the latent Podsnap, that is a valuable asset in -our national character, to flourish its right arm and say, “I don’t want -to know about it; I don’t choose to discuss it; I don’t admit it!” With -every proper contempt for Podsnap, there are some excesses about which he -is right when he sweeps them away with the verdict, “Not English!” But -having tasted too much success by reason of the excesses of his enemies, -he is beginning not only to reform our morals, but has started upon our -manners. - -A “Town Vicar,” writing a letter to a Church paper, recently lifted up -his voice in the following complaint: “It is not long ago that I heard -a Dean declare that ‘we were not going to take it lying down,’ and more -than one Bishop has in preaching lately had recourse to ‘the bottom dog.’ -But these are mere details in the alarming spread of vulgarity where -culture and right feeling used to be.” - -What would Charles Kingsley have said or His Honour Judge Hughes to a -parson who shrank from a simile drawn from the noble art of self-defence? -Seeing, too, that the phrase has attained esoteric political value in -respect of its use by the leader of Birmingham state-craft, the Podsnap -in our good Vicar takes too much upon itself when it declares that the -sporting Dean who used it was wanting in “culture and right feeling.” - -The reference by more than one Bishop to the “bottom dog” is less easy -to defend. The “Town Vicar” no doubt regards a Bishop as so far removed -from the everyday affairs of the world that the phrase should never have -polluted his ears, far less his lips, and that if he has indeed heard of -the existence of “bottom dogs,” and he desires to express himself about -them, he should allude to them on the platform as the “submerged tenth,” -and in the pulpit as “our poorer brethren.” - -To many of us it will come as a pleasant surprise to know that there is -more than one Bishop whose courage is stronger than his culture. Not that -one desires to see in Bishops or in anyone else a tendency towards the -patronage of meaningless slang or dull expletive. I remember a story of -the seventies that used to be told with equal inaccuracy of Canon Farrar -and Bishop Fraser. The Bishop—let us say—travelling in a third-class -carriage with some workmen, took occasion to reprove one on his constant -and meaningless use of the adjective “bloody.” - -The workman took the reproof in good part, and by way of excuse said: -“You see, Mister, I can’t help it. I’m a plain man, and I call a spade a -spade.” - -“That is just what you don’t do,” retorted the Bishop quickly. “You call -it ‘a bloody shovel.’” At which they all laughed in a friendly spirit, -and the offender promised amendment. - -Relating this anecdote at a dinner, a well-known pillar of the Church, -noted for his pompous demeanour and the ignorant pleasure he took in -the use of long words, expressed his horror that such language could be -used in any form of society. “For myself,” he said, “I cannot believe -it possible that, however I had been brought up, such words could pass -my lips.” “I am sure of it,” replied the Bishop, “in whatever society -you found yourself you would always refer to a spade as an agricultural -implement for the trituration of soil.” - -And, indeed, in this story lies the test of the matter. A spade is to be -called a spade. And whilst even Podsnap is right in putting his veto on -the mediæval adjective dear to the sons of toil, we are not going to be -bullied by him into periphrastic descriptions of facts that are better -stated in plain, simple, and even vulgar language. - -The “Spectator” voiced a very general feeling among the Podsnap family -in writing of Mr. Lloyd-George’s reference to the hereditary principle -and his simile that a peer became a legislator by being “the first of the -litter.” The word ‘litter’ quoted without its context may seem a little -harsh, but the point of the allusion was that, although we chose our -legislators in that way we did not choose our spaniels by this curious -and, as he argued, obsolete method. The “Spectator” found this to be -mere vulgarity. I have a great affection for the “Spectator,” having -been brought up from earliest childhood to reverence her teachings. I -say “her” because I always visualise the “Spectator” as some being like -Charles Lamb’s aunt, who was “a dear and good one ... a stedfast friendly -being, and a fine old Christian ... whose only secular employment was -the splitting of French beans and dropping them into a china basin of -fair water.” Much as I honour the “Spectator,” I cannot but think the -prevailing Podsnap is warping her better judgment. - -But there is an excuse for the “Spectator” that cannot be offered for the -average man of the world who claims to be righteously offended at the -vulgarity of Mr. Lloyd-George’s similes. - -I met a friend upon the golf links who used language upon the last -green, where he failed to hole out in three, that no Bishop could have -sanctioned, even although he fully appreciated that my friend was for -the moment a “bottom dog.” On the way to the Club-house he vented his -wrath upon the offending Chancellor of the Exchequer for the language -he used on the platform. I pleaded in mitigation that just as my friend -had been endeavouring to hole out a lively “Helsby” on a tricky green, -so the Chancellor was endeavouring to put the House of Lords in a hole, -a process in which that rubber-cored institution refused to assist him. -To express your feelings and beliefs at a moment like that required -that some latitude should be allowed to you in the choice of simile and -language. - -But so far had the microbe of Podsnap entered into my friend’s -understanding that he treated my poor pleasantry as an added insult and -complained bitterly that such vituperation, as he called it, was “not -English, and never used to be done.” Curiously enough, I had in my mind -a passage in a political speech that created even greater pleasure and -displeasure to Reds and Blues more than a quarter of a century ago. It -was that famous passage in which Mr. Chamberlain scorned Lord Salisbury -as constituting “himself the spokesman of a class—of the class to which -he himself belongs—‘who toil not neither do they spin,’ whose fortunes, -as in his case, have originated in grants made long ago, for such -services as courtiers render kings, and have since grown and increased -while their owners slept by the levy of an unearned share on all that -other men have done by toil and labour to add to the general wealth and -prosperity of the country of which they form a part.” There was not so -much whining over a few hard words in those days, and Lord Salisbury -himself could hit out with his “black man” allusion and the famous -Hottentot simile, and, lost, as the ‘Town Vicar’ would think, to culture -and right feeling, could talk of “having put our money on the wrong -horse.” - -Memory may be misleading after a gap of twenty-five years, and the wisest -of us is apt to grow “_difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti_,” -yet I cannot but think that there are signs in the air that our old -friend Podsnap is having it too much his own way. He is a good fellow -in the main, and some of the ideas he worked for are sound. His belief -in the young person had its touching and beautiful side as it had its -ridiculous side. The young person, however, has grown up since his day, -and has her own movements which are but lightly clad with Podsnappery -of any kind. And for grown-ups dealing with the everyday affairs of the -world we must, in the old English way, stick to our fighting instincts, -and give and take hearty blows in good part, and win pleasantly and lose -ungrudgingly, as most of our fighters, fair play to them, still do. -And we must not be afraid of the Town Vicar’s “mere vulgarity.” For, -after all, our language is a vulgar tongue, and we are proud that our -Bible is printed in it, and our speeches have to be made in it. As a -vulgar tongue vulgarly used it brought forth the triumphs of Elizabethan -literature, and was the medium of such varied writers as Fielding, -Dickens, and Rudyard Kipling. And when it is the duty of wisdom to cry -without and utter her voice in the street, she must do it without fear of -Podsnap and in the vulgar tongue. - - - - -AN ELIZABETHAN RECORDER. - - “I assert that all past days were what they must have been, - And that they could no-how have been better than they were.” - - —_Walt Whitman._ - - -Many years ago, when I happened upon a few extracts from the letters of -Mistress Dorothy Osborne, I wondered how they had escaped the grasp of -the historian learned in the domestic annals of the Commonwealth. And -in the same way it has always surprised me that the correspondence of -William Fleetwood, Recorder of London from 1571 to 1591, should have been -left hidden in the scarce but charming collection of Elizabethan Letters -edited by that excellent antiquary and man of letters, Thomas Wright. - -Some day, perhaps, popular interest may demand a Life and Letters of -Fleetwood; but, meanwhile, a mosaic of the man and his work, pieced -together from his own written words, may interest latter-day readers. His -career was similar to that of many another minor Elizabethan official, -and the records show him to have been an honest, active Protestant -magistrate, full of zeal for his religion, honour for his Queen, and -integrity in his office. In his letters we have a twenty years experience -of an Elizabethan Quarter Sessions which we may use as a base to measure -our progress in law and humanity during the last four hundred years. - -And first a word or two of the man himself that his message may be the -more clearly understood. The Recorder was a descendant of the ancient -Lancashire Family of the Fleetwoods of Hesketh, in which village -Baines, Lancashire’s historian, thinks our Recorder was born, and the -probable date of his birth seems to be 1535. He is said to have been an -illegitimate son of Robert Fleetwood, third son of William Fleetwood of -Hesketh, who married Ellen Standish, daughter of another old Lancashire -family. Their second son, Thomas, came to Buckinghamshire, and was known -as Thomas Fleetwood of the Vache in Chalfont St. Giles. He was Master -of the Mint, and Sheriff of Buckinghamshire. The Recorder must have -been recognised by the family, and no doubt visited his uncle Thomas, -for he himself married a lady of a well known Buckinghamshire family, -Mariana, daughter of John Bailey of Kingsey. He was educated at Oxford, -and was of Brazenose College, but he took no degree, and came to London -to study law at the Middle Temple, where at the age of twenty-eight we -find him appointed Reader. In Mary’s reign he was member for Lancaster, -and afterwards sat in the House for Marlborough and the City of London. -The Earl of Leicester was his patron, and it is said to be through his -influence that in 1571, at the early age of thirty-six, he became -Recorder of the City of London. - -This office he held for twenty years, when he retired on a pension of -£100 a year, and becoming Queen’s Serjeant the following year, did not -live to enjoy the further honour, for he died at his home in Noble -Street, Aldersgate, in February, 1593, and was buried at Great Missenden, -in Buckinghamshire, where he seems to have had considerable estates. - -Altogether he stands before us as a type of successful professional -lawyer coming from the ranks of the county families into the larger world -of London, bringing with him a certain amount of Lancashire grit and -humour, and a strong sense of duty to the Government and the public. Nor -does he seem to have been in any way a hide-bound, dry-as-dust, technical -minded official, but there is evidence that he had a wide sympathy with -many social movements of the time. He was an eager Protestant, but I -cannot find that he was fanatical in his dislike of the Roman Catholics, -whom it was his duty to prosecute. Anthony Wood describes him as “a -learned man and a good antiquary, but of a marvellous merry and pleasant -conceit”; and it is said he contributed much to the last of the old -editions of Holinshed. Strype, the annalist, speaks of him in reference -to a speech in the House of Commons as “a wise man,” and he seems to have -combined wisdom and humour with a stern sense of official duty. That -he was not a mere creature of Leicester’s and the Court is shown in his -examinations of one Bloss, who had uttered terrible scandals concerning -Elizabeth and her favourite, but Fleetwood reports upon his conscience -as a lawyer, that it is “a clear case of no treason.” A weak man would -have been tempted to strain the law against the prisoner, who was an -undeserving and dangerous person. There is a pleasant incident, too, -of his writing to Secretary Walsingham about some young orphans whose -Catholic mother had committed suicide, begging him to acquaint Peter -Osborn, the Lord Treasurer and the Master of the Wards, with the details -of the unfortunate case, in order that their monies may be kept for -them. “Such was the care,” writes Strype, “of this good Recorder, of the -Children of the City.” - -There was one exciting incident in his life when in 1576 he was cast -into the Fleet Prison. Lord Burghley seems to have suggested a raid -upon the Charterhouse, where unlawful Mass was being celebrated. The -Recorder carries out his instructions, and writes a vivid account of his -proceedings. Unfortunately, Lady Geraldi, the wife of the Portuguese -Ambassador, was present, and her husband carries his complaint of her -treatment to Court, with the result that Elizabeth—after the manner of -all rulers of all times—promptly disavows her agent, and by way of a -pleasant apology to Portugal, throws Fleetwood into gaol. The Recorder, -who probably thoroughly understands that he is only in the Fleet, -“without prejudice” and for purely Pickwickian state purposes, writes to -Lord Burghley: “I do beseech you thank Mr. Warden of the Fleet for his -most friendly and courteous using of me, for surely I thank God for it. -I am quiet and lack nothing that he or his bedfellow are able to do for -me.” And after a short experience of gaol he sums up the situation much -as Mr. Stead did after a similar experience: “This is a place wherein a -man may quietly be acquainted with God.” - -It is in passages like these in the man’s own letters that his figure -becomes dimly discernible to us across the ages of time, and when our -eyes grow accustomed to the sight, we see before us the form of an -Englishman not unlike many we have known in our own time. The more one -studies the unaffected domestic documents of any period written without -afterthought of publication, the more convinced one is that social -progress moves like the tide and the rocks and the trees; its growth -is nearly imperceptible, and four hundred years in the development of -mankind is but a small moment of time. - -The correspondence of William Fleetwood with Lord Burghley commences in -1575, when my Lord Burghley was at Buckestones—what a charming spelling -of the prosaic Buxton—for his health. In those days an English Premier -got rid of his gout in his own country, and knew not Homburg. The knowing -ones in the political circles of London whispered with emphasis that the -Prime Minister was “practising with the Queen of Scots,” then in custody -at Sheffield, but the historical evidence points to mere gout. - -Our Recorder, being Leicester’s creature, and being also a man of the -world and looking for promotion as his deserts, writes careful reports -to my Lord Burghley, telling him of London that from a police point of -view “the state of the city is well and all quiet.” The Star Chamber had -received the city fathers, and my Lord Keeper with the Chancellor of -the Duchy, the Master of the Rolls and others had met the Recorder, and -Master Nicholas the Lord Mayor, and divers Aldermen who had reported to -them of city affairs. And as is the way of official men, they reported -all to be well. - -“And as,” writes the Recorder, “my Lord Keeper’s order is to call for the -book of misbehaviours of masterless men, rogues, fencers, and such like, -we had nothing to present for London, for Mr. Justice Southcot and I had -taken fine of six strumpets such as haunt the hedge and which had lately -been punished at the Assizes at Croydon, and two or three other lewd -fellows, their companions, whom we despatched away into their countries. -As for Westminster, the Duchy (the Savoy), St. Giles, High Holborn, St. -John’s Street and Islington, (they) were never so well and quiet for -neither rogue nor masterless man dare once to look into those parts.” -Could Scotland Yard make a better report than that to-day? No doubt -Fleetwood believed with the optimism of a modern Home Office official -that he and his fellows had purged London of crime. - -Crime being well in hand, these good men set out with feverish energy to -put down the source of crime, and like the social reformer of to-day, -thinking that pimples were the origin of disease rather than mere -evidence of a disordered system, commenced a crusade on the alehouse. - -One is apt to think of the Star Chamber as merely a Court for the -oppression of English freedom and the abolition of Magna Charta, but in -Elizabeth’s day it was busying itself with much the same problems that -are troubling Parliament and the magistrates to-day. It is very modern -reading to learn that my Lord Keeper and the residue of the Council -at the Star Chamber have set down in writing certain orders for the -reforming of certain matters, and that the very first of these is “for -the suppressing of the over great number of alehouses, the which thing -upon Wednesday last my Lord Mayor, Sir Rowland Hayward and myself for the -liberties of Southwark, and Mr. Justice Southcot and myself for Lambeth -town, Lambeth Marsh, the Mint, the Bank, Parr’s Garden, the Overground, -Newington, Bermondsey Street and Kentish Street, sitting altogether, we -have put down, I am certain, above two hundred alehouses and yet have -left a sufficient number, yea, and more, I fear than my Lord Keeper will -well like of at his next coming.” - -All this was done on Wednesday and Thursday, and on Wednesday there was -an influential dinner party at Mr. Campion, the brewer’s—one wonders -if he owned tied houses in those days and whether their licenses were -spared—and “at after dinner, Mr. Deane and I went to Westminster, and -there in the Court we had before us all the officers of the Duchy and of -Westminster, and there we have put down nearly an hundred alehouses. As -for St. Giles, High Holborn, St. John Street, and Islington, Mr. Randall -and I mean this Saturday at afternoon to see the reformation, in like -manner Mr. Lieutenant and Mr. Fisher deal for the East part. I am sure -they will use great diligence in this matter.” - -One may piously hope that the souls of these good men are not vexed -to-day with the knowledge of the futility of their work on earth and that -they know nothing of our modern licensing system. Could Master Fleetwood -return to listen to the procedure of a local licensing bench in the -twentieth century he would perhaps laugh in his sleeve to think that the -methods of the Star Chamber were yet with us and that magistrates of -austere mind were still using “great diligence in these matters.” - -Fleetwood’s earliest letter is dated from Bacon House, August 8th, 1575. -The vacation is on, yet it seems the Temple is full of students. For as -Richard Chamberlayne tells us this is the “second learning vacation” -which began on Lammas Day. Readings continued for “three weeks and three -days,” and the Recorder seems to think my Lord Burghley would take an -interest in the matter of legal education, which is not an affair that -has troubled the mind of any minister of modern times. The plague is -with them and the study of the law has to give way to the plague, for -the Recorder tells us that “as touching the Inns of Court it so fell -out that at Gray’s Inn there was no reading this vacation because one -died there of the plague. At the Inner Temple there hath been a meeting, -but by means that the plague was in the house, the reading being scarce -half done, is now broken up. In Lincoln’s Inn yesterday being Friday, -at afternoon one is dead of the plague and the company are now to be -dispersed. In the Middle Temple, where I am, I thank God we have our -health and our reading continually. I am always at the reading, and I -have taken stringent order upon the pain of putting out of commons, that -none of the Gentlemen of our house or their servants shall go out of the -house except it be by water and not to come in any place of danger, the -which order is well observed.” - -“Our house” is the old world phrase familiar to Templars and means the -Middle Temple, and “putting out of commons” was in that day a serious -penalty. The “readings” took the form of “moots” or arguments on a case -put by the reader, and argued not only by students but by lawyers of -position. They must have been of considerable educational value and have -always been prized by the older generation of lawyers. I remember well -an old learned Judge solemnly exhorting me in the days of my youth, to -become a good “put-case,” a phrase which one does not hear used nowadays. -Moots and readings might, one would think, be revived especially in the -interest of the newly called barrister, who can say with but too much -truth as Fleetwood wrote in August, 1575, “For my own part I have no -business but go as quietly to my book as I did the first year that I came -to the Temple.” - -In July, 1577, Lord Burghley is again at “Buckstons” [_sic_] and the -faithful recorder sends him a budget of news. He has been at the Mercers’ -feast “and there were we all very merry ... and I told them that I was -to write privately to your Lordship; and they required me all to commend -them to your good Lordship; at which time the Master of the Rolls, who is -no wine drinker, did drink to your Lordship a bowl of Rhenish wine and -then Sir Thomas Gresham drank another, and Sir William Demsell the third -and I pledged them all.” It reads like a page from the Book of Snobs. - -And after the “great and royal banquet” which took place at the house of -the new Master, some time we may suppose about mid-day, Fleetwood, as -he tells us “walked to Powle’s to learn some news.” For in that day St. -Paul’s was the Exchange and the club and the Market Place of the men of -the world where news came from all quarters of the world and where news -passed from lip to lip and thence out into the corners of England in such -letters as this of Fleetwood’s to Lord Burghley. The extraordinary uses -to which the Cathedral was put in Elizabeth’s time, are a constant theme -of reproach from religious-minded men. Idlers and drunkards used to sleep -on benches at the choir door, and porters, butchers and water bearers -were suffered in service time, to carry and re-carry their wares across -the nave, and in the upper choir itself irreverent people walked about -with hats on their heads, whilst if any entered the Cathedral booted -and spurred, the gentlemen of the choir left their places and demanded -“spur-money” and threatened their victim with a night’s imprisonment -in the choir if the tax were not paid. Such was “Powle’s” on this July -afternoon when Recorder Fleetwood went down in search of news, and -indeed he heard terrible tidings; for there “came suddenly into the -church Edmund Downing, and he told me that he was even then come out of -Worcestershire and that my Lord Chief Baron died at Sir John Hubbard’s -house and that he is buried at Leicester. And he said that the common -speech of that country is that Mr. Serjeant Barham should be dead at -Worcester, but that is not certain. The like report goeth of Mr. Fowler, -the Clerk of the same Circuit ... and a number of other gent that were at -the gaol delivery at Oxon are all dead. The inquest of life and death -are almost all gone. Such Clerks servants and young gent, being scholars -as were at the same gaol delivery, are either dead or in great danger. -Mr. Solicitor’s son and heir being brought home to his father’s house at -Woodstock, lieth at the mercy of God. Mr. Attorney’s son and heir was -brought very sick from Oxon to his father’s house at Harrow, where he -lieth in as great danger of death as might be, but now there is some hope -of amendment. The gaol delivery of Oxon, as I am told, was kept in the -Town Hall, a close place and by the infection of the gaol as all men take -it, this mortality grew.” - -We know now all about the Oxford Black Assizes of the 5th and 6th of -July, 1577, and how Judges, Sheriffs, Knights, Squires, Barristers and -members of the Grand Jury were stricken down with what was probably -typhus. The disease spread to the Colleges. Masters, Doctors and heads -of houses left almost to a man. “The Master of Merton remained _longe -omnium vigilantissimus_ ministering to the sick. The pharmacies were soon -emptied of their conserves, oils, sweet waters, pixides and every kind -of confection.” Wild rumours spread abroad that it was the result of a -Papist plot. In a few weeks of the Assizes, some five hundred perished, -nearly all men of the better class. The disease did not attack the poor -or women. There seems little doubt that the infection was among the -prisoners and there is a record that two or three thieves had died in -chains shortly before the Assizes. One would have supposed that such a -visitation would have been a signal for prison reform, but those who have -read of Howard’s experiences, know how little was done to mitigate the -horrors of life in gaol until a much more recent date. - -Fleetwood tells us a great deal about his own activity at this time. He -is holding an oyer and terminer at the Guildhall in the vacation “to -keep the people in obedience.” He sits with the Justices to discuss the -abolition of alehouses and the advancement of archery, he is constant -in his search after rogues and masterless men and there being cases of -plague in the Savoy, he takes occasion to pass with all the constables -between the bars and the tilt-yard in both the liberties, to see the -houses shut, which he notes with pride “neither the Master of the Rolls -nor my cousin Holcroft the Bailiff, would or durst do.” At the same time -he was writing a book on “The Office of a Justice of the Peace” which was -printed a hundred years later. Amidst these various employments however, -he finds room for the lighter social duties and spends an afternoon -with the Shoemakers of London, who “having builded a fair and a new -hall, made a royal feast there for their friends, which they call their -housewarming.” - -A really heavy sessions must have been a terrible experience since this -is what the Recorder evidently regards as a light one. “At the last -Sessions,” he writes, “there were executed eighteen at Tyburn, and -one, Barlow, born in Norfolk but of the house of the Barlows in the -county of Lancashire, was pressed. They were all notable cut-purses and -horse-stealers. It was the quietest Sessions that ever I was at.” At the -beginning of the year he makes an audit of known criminals “that I may -know what new may be sprung up this last year and where to find them -if need be” and he makes out a list of “receivers and gage takers and -melters of stolen plate and such like.” - -Part of his duty was the actual police work of “searching out of sundry -that were receptors of felons.” In the course of this duty he tells -Burghley on another occasion of the discovery of a den that Dickens -might have used as a model in Oliver Twist, so little had the ways of -criminals altered from Elizabeth to Victoria. “Amongst our travels this -one matter tumbled out by the way, that one, Walters, a gentleman born -and some time a merchant of good credit, who falling by time into decay, -kept an alehouse at Smart’s Keye (Quay) near Billing’s Gate, and after -some misdemeanour being put down he reared up a new trade of life and in -the same house he procured all the cut-purses about this city to repair -to his same house. There was a school-house set up to learn young boys -to cut purses. There were hung up two devices, the one was a pocket, the -other was a purse. The pocket had in it certain counters and was hung -about with hawk’s bells, and over the top did hang a little sacring -bell; and he that could take out a counter without any noise was allowed -to be a publique foyster, and he that could take a piece of silver out -of the purse without the noise of the bells, he was adjudged a judicial -nipper.” Note that a foyster is a pick-pocket, and a nipper is termed a -pick-purse or a cut-purse. - -The path of an honest judge in the days of Elizabeth was beset with -difficulties. Although bribes were not actually offered to the individual -magistrate, yet he was written to by influential persons about the Court, -and he had to choose between doing his duty and incurring the dislike -of powerful men. Fleetwood complains “that when by order we have justly -executed the law ... we are wont either to have a great man’s letter, a -lady’s ring, or some other token from some other such inferior persons -as will devise one untruth or another to accuse us of if we prefer not -their unlawful requests.” Our honest Recorder is strong to maintain the -principle that all men are equal in the sight of the law. - -Here is a typical case of which he complains: “Mr. Nowell of the Court -hath lately been in London. He caused his man to give a blow unto a -carman. His man hath stricken the carman with the pommel of his sword and -therewith hath broken his skull and killed him. Mr. Nowell and his man -are likely to be indicted thereof, I am sure to be much troubled with his -letters and his friends, and what by other means, as in the very like -case heretofore, I have been even with the same man. Here are sundry -young gentlemen that use the Court that most commonly term themselves -gentlemen; when any of them have done anything amiss, and are complained -of or arrested for debt, then they run unto me and no other excuse or -answer can they make but say—‘I am a gentleman, and being a gentleman I -am not thus to be used at a slaves and a colion’s (scullion’s) hands.’ I -know not what other plea Mr. Nowell can plead. But this I say, the fact -is foul.” - -A “gentleman” in England in Elizabethan days seems to have thought -himself as little amenable to law as an American millionaire, but -Fleetwood had the English gist of the matter in him when he says “the -fact is foul.” - -But though the Recorder stood firm against the hangers on of the Court, -London was not a happy soil for judicial integrity. He never attained -to the promotion he deserved, and maybe it was because he could not -dishonour his office to serve his friends at Court. Such mercy as the -Recorder could honestly show to a prisoner, he was only too ready -to exercise. “Truly, my Lord,” he writes, “it is nothing needful to -write for the stay of any to be reprieved for there is not any in our -commission of London and Middlesex but we are desirous to save or stay -any poor wretch if by colour of any law or reason we may do it. My -singular good Lord, my Lord William of Winchester was wont to say: ‘When -the Court is furthest from London then is there the best justice done in -all England.’ I once heard as great a personage in office and authority -as ever he was and yet living say the same words. It is grown for a -trade now in the Court to make means for reprieves; twenty pounds for a -reprieve is nothing, although it be but for bare ten days. I see it will -not be holpen unless one honoured gentleman who many times is abused by -wrong information—and surely upon my soul not upon any evil meaning—do -stay his pen. I have not one letter for the stay of a thief from your -Lordship.” - -But Elizabethan mercy was not a very vigorous virtue and did little -to temper the wind to the criminal lamb. Here is a typical day’s work -and its terrible results. “Upon Friday last we sat at the Justice Hall -at Newgate from seven in the morning until seven at night when were -condemned certain horse-stealers, cut-purses and such like to the number -of ten, whereof nine were executed and the tenth stayed by a means from -the Court. These were executed on Saturday in the morning. There was a -shoemaker also condemned for wilful murder committed in the Black friars, -who was executed upon the Monday in the morning.” The superior criminal -dignity of murder over larceny appears to have given the murderer two -days further life. - -The Recorder’s main work however, was a constant warfare with rogues and -masterless men. The Elizabethan vagabonds were to be “grievously whipped -and burnt through the gristle of the right ear” unless they could find -someone who under penalty of five pounds would keep them in service for a -year. Rogues and vagabonds were all those able-bodied men having no land -or master practising no trade or craft and unable to account for the way -in which they earned their living, and further included actors, pedlars, -poor scholars and labourers who would not work for what employers called -“reasonable wages.” London swarmed with these vagabonds, and Fleetwood -seems to have been the official who was made responsible if they -committed any excesses. - -One January afternoon in 1582, Her Majesty at even was taking of the -air in her coach at Islington, in which suburb she had a Lodge. During -her drive, writes Fleetwood, “Her Highness was environed with a number -of rogues. One, Mr. Stone, a footman, came in all haste to my Lord -Mayor, and after to me and told us of the same.” No mention is made of -any molestation, but the complaint rouses the Recorder to extraordinary -efforts. “I did, the same night,” he writes, “send warrants out to -the said quarters and in the morning I went abroad myself and I took -seventy-four rogues whereof some were blind, and yet great usurers and -very rich.” All these were sent to the Bridewell, and the next day “we -examined all the said rogues and gave them substantial payment, (a -euphemism for grievous whipping), and the strongest we bestowed in the -mylne (mill) and the lighters. The rest were dismissed with a promise of -double pay if we met with them again.” In the Southwark district, forty -rogues, men and women, were taken and “I did the same afternoon peruse -Poole’s (St Paul’s) where I took about twenty cloaked rogues.” All these -went to the Bridewell and to punishment. The constables of the Duchy (the -Savoy), brought in “six tall fellows that were draymen unto brewers. The -Master did write a very courteous letter unto us to pardon them. And -although he wrote charitably unto us, yet they were all soundly paid and -sent home to their masters”; which seems to have been in excess of the -Recorder’s jurisdiction, as the draymen were clearly not “masterless.” -Another day a hundred lewd people were taken and the Master of Bridewell -received them and immediately gave them punishment. The bulk of these -poor wretches were unemployed seeking work in the City, which they could -not obtain in their own counties. And Fleetwood writes: “I did note that -we had not of London, Westminster nor Southwark, nor yet Middlesex nor -Surrey above twelve, and those we have taken order for. The residue for -the most were of Wales, Salop, Chester, Somerset, Buckingham, Oxford and -Essex and that few or none of these had been about London above three or -four months. I did note also that we met not again with any in all our -searches that had received punishment. The chief nursery of all these -evil people is the Savoy, and the brick-kilns near Islington.” It is -curious to remember that a hundred and fifty years afterwards Defoe -writes of the beggar boys getting into the ash-holes and nealing arches -of the glass houses in Ratcliff Highway, and that to-day one of the -difficulties of Manchester magistrates is to keep vagabonds from sleeping -in suburban brick-kilns. Truly the ways of the vagabond seem to be a -force of nature which centuries of progress and reform have done very -little to amend. - -The history of the Bridewell which was filled with so many generations -of evil-doers, is a very curious one. An ancient palace of the Kings -of England, it was in the reign of Edward VI. standing empty. The -suppression of the monasteries and other religious houses filled London -with multitudes of necessitous and to some extent dissolute persons. -It was Bishop Ridley who wrote to Sir William Cecil: “Good Mr. Cecil I -must be a suitor unto you in our Master Christ’s cause,” and pointed out -that “there is a wide, large empty house of the King’s Majesty called -Bridewell, that would wonderfully serve” to house these poor wanderers. -Thus in a spirit of pure charity, did the good Bishop open the doors of -one of the most miserable prisons that ever disgraced humanity. Already -we see in Fleetwood’s time how it had fallen away from the Bishop’s ideal -Christian home to shelter the hungry, naked and cold. What it was then -it remained for more than a hundred and fifty years, as we may see in -Hogarth’s print in the “Harlot’s Progress,” with its pillory and its -whipping post, and the heavy log to be fastened on the prisoner’s leg and -the gaoler with his rod standing over the wretched woman beating out the -hemp with her mallet. - -The Recorder seems to have had absolute power in dealing with prisoners -charged with offences, to use force to obtain confessions. Here is a -very horrible story which Fleetwood reports to Lord Burghley as a matter -of every day routine. A French merchant charged a carrier’s wife with -stealing £40. After great search the money was found and restored. The -carrier’s wife denied all knowledge of it. “Then,” says Fleetwood, “I -examined her in my study privately, but by no means, she would not -confess the same, but did bequeath herself to the devil both body and -soul if she had the money or ever saw it.” After much cross-examination, -the woman refused to answer anything further. “And then,” continues -Fleetwood, “I took my Lord Mayor’s advice and bestowed her in Bridewell, -where the Masters and I saw her punished, and being well whipped she said -that the devil stood at her elbow in my study and willed her to deny -it, but so soon as she was upon the cross to be punished he gave her -over. And thus, my singular good Lord, I end this tragical part of this -wretched woman.” - -But Fleetwood did not spend all his days in the Criminal Courts. As a -Serjeant-at-law, he is present when his “brother” Sir Edmund Anderson, -was made Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and he took part in the -ceremony by following the “ancient” in the ceremony of putting a case to -the new Judge. And the way of it was thus: “my Lord Chancellor did awhile -stand at the Chancery bar upon the side of the hall, and anon after that -the Justices of the Common Place (Pleas) were set, his Lordship came to -the Common Place and there sat down and all the Serjeants, my brethren, -standing at the bar, my Lord Chancellor my brother Anderson called by -name and declared unto him Her Majesty’s good liking and opinion of him, -and of the place and dignity that Her Majesty had called him unto, and -then my Lord Chancellor made a short discourse what the duty and office -of a good Justice was, and in the end his Lordship called him up unto -the midst of the Court and then Mr. Anderson kneeling, the commission -was read, and that done, his Lordship took the patent into his hand, and -then the clerk of the Crown, Powle, did read him his oath, and after he -himself read the oath of his supremacy, and so kissed the book, and then -my Lord Chancellor took him by the hand and placed him upon the bench. -And then Father Benloos, because he was “ancient” did put a short case, -and then myself put the next. To the first my new Lord Chief Justice did -himself only argue, but to the next that I put, both he and the residue -of the Bench did argue. And I assure your good Lordship he argued very -learnedly and with great facility delivered his mind. And this one thing -I noticed in him, that he despatched more orders and answered more -difficult cases in this the fore-noon than were despatched in one whole -week in his predecessor’s time.” - -So too, when the Lord Mayor was sworn in in the Exchequer, the Recorder -presented him in the name of the City, and they “did such services -as appertained viz.: in bringing a number of horse-shoes and nails, -chopping knives and little rods.” These customs were antiquarian even in -Elizabeth’s days, but they are with us still. - -And no doubt Fleetwood loved to take part in these things, for he was a -good antiquary himself, and we must not think of him merely as a harsh -persecutor of the “rogues and masterless,” for away from his work we -hear record of his merry and pleasant conceit, and note that he is an -eloquent and witty speaker at City banquets. And there is evidence in -these letters that he did not love much of his work, as indeed what man -can take pleasure in so unfortunate a task, but to him it was a duty, -and one to be done like all duties—thoroughly. And that he did it to the -best of his ability and with honesty seems clear, but that he longed -to be removed from the intolerable toil of it, even as early as 1582, -is shown by this pathetic appeal to Lord Burghley. “Truly, my singular -good Lord, I have not leisure to eat my meat, I am so called upon. I -am at the least the best part of one hundred nights in a year abroad in -searches. I never rest. And when I serve Her Majesty, then I am for the -most part worst spoken of and that many times. In the Court I have no man -to defend me, and as for my Lord Mayor, my chief hand, I am driven every -day to back him and his doings. My good Lord, for Christ’s sake! be such -a mean for me as that with credit I may be removed by Her Majesty from -this intolerable toil. Certainly I serve in a thankless soil. There is, -as I learn, like to fall a room of the Queen’s Serjeant; if your Lordship -please to help me to one of these rooms, I assure your honour that I will -do Her Majesty as painful service as six of them shall do. Help me, my -good Lord, in this my humble suit, and I will, God willing, set down for -your Lordship such a book of the law as your Lordship will like of.” - -The offer of a new law book did not tempt Lord Burghley, and the end -did not come until nearly ten years afterwards, when in 1591 Fleetwood -resigned with a pension of £100 a year, which the Common Council voted -him. And in the next year he obtained the wished for post of Queen’s -Serjeant, which he held for scarcely two years, as he died on February -28th, 1594. - -And this is the last piece of writing I have found of his, written the -day he gave up his Recordership. Even with his resignation upon his mind -he notes down for Lord Burghley’s satisfaction the excellent punishment -awarded to two lewd people for misconduct against the public health. - -“This day I rode to the Yeld (Guild) Hall to sit on the commission for -strangers and in the lower end of Cheapside towards Poole’s (St. Paul’s) -there stood a man and a woman both aged persons with papers upon their -heads. The man was keeper of the conduit there. These two lewd people in -the night entered into the Conduit and washed themselves, _et ad hunc et -ibidem turpiter exoneraverunt ventres eorum, etc._ - -This day Mr. Recorder surrendered his office. The lot is now to be cast -between Mr. Serjeant Drew and one Mr. Fleming of Lincoln’s Inn. This -present Saturday. - - Your good Lordship’s most bounden - - W. FLETEWOODE.” - -This picture of the old Recorder riding out to the Guild Hall for his -last sitting and reporting to my Lord the common sights of the City -brings back to us a real picture of his days. So that we can almost feel -that we are living on “this present Saturday” and regretting with all -good citizens that “this day Mr. Recorder surrendered his office.” - - - - -THE FUNNIEST THING I EVER SAW. - - “Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to - ourselves and nature.” - - —_Sir Philip Sidney._ - - -To ask one to write to such a title is a challenge to be taken up, but -one does not expect to vanquish the challenger. The funniest thing I -ever saw would not make you laugh because you never saw it and if I had -the skill to make you see it probably you would not think it funny. Then -again the older you grow the few funnier things you see. What a lot of -laughter there was thirty or forty years ago. Whither has it fled? In -childhood nearly every discomfort or disaster to others is food for -laughter whilst your own little troubles are tragedies fit for tears. - -It is a curious thing that the funny things you see always involve a -certain amount of cruelty, pain or at least discomfort to others, and I -suppose as one grows older the painful side of the matter oppresses you -more than the funny side inspires you to laughter. There are some human -attributes that are always laughable. Of these the chief is fatness. -The troubles of a fat man or woman are always comic. Littleness, if it -amounts to wee-ness, is comic in a somewhat less degree and thin-ness may -move folk to laughter but scarcely unless it be added to some amusing -eccentricity. Height and tall-ness are not funny. One never heard of a -king employing a giant as a jester or a butt. The dwarf on the other -hand has been cast for such parts from time immemorial. - -I believe quite small babies see a lot of funny things. Certainly they -laugh to themselves without end and seem to find their surroundings -full of amusement. I have no doubt the funniest thing one ever saw is -cinematographed on some ancient film at the back of one’s brain so far -out of reach that the memory cannot get at it. Children undoubtedly see -most of the fun. I remember many years ago Louis Calvert, the well-known -actor, was staying with me in a little house in a remote corner of -Wales. The house had a small verandah doorway with two narrow doors, -one of which was usually bolted as it was a windy place and the outlet -by the half door was, to say the least of it, meagre. Louis Calvert was -in those days, I will not say fat or stout or corpulent—these ample men -are so susceptible—but he was a fine figure of a man and he was then -as he is now a great actor in both comedy or tragedy. It was a summer -afternoon and I was lolling in a deck chair beneath our only tree, and -the children, four of them, from five years old to twelve, were sitting -on the lawn in front of the doorway basking in the sun. Suddenly Calvert -appeared at the doorway and accidentally stuck in it as he was coming -through. The children caught sight of him and on the moment were off in -fits of laughter which good manners required them to stifle as he came -among us. But if laughter challenges manners, the latter generally get -the worst of it, and the mere memory of the incident sent one or another -off into small explosions of laughter. Calvert who always wanted to be -in at any fun sought explanations, which only made them laugh the more -and reprove each other for doing it, and whilst their attention was so -engaged I told Calvert what the joke was. A few minutes later he went -back into the house making an elaborate sideway entrance, which started -the young audience on the laugh again and all eyes were fastened on the -door watching for his return. - -And he did return and gave us one of the finest pantomimes I have ever -seen. He came along loading a pipe and not looking at the doorway at all -and stuck fairly fast in it before he was aware that he was up to it -and opened his eyes in annoyance and amazement. Four shouts of laughter -greeted him. Fingers of delighted mockery were pointed at him and he -made a face as if he were on the brink of tears, which drew echoing -tears of uncontrollable laughter from the youngsters. Then his pipe -dropped on to the shingle path in front of the door and he dived to get -it and failed and grabbed and kicked in the air until the children threw -themselves on the ground and sobbed and begged him to leave off for he -was hurting them. Then Calvert, to give them a moment’s respite, pulled -himself together and still fast in the doorway rested his hand on the -door-post and thought dismally while the audience sobbed and sniffed -and slowly recovered breath enough to laugh again. By a mighty effort -he now backed out of the doorway and approached it as Uncle Remus would -say “behime” first. This was a signal for yells of delight, the more so -as the manœuvre resulted in the most undignified and comic failure. All -beautiful and simple people have a thoroughly broad and healthy laugh for -the “behime” quarters of man in awkward positions. A man sitting down -on the ice, a man sitting on another’s hat—these are situations that -can never cease to be funny whilst there is any fun left in the world -and simple minds to be moved to laughter. But this effort at an exit -was only one of many. A carefully designed strategetic move edgeways, -after the fashion of Bob Acres, which was so nearly successful that it -grew really exciting to watch, ended in hilarious shouts and yells, -when the climax of it was the victim waving his arms and head out of -the door and kicking violently inside the house and calling for help. -This business having nearly reduced the audience to exhaustion there -was further pantomime of deep expressive thought followed by a solemn -retirement within the doors and a laboured and careful pulling at the -bolts of the other half of the door and a ceremonial entrance through the -whole double space of it with a smile and sigh of supreme content at the -glorious triumph over difficulties undergone and vanquished. I can see in -my mind’s eye a middle-aged gentleman with tears rolling down his cheeks -and four absolutely limp children lying on the grass still gasping with -laughter—dying with laughter as the phrase is—and begging Calvert in the -intervals of their spasms to “Do it again!” - -Now this may not seem one of the funniest things in the world nor was -it perhaps the funniest thing I ever saw, for unfortunately I was only -the middle-aged gentleman and my days for seeing funny things were more -or less over. But to the children it was certainly one of the funniest -things they ever saw, only the question that haunts me is—will they, when -they grow up, be able to describe the fun they saw so as to impart a -tithe of it to those who never saw it? And although I know that, at some -period of my life, I must have seen equally funny things that moved me to -equally stormy and glorious laughter, yet the storm and the glory have -died so completely away that the memory of them is gone and I cannot even -remember from what point of the compass they sprang. - -And in my view grown up people really see beautifully funny things only -in the conduct of children and these incidents can only be described to -fathers and mothers, or people who love children as though they were -their fathers or mothers. One of the funniest things I ever saw since -I was grown up was a baby struggling to find its way to its mouth with -a rusk. Why don’t they have a baby doing that at a music hall to slow -music, or at least show one on a cinematograph? I could laugh at such a -thing “sans intermission an hour by the dial.” How it jabs itself in the -eye with the soft end of the biscuit and bedaubs its cheeks and loses -the biscuit in a temper and if not assisted by an over indulgent mother -finds the biscuit after infinite search and goes at it again with renewed -energy and at length is rewarded by success. - -There is plenty of comedy and laughter about a baby as well as sleepless -melodrama in the middle of the night—but it must be your own baby. There -is no fun in next-door babies except when the Clown gets hold of them in -a pantomime. - -And now having solemnly failed to recount the funniest thing I ever saw, -let me again remind you that I said from the first that the task was -impossible, since the thing to be funny must be seen, and the funniest -thing I ever saw you never saw. But the way to see funny things and to -enjoy them is to keep your heart like the heart of a little child, for it -is only children who are moved to the purest and healthiest laughter as -the trees are moved in the breeze by a power they know nothing of. And of -course if you have never been a child—and some poor people are born grown -up—you will never have been able to see the funniest thing you ever saw. - - - - -THE PLAYWRIGHT. - - “In youth he learned had a good mistére - He was a well good wright a carpentére.” - - _Chaucer._ - - -The play is very nearly extinct. This is an age of dramatists. The -reason is not far to seek. The playwright is merely a craftsman. The -dramatist—so his friends in the press tell him—is a genius. And in these -years genius is plentiful and craftsmanship becomes a rarer thing every -day. - -Just at the moment it is certainly not considered important to be a -playwright. It is better to be an aviator. In the eighteenth century -it was better to be a performing bear. But in my view now as in the -eighteenth century the alternatives to the theatre will not destroy the -theatre and a sound entertaining play will always find theatre-goers. -There is room for plays written by a playwright, and as it is open -to anyone who cares to learn the business to become a respectable -craftsman—just as a man can learn to play the fiddle or make an etching -on copper—there will generally be a few writers for the stage of literary -merit who can turn out a stage play capable of weathering the varied -storms of taste and criticism by which it is assailed in its endeavours -to make safe harbour in the Box Office. - -A playwright is according to Dr. Johnson “a maker of plays.” The word -“wright” is satisfactorily enough a Saxon word derived from _wyrht_, -the third person indicative of _wyrcan_, meaning “one that worketh.” -The mere derivation of the word is enough to account for the absence of -the thing itself. This is not an age of work. We retain in a degraded -form the Saxon word, but the Saxon idea is foreign to our civilisation. -Still in things that really matter we cling to the old world notion of a -“wright” or person who knows his business, as in our word “ship-wright.” -Unfortunately in the affairs of the theatre which in the present age -do not really matter very much, any clever man may exploit his wares -without learning his business. Money is lost over it, and the theatre as -an institution suffers. But playgoers like voters and ratepayers will -continue the struggle to obtain a well-made article built according to -their tastes, and in course of time workmanship in playwriting will have -its value again. Meanwhile it seems a pity that among so many brilliant -and intelligent writers for and about the stage, hardly one will take the -trouble to master a few essential problems of what is really, compared to -the technicalities of music or painting, a simple business. - -If a man were to claim to be a ship-wright for instance, it would be -accounted to him as a matter of blame if, after money and time had -been spent on building his vessel, it were to be found bottom up on -the evening of the launching. Explain it as he might, his career as a -ship-wright would be endangered. With a playwright it is quite otherwise. -If a man hangs out a sign that he is a wheelwright, you go to him in the -expectation that he can make a wheel. It may not be a highly artistic -wheel. It may be roughly painted, there may be no poetical carving in -its wood-work, still you do expect him to turn you out a wheel. You -would be disappointed if the article were oblong or rhomboid in shape. -You would hesitate to trust yourself to it if it had no hub, no spokes, -no tyres—none of the attributes of a wheel, and you would certainly be -utterly disgusted if it did not run. But a playwright who makes his play -without dramatic hubs or spokes or tyres, is often accredited a genius -by those who have never learned how, and how only, a play can be made, -and the fact that his play does not run is set down to the centrifugal -ignorance of the spectators by the side of the road who came there -desiring to see it run. - -There are of course many playwrights to-day who are masters of their -craft and audiences who can approve of them, but unfortunately the -men who make it their business to write criticisms of the theatre are -peculiarly and in some cases boastfully ignorant of the business of -the playwright. In this way they mislead the aspirant dramatist into -the idea that his audience is to blame for not appreciating his play, -when his audience is only the mercury in the barometer recording the -general depression that must result in a theatre from a badly made -play. However beautiful the words and the sentiments of a play may be, -and whatever their moral and literary value, they are quite useless -unless they are put in a form to get over the footlights. Quite silly -sentiments and foolish language may be made serviceable by a playwright -who knows his craft, and it would be valuable if some of the writers -about theatrical affairs were to turn their attention from the discovery -of new genius to the interesting business of the making of stage plays. -One does not expect this to happen just yet, for the stage as a craft -is a dull thing from a literary point of view, compared to the politics -of the theatre and the apportioning of praise and blame—especially the -latter—to writers, actors, and theatre-goers. Besides, there is a cult -and creed among these writers, and to be in the movement, you must of -necessity abjure the well-made play. I read a very clever essay the other -day by a modern writer about the theatre, proving that “the well-made -play” was the abomination of desolation. The essay was full of learning -and epigram, and the questions were cleverly begged and answered in an -apparent spirit of generosity, but it did not convince me. Supposing the -title of the essay instead of being “the well-made Play” had been “the -well-made Coat” or “the well-made Porridge” and the author had set out -to prove to you that you were a stodgy Early Victorian duffer, because -you pretended to like well-made coats and well-made porridge, might you -not reasonably have sighed over his perversity. But this would never -happen, for you will find that in the matter of coats and porridge, -your writer is full of learning, and will write on these subjects if at -all, with a sound knowledge of the craft he is criticising. Indeed I -think the playwright and the actor are the only craftsmen whose work is -widely written about by people who deliberately refrain from learning the -grammar of the crafts they are writing about. Even the critic of pictures -has generally failed to paint them, and that in itself is a liberal -education. But many brilliant entertaining writers about the stage seem -to base their right to be read with attention upon the scant attention -they have themselves given to the subject matter of their criticisms. -Thankful as I am, for the amusement contained in their epigrams, I am -still of opinion that for men to set out to judge a play who have no idea -how a play is made, and no desire to learn how a play is made, is bound -to end in amazement. - -I remember taking an eminent antiquarian to Old Trafford on the occasion -of a county cricket match. It was in the historic days of A. N. Hornby -and Lancashire were in the field. My friend—who by-the-bye had written -dramatic criticism in his early days—knew little or nothing about cricket -but was not wanting in that kind of courage that goes to the making of -a great critic. Viewing the game solemnly for about a quarter of an -hour, he at length delivered judgment. “If I were Hornby,” he said, “I -should never have chosen those two fellows in the long white coats for -a Lancashire team; they haven’t tried to stop a ball for the last ten -minutes.” I am often reminded of that story when I read a criticism of a -play. Nor do I for a moment harbour any feelings of wrath against average -critics. Like my friend they too have great literary and scholastic -qualities that I can humbly envy and admire, but there is one thing that -they have not taken the trouble to learn because it is too simple and -easy for their really superior intelligence—the rules of the game. - -And playwriting is a game like chess or cricket or many another great -game and many a duffer can learn its elementary moves and rules and the -more studious can master its gambits and strategy, but not even the -greatest can succeed at the game, or understand what the game is about if -they will not learn the rules. This is an age in which quackery and slush -and conceit are having a long innings, and it is a common boast that some -new genius has found a new way of saving souls, or painting pictures -or making plays that is to revolutionise the practice of these things. -Originality is a good thing, and who shall say a harsh word to the youth -who dreams in the waking hours of his inexperience of a new way of doing -old things. There are many new things to be done in the world, but not so -very many for the playwright or the wheelwright. The world has long ago -laid down the lines on which a play or a wheel is to be built and whilst -it is open to us to use any material we choose, that will bear the -necessary strain and decorate it with all the artistic ability we possess -the structure must be sound—the work of the _wright_ must be done—or all -is vanity. The most eloquent writer of sermons in the world cannot make a -play of his preachings merely by chopping them into acts and giving them -to different eminent actors and actresses to recite. - -There is an A-B-C for the apprentice playwright to learn as there is -for the child at school, and if he never learns it, he will not be a -proficient workman. I acknowledge this simile is a little old-fashioned -for the modern kindergarten child is taught nowadays to grunt strange -sounds instead of mastering his or her A-B-C; the scientific teacher -being I suppose, under a delusion that English is a phonetic language -like my own native Welsh. But when the educational slush has subsided a -little, we shall begin again with the A-B-C in our study of the English -tongue, just as our playwrights will go back to the simple elementary -rules of their interesting craft. - -When Shakespeare wrote of the players that “they have their exits and -their entrances,” he wrote what was strictly true of his own plays, for -he took care to provide them with exits and entrances as any honest -playwright should. And to explain briefly what I mean by the simple rules -of the craft, let us consider for a moment the subject of “entrances.” -It does not, nor need it, enter into the head of the playgoer that his -convenience is consulted by the playwright on the matter of the entrances -of the characters. The critic generally misses the best “entrances” if -any, and makes his own exit with the programme as a book of reference -before the players’ exits are completed. He has a soul above these -matters. But Shakespeare knew that an actor wanted—and rightly wanted -both an exit and an entrance and would not be happy unless he got them. -These matters had to be thought out and designed, and in the matter of -entrances, Shakespeare seems to have learned a very simple little truth, -namely, that from a playwright’s point of view, and equally from an -audience’s point of view, it was not the slightest use for a player to -be talking upon the stage unless the audience knew who he was. Open your -Hamlet and see how the play begins: - - _ACT I. SCENE I. A Platform before the Castle._ - - _FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO._ - - _Ber._ Who’s there? - - _Fran._ Nay, answer me; stand, and unfold yourself. - - _Ber._ Long live the king! - - _Fran._ Bernardo? - - _Ber._ He. - - _Fran._ You come most carefully upon your hour. - - _Ber._ ’Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco. - - _Fran._ For this relief much thanks; ’tis bitter cold, - And I am sick at heart. - - _Ber._ Have you had a quiet guard? - - _Fran._ Not a mouse stirring. - - _Ber._ Well, good-night. - If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, - The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. - - _Fran._ I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who’s there? - - _Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS._ - - _Hor._ Friends to this ground. - - _Mar._ And liegemen to the Dane. - - _Fran._ Give you good-night. - - _Mar._ O! farewell, honest soldier: - Who hath relieved you? - - _Fran._ Bernardo has my place. - Give you good-night. [_Exit._ - - _Mar._ Holla! Bernardo! - - _Ber._ Say, - What! is Horatio there? - - _Hor._ A piece of him. - - _Ber._ Welcome, Horatio; welcome, good Marcellus. - -Notice how naturally and in what a businesslike way Bernardo, Francisco, -Horatio and Marcellus are all introduced to the audience, and the care -taken to stamp their identity upon the mind of the spectators. The -natural easy way in which it is done springs from the good craftsmanship -of Shakespeare, but the doing of it is the business of every playwright. - -One would suppose that such a simple matter as that could not be -overlooked, but if one turns to the plays of some modern dramatists -and seeks to understand them without studying the stage directions and -noticing carefully the name of the speaker, one is apt to get into -confusion. The latest craze is to publish a programme with the “order -of going in” like a cricket card and thus you can buy for sixpence -information that the playwright is too slovenly and too ignorant of his -business to provide for you. There were no programmes in Shakespeare’s -time, but there were playwrights. - -It may occur to those who have not studied the rules of the game that -there is not the same necessity for careful workmanship in the matter of -entrances in a play of to-day that there was three hundred years ago. The -answer to that is that a play or a wheel of to-day is essentially the -same as a play or a wheel was in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. -The duty of the playwright to make his entrances obvious to his audience -is equally clear, and is equally understood by the man who knows his -business. - -Compare as a modern instance Sir Arthur Pinero’s opening of “Sweet -Lavender.” The scene is a sitting-room at 3 Brain Court Temple. Left and -right are two doors leading to the rooms of Richard Phenyl and Clement -Hale. Ruth, the housekeeper, is discovered, and Bulger, the barber, -enters the room and the play begins. Now note the workmanship. - - _Bul._ I’ve give Mr. ’Ale a nice shave, Mrs. Rolt, clean and - quick. Water’s ’ot enough for me jist to rub over Mr. Phenyl’s - face if ’e’s visible. - - _Ruth._ I’m afraid Mr. Phenyl isn’t well enough for you this - morning, Mr. Bulger. - - _Bul._ Not one of ’is mornings, hey? - - (_Ruth goes to the right-hand door and knocks sharply_). - - _Ruth_ (_calling_). Mr. Phenyl! Mr. Phenyl! The barber. - -You see, Sir Arthur Pinero, having been an actor and knowing his -business, informs you in a few lines not only the names of Phenyl, Hale, -their housekeeper, and barber, but where each of the two men sleep and -something of their characters. In a word, Pinero, like Shakespeare, is a -thoroughly experienced playwright. - -No doubt the younger writers of to-day have been led into their contempt -for the business they have undertaken by the success that has enriched -Mr. Bernard Shaw. They should remember, however, that he is more of a -preacher and society entertainer than a playwright, winning the game by -his delightful personality or personalities. He is an earnest religious -man, with a great hatred of the theatre, the stage, and entertainment, -to use his own words, “the great dramatist has something better to do -than to amuse either himself or his audience.” But dour Nonconformist as -he is, his dullest moments are interrupted by his deep insight into the -really funny things of this world. Mr. Shaw could make a sound play if he -cared enough about it to try to do so, and in “Arms and the Man” and “You -Never Can Tell” he showed much knowledge of the business. He would never, -I think, have attained the real grip of the matter that Shakespeare and -Pinero have, and knowing this he prefers to exploit his really great -qualities in other ways. - -But anyone can see for himself in this one little matter of entrances -how slovenly the modern writer can be. If you turn to Mr. Galsworthy’s -“Joy,” the play is opened without any effort being made to tell you the -names and identities of the people on the stage; so, too, I remember, -in the first act of the “Silver Box,” Mr. and Mrs. Borthwick discourse -amusingly about politics without disclosing who they are. No doubt these -little mysteries are easily solved by the regular up-to-date theatregoer -armed with a programme, but the absence of the information irritates -some of the duller members of the audience, and the play suffers. Mr. -Granville Barker, in “Waste,” opens his piece with a room containing five -ladies and one gentleman. He does not disclose you an identity by name -for twelve lines, and Mr. Walter Kent, one of the characters, is not -introduced by name until some nine pages of very clever dialogue have -been spoken. - -No one supposes that Mr. Galsworthy or Mr. Barker could not put these -little matters right somehow, though they could not do it with the -craftsmanship of Pinero or Shakespeare. Unfortunately they seem to have -a very real contempt for the minor details of the playwright’s business, -which prevents the full effect of their literary gifts being appreciable -in a theatre. Mr. Galsworthy, it is very pleasant to notice, is growing -out of these ways somewhat, and will probably, as his knowledge of the -stage increases, come to respect its old world characteristics, and -recognise that they are permanent, fixed, and unalterable. In his love of -pantomime and the exhibition of real things on the stage, he has the true -playwright’s instinct. His real police courts, real prisons, and real -boardrooms are admirable, and he is on the verge of understanding the -true gospel of the playwright according to Vincent Crummles, manager, who -really knew all about it from the Shakespearean standpoint. - -Of course, this little matter of opening a play and designing an -entrance for a character is only one of many simple matters that a -good workman or “wright” has to attend to, but it is a very important -one, and sufficiently illustrative of the difference between good and -bad craftsmanship. To extend the theme by citing further instances of -elementary rules broken and followed would be to commence an essay on the -construction of plays. But to anyone who wishes to pursue the matter, -it is curiously entertaining to see how in all essential things the -actor-playwright is invariably the better craftsman than the literary man -who commences dramatist. Mr. McEvoy, one of our most interesting modern -dramatists, who has still perhaps something of the craft to learn, writes -in a spirit of noble optimism: “I, as a dramatist, who knows how to do -things the right way, mainly because I never had to unlearn how to do -them wrong,” in a few words, expresses the attitude of the dramatist of -to-day towards the experience of centuries in the craft of playwriting. -No one doubts that Mr. McEvoy and others may help a little in the -evolution of the stage, but they lessen their chances of success by the -belief so piously held nowadays that there is nothing to be learned from -the playwrights that have gone before. It was reckoned a mad conceit that -prompted Walt Whitman to sing: - - “I conn’d old times - I sat studying at the feet of the great masters - Now if eligible O that the great masters might return and study me.” - -The modern genius finds nothing to study in the old masters, and if they, -poor fellows, were now eligible to return and study our world of genius, -I fear they would lack even the courtesy of an invitation box. - -It is a pity that it should be so, but for my part I think it is only -a temporary matter, and that, like all other things connected with the -stage, it will work itself out under the wholesome discipline of the -Box Office. A man who will not learn some of the elementary rules of -playwriting must ultimately become too expensive for the most patient -patron. Nor should we blame the literary man who turns dramatist very -severely because he has a contempt for the craft of the playwright. He -was born for higher things. His journalist friends proclaim the value of -his ideas, and the literary expression of them in his play, and it is -only the carelessness of the players and the stupidity of the playgoers -that hinder his success. It is all to the good for the stage that men of -education and intellect should be players, and that good artists should -be scene painters, but no one who is a player or a painter expects to -succeed in his stage work without learning the rules of the game. Why -should a literary man despise the craft of the playwright when he seeks -to earn his wages as a craftsman? - -There is nothing new in this distaste of a literary man for the baser -duties of playwriting. Bulwer Lytton, who, whatever we may think of his -literary qualities, had undeniable talent as a playwright, discovered -when he wrote “The Duchess de la Vallière” the interesting fact that -playwriting was a special craft and that “dramatic construction and -theatrical effect” were mysteries to be mastered. “I felt,” he writes in -his preface to the _Lady of Lyons_, “that it was in this that a writer -accustomed to the narrative class of composition would have the most -faults to learn and unlearn. Accordingly, it was to the development -of the plot and the arrangement of the incidents I directed my chief -attention, and I sought to throw whatever belongs to poetry less into the -diction and the ‘felicity of words’ than into the construction of the -story, the creation of the characters and the spirit of the pervading -sentiment.” - -Genius will shrug his shoulders at the name of Bulwer Lytton, but as -a playwright two things are worth remembering about him—first, that -in modern phrase he “got there,” and, second, that “he remains.” And -if genius desires to write plays with a view to “getting there” and -“remaining,” after the manner of Bulwer Lytton and other greater men -who have stooped to the craft, let genius seriously consider whether, in -his own interests as well as in the interests of the harmless necessary -playgoer, it is not worth while to learn the rules of the game and -commence playwright. - - - - -ADVICE TO YOUNG ADVOCATES. - - Here in the street poor Juvenis - May raise his head and proudly trudge - Alongside Judex—judicis - The Third Declension—Judge. - - _Pater’s Book of Rhymes._ - - -In England the legal profession has two branches. There is also the -root of the matter, but that is seldom referred to. These two branches -are called—(i.) The Upper Branch, and (ii.) The Lower Branch. In great -affairs the Lower Branch tells the Upper Branch what it has learned about -the case from the client, and the Upper Branch tells the Court what it -remembers of what it has been told by the Lower Branch. The advantage -of retaining these separate branches is that where error occurs it is -difficult to assign responsibility therefor. The Upper Branch learns -advocacy by passing examinations and eating dinners; the Lower Branch -by means of further and better examinations and fewer dinners. Those -rules of advocacy that have not been learned by that method are acquired -afterwards, if at all, by practical experience in the Courts of Law at -the expense of the client. - -To offer advice to members of the Upper Branch of the Profession on the -Art of Advocacy would be unseemly, and these hints are intended—merely -as suggestions made in the friendliest spirit—for the Law Student of the -Lower Branch who proposes to take up advocacy in those inferior Courts -which are open to him. Long experience of sitting as Judge in an inferior -Court has led me to believe that it is not necessary or convenient that -the advocacy should also be inferior, and I humbly commend this point of -view to the younger members of both branches of the Profession. - -Perhaps the most important Court from the young solicitor’s point of -view is the County Court. A solicitor is allowed to act for a client -in a County Court. When he is acting he has what is called a right of -audience. This does not mean that all he says will be listened to by -the audience, even if it be uttered in an audible voice. Moreover, the -advocate’s right of audience must not be confounded with the rights of -the audience themselves, who are always entitled to leave the Court if -they are bored. For this purpose the Judge is not “audience.” He is -bound to go on sitting, and ought to listen. The commission of Judge is -_oyer_ and _terminer_, but in actual practice in County Courts you will -find that Judges are more ready to dispense justice _terminando_ than -_audiendo_. - -Law students who have afterwards risen to eminence in their profession -have sought to practise advocacy in their earlier years by making -appearances at the local Police Courts as defendants. Much of the law of -the motor-car may be learned in this matter—and much that is not law. -The young enthusiast will find, I fear, that the method is an expensive -one, the legal educational value of the magistrate’s _dicta_ is slight, -and the opportunities allowed by the magistrate’s clerk to the defendant -for the practice of advocacy wholly unsatisfying. - -Even in later life the young solicitor is not advised to begin his career -as an advocate in the Police Courts. Criminals have very little cash, -and ought not to receive much credit. As to licensing matters, these -are wisely placed in the hands of matured and experienced advocates. -A licensing Bench has always made up its mind—which is divided into -two parts—long before the case is called on, and the advocate’s duty -is to say nothing that could conceivably disturb the considered -judgment of the Court. This is a delicate task not often entrusted to -beginners, and although it is well worth while to study the technic of -some of the masters of the game, yet it is to be remembered that only -with a licensing Bench, and perhaps before some of the more remote -Ecclesiastical Courts, is this style of advocacy required. The young -solicitor will probably find more scope for his abilities as an advocate -in the County Court than before any other tribunal. The Judges of these -Courts are far more tolerant of advocacy and less dogmatic on legal -questions than lay Magistrates, and are neither as omnipotent nor as -omnivorous as Magistrates’ Clerks. - -Thus much for advocacy in general. “I will now,” as Lord Chesterfield -says, “consider some of the various modes and degrees of it.” I assume -that you are a young solicitor entrusted by some hopeful and friendly -client with a County Court Action. Your first duty as a solicitor -advocate is to get something on account of costs. Do not omit this common -opening. A gambit here is a mistake. The fact of your client being a -personal friend makes it the more necessary. Many a friendship has not -survived a fourteen days’ order to pay a debt and costs. This sum on -account may prove your real and only solace (_solatium_) when you hear -the judgment. - -Always consider yourself before your client. Your client is here to-day -and gone to-morrow, whilst you, I hope, may remain. Proper pride will -instinctively teach you when to consider your own interests rather than -your client’s. Remember Bacon’s saying that “Affected dispatch is one -of the most dangerous things to business that can be.” All dispatch -is indeed alien to the interests of your profession, whether affected -or otherwise, but there are many forms of affectation which you will -find useful to your advancement. I would not have you pretend to forget -the names of the earlier cases you obtain, though I do not advise you -to take cognisance of the Court number of your case. If you knew this -it would save the Court officials trouble, and they are paid to take -trouble. Later in life you will find it well to call the Defendant by -the Plaintiff’s name and _vice versa_. It suggests to the Court and the -audience that you have too many cases to attend to, though it will not -gratify your particular client. - -In examining a witness, never let him tell his own story in his own -way. Many a case is lost by this. The leading question is a sign of -ripe advocacy. But do not overdo it; remember over-ripeness is rotten. -The seniors at the Bar are called “leaders” from their habit of using -this form of question unless restrained by quasi-physical violence. -Cross-examination is not merely the art of making the witness cross. If -your opponent’s witness proves nothing against your client, cross-examine -vigorously. By this means the truth is often brought out and justice is -done. During your cross-examination notice carefully whether the Judge is -taking a note of the answers you are obtaining, or writing letters. In -either case do not prolong your cross-examination, for if the latter it -is useless trouble, and if the former it is probable you are eliciting -answers that will be used against you. In re-examination, endeavour to -lead your witness once more through his proof. It is an excellent test of -judicial complacency. - -The rules of the County Court are to be found in books, and need not -therefore be committed to memory. Indeed, most law can be found in -books by those who know where to look for it. Yet it is ill to stir the -green mantle of the standing pool of law yourself if you can persuade -another to do it for you. A slight knowledge of the first principles -of elementary law will always be welcome in any Court. You may evade a -detailed study of the more intricate points in your case by insisting -that it falls within the rule laid down in one of Smith’s Leading Cases. -For this purpose, however, you should learn at least the one rule you -propose to quote. After all, the Judge has to decide the law, and ought -to know it. The legal presumption is that everyone knows the law—this -includes Judges. In cases under the Workmen’s Compensation Act, be -careful how you quote a decision of the Court of Appeal. It may not have -gone to the House of Lords, but if it did it is well to find out what -happened to it when it got there. If an appeal to the House of Lords is -pending the current odds against the legal value of the existing decision -will be found in any sporting paper. If, during your argument, the Judge -points out to you that there is a leading case deciding exactly the -opposite of what you are arguing, ask him, with pained irritation, to be -patient, and tell him you will distinguish it presently—but do not try to -do so. Never give yourself away unnecessarily, rather give your client -away, and you will find that generosity of this kind is never forgotten. - -Allow the Registrar’s clerks to fill up for you the prolix and difficult -forms in use in the County Court. They are not solicitors, and are -therefore less likely to make mistakes in the work. If, however, a -mistake is made you can always explain to the Judge how it arose, and -you will not be blamed for it. In any case, where the law is really -obscure and difficult, agree with your learned friend to leave the -matter entirely to His Honour. By this means His Honour—if he makes no -objection—will have to hunt up the authorities, and this will save you -and your learned friend much useless labour, whilst the decision of the -Judge will be far more valuable to your client. If you lose your case and -your client loses his temper, blame the Judge, and urge your client to -write to one of the Government departments—it does not matter which—to -make a formal complaint of the Judge’s conduct. Government departments -enjoy correspondence, and will treat your client’s letter with the -respect and attention it deserves. On days when county cricket matches -are being played in the neighbourhood of the Court, and generally on -fine summer afternoons, your arguments will be the more admired if they -are brief and occasionally to the point. If the case you have lost is -for an amount of over £20, nevertheless ask leave to appeal. You do not -want leave, but the Judge may not remember this, and may either grant or -refuse it. In any case it gives you what you are probably longing for at -that particular moment—an effective exit. Finally, remember that however -genuine your contempt for the Court may be, you conceal it until you get -outside—otherwise, seven days. - -If the law student will peruse these suggestions and act upon them, -and assuming him to be, as no doubt he believes he is, a young man of -clear, strong, subtle intellect, of sound judgment, quick perceptions -and brilliant forensic abilities, I can assure him that there is nothing -between him and a very considerable and remunerative practice as an -advocate in the County Court in matters which are not of sufficient -importance to “stand” Counsel. - - - - -THE INSOLVENT POOR. - - “Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every - side and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts - are like cannon; of loud noise but little danger.” - - —_Dr. Johnson._ - - -The average man—the “man in the street,” as the journalist of to-day -calls him—has no clear notion of the affairs of the County Court. He -reads occasional paragraphs in the evening papers of some amusing -incident, in which the humour of the Plaintiff or Defendant is capped -by the humour of the playful and learned Judge, and the humour of the -reporter, displayed in his dramatic sketch of the litigants, is the -chief motive for the record of the case. I have often been told that my -work must be very amusing, that I must see a great deal of life, and -that County Court cases seem very entertaining, and I have come to the -conclusion that those of the public who never enter a County Court, or -read any sane record of its everyday work, which is too often dull, -wearisome, and painful, and no fit material for paragraphs and headlines, -live in the belief that the occupation of a Judge of a County Court is -a legal form of small beer and skittles, in which the Judge’s part is -to preside with free and easy good humour, and settle disputes with as -much wit and readiness as he happens to possess. No one who has any -experience of the actual proceedings of the Courts would recognise such -a picture as in any way portraying the facts of the case. - -In Manchester and Salford I was able to divide the work of the Courts -into two classes, and to keep them distinct from each other. One -contained an increasing number of Bankruptcy, High Court, and other -cases, in which the litigants are of the same class and have the same -legal assistance as in the High Court. The main differences between the -High Court and the County Court in the conduct of such actions, being the -simplicity of the procedure, and the rapidity and punctuality of trial -in the inferior Court. The second, and to my mind the more important, if -less interesting class of cases, was the large mass of debt collecting -cases under £2, which were the original work of Courts created by the -legislature for the “better securing the payment of small debts.” The -first class of work is a somewhat onerous compliment to the ability with -which the County Courts of the country are worked, but the second class -ought always, it seems to me, to be the chief interest and care of County -Court officials. And in the work connected with this smaller class of -cases, the chief result of my experience has been a dull sense of the -enormous mass of misery and wretchedness it is one’s duty to cause, and -the despondent feeling that of necessity oppresses one in the presence of -misfortune, that one can sympathise with, but not to any material extent -alleviate. I should like, therefore, if it be possible to bring home to -the average citizen the hopeless and almost degrading position of the -insolvent poor, and to suggest for his consideration some of the reforms -which, with or without legislation, might assist in bringing about a -better state of things. - -To begin with, one may state that there are over a million cases entered -every year in County Courts, to recover debts under £20, and it will -give some idea of how few cases are seriously disputed when I state that -there are only between eleven and twelve thousand cases in which the -Plaintiff fails to succeed, and these latter figures refer to all cases -up to and above the £50 limit. Many cases get settled, some plaints -never get served, but I have no doubt that one is well within the mark -in stating that 98 per cent. of cases under £20 result in judgment for -the Plaintiff. It is clear, therefore, that the Court is to this extent a -collecting agency rather than a Court for the determination of disputes, -and it is, in this respect, that its machinery should be examined. Few -who do not know by personal experience, something of the life of the -poorer class of working men and women, recognise the enormous extent -to which they live and have their being on credit. The extent to which -credit is given, and recklessly given, to men, women, and children, by -the competing tradesmen who supply the working classes, would be an -absurdity if it did not lead to so much misery. As Judge Chalmers put it -in an epigram born of his wide experience of the insolvent poor: “They -marry on credit to repent on Judgment Summonses.” - -Now the two main causes of this reckless system of credit are:—(1) the -keen competition among tradesmen; (2) the existence of imprisonment for -debt. It is not advisable here to say much of trade competition. If it -were a competition to sell the best goods at the most reasonable price it -would perhaps be healthy enough, but it seems to be rather a competition -to give the longest credit for the most inferior article. The largest -classes of competitors are the money lenders, the credit drapers, or -“Scotchmen,” the travelling jewellers, the furniture hirers, and all -those firms who tout their goods round the streets for sale by small -weekly instalments. These of necessity give reckless credit, and, equally -of necessity, collect their monies with much suffering to their poorer -customers. It seems fairly clear that to a working man on small weekly -wages, no credit can be given in any commercial sense. A tradesman, if -he gives credit at all to such a man, ought to give it upon the ground -that he has reason to believe that he is an honest man who can and will -pay his debts. As a matter of fact, the two chief reasons, or rather -excuses, for giving credit are both somewhat weak. Tradesmen will tell -you that they have given a man credit either because he was in receipt of -good wages or because he was out of work. In the first case they ought -clearly to insist upon cash, and the workman ought to get the advantage -of a cash price, and in the second case they should only give credit if -they know the character of the man, unless, of course, they choose to -call it charity, with which the County Court has nothing to do. But in -truth, credit is given without enquiry, recklessly and equally to those -in work and out of work, for necessities, luxuries, and inutilities, -and given at a price which includes the profit of the credit giver, his -costs of making weekly collections, the costs of his debt collector or -solicitor, and ultimately a considerable tribute towards the maintenance -of the County Court. - -Now all this is only possible because of the second factor in our -treatment of the insolvent poor, namely, imprisonment for debt. The -insolvent rich—if we may use such a phrase—do not nowadays fear -imprisonment for debt. At the expense of a few pounds borrowed from a -friend, they file their petition in bankruptcy and shake themselves -free of all their creditors as if by magic; for not being traders their -discharge is of little importance to them, and they go absolutely -unpunished. I set down a few cases from an Annual Report of the Board of -Trade for comparison with some other cases, which I propose to set out -later:— - - “Bristol. No. 64, of 1896. - - Liabilities expected to rank £36,631 - Probable value of assets on realisation £100.” - - Debtor, younger son of a duke. Creditors, mostly money-lenders - and tradesmen. His expenditure, which included losses by - betting, largely exceeded his income, and knowledge of his - insolvent position for some considerable period was admitted. - - “Kingston. No. 21, of 1896. - - Liabilities expected to rank £21,741 - Probable value of assets on realisation £667.” - - Debtor, formerly in the army, lived on his wife’s income, lost - money in Stock Exchange speculations and betting. No income - except £135 derived under marriage settlement. - - “No. 471, of 1896. - - Liabilities expected to rank £298,166 - Probable value of assets on realisation £1,700.” - - Debtor, a peer. At the time of his succeeding to estates - in 1864 his liabilities were £30,000, and have apparently - continued to increase in consequence of his expenditure being - larger than his income. His discharge was suspended three years - on account of unjustifiable extravagance in living. - -These are samples of the glorious achievements of the insolvent rich. -Now let us turn to the shorter and simpler annals of the insolvent poor. -For them the maxim, “_Si non habet in aere luat in corpore_,” is still -a living truth, only they hear it as quoted to me once by a poor woman -in the words of some Scotch draper: “If I canna ’ave yer brass I’ll -tek yer body.” The law is not the same for the speculator who lives -extravagantly above his income to the injury of his creditors and the -working man on five-and-twenty shillings a week who fails to live within -his means. The latter is only in a very limited sense the creature of -bankruptcy. The luxury of legal insolvency is almost denied to him. He -is ordered to pay his creditor, and the costs his creditor has incurred -in obtaining judgment, and the fees of the County Court, at so many -shillings a month, and if he fails to pay his instalments his creditor -proceeds, at further cost to the debtor, to collect them by means of -a judgment summons. Then, upon proof that he has or has had the means -to pay the instalments due, he is committed to prison for default. Few -citizens, I think, recognise the number of persons who are thus committed -to prison. In 1909[2] no less than 375,254 summonses were issued, 234,753 -heard, 136,630 warrants issued, and 8,904 debtors actually imprisoned. -Nor can it be granted that of those who pay between the issue of the -summonses and the day of imprisonment, all, or nearly all, are in a -position to pay, in the sense of possessing surplus money sufficient -to discharge the debt. Friends and relatives come to the rescue, fresh -credit is obtained to pay off the old debt, and thus the result of a -committal order is too often to thrust the unfortunate debtor one step -deeper into the slough of insolvency in which he is already sinking -beyond recovery. At the same time it is of no use railing at the system. -The Select Committee of 1893 reported generally in favour of it, mainly, -I think, because the working class themselves uphold it. They uphold -it for one reason—and a powerful one—because without imprisonment for -debt there would be no reckless credit, and without reckless credit -there would be no possibility of prolonging a strike after their own -accumulated funds began to give way. All that any individual Judge can -do is to administer the system with as much sympathy and mercy as is -compatible with its honest working, without prejudice to his right of -private protest as a citizen against its social iniquity. - -Having now pointed out the position of the small debtor in the County -Court, I want to draw attention to an existing system of small -Bankruptcies known as Administration Orders which are very little used -or appreciated by either the Courts or by debtors, but which with some -improvements might do much to mitigate the evils of the existing system -of imprisonment and check the recklessness with which credit is given to -the poor. - -This Administration Order was the creation of the Bankruptcy Act of 1883, -and in a few words the system may be thus described: Where a debtor has -a judgment against him in a County Court and is unable to satisfy it -forthwith, and alleges that his whole indebtedness does not exceed £50, -he may file a request for an Administration Order. In this request he -gives a full list of all his creditors with particulars of their debts, -and states whether or not he proposes to pay them in full and by what -monthly or other instalments. Notice is given to creditors of the date of -hearing, and on that day the Judge either makes or refuses the order, or -makes a modified order at his discretion. As soon as the order is made -all proceedings against the debtor, in respect of the debts scheduled, -are suspended, and the creditors individually cannot attack him. He can, -however, if he does not pay his instalments, be committed for default -or the order can be rescinded. The fund created by his payments is -appropriated—(1) for the Plaintiff’s costs in the action; (2) for the -Treasury fees, which are 2s. in the £ on the total amount of the debts; -and (3) for the debts in accordance with the order. - -This is the system which Mr. Chamberlain, on the second reading of his -Bill, March 19th, 1883, described as a system whereby the “small debtor -would be in exactly the same position as a large debtor who had succeeded -in making a composition with his creditors or in arranging a scheme of -liquidation. Although he had not abolished in all cases imprisonment for -debt, yet, if these provisions became law, it could be no longer said -that any inequality existed in the law as between rich and poor. The -resort to imprisonment[3] to secure payment would be much rarer, and a -large discretion would be vested in the Judges to arrange for the relief -of the small debtor by a reasonable compensation.” - -These were brave and wise words, interesting to-day as showing the then -intentions of the author of the system, hopeful to-day as suggestive of -what may be expected from those in authority when they recognise the -failure of the system in achieving the objects for which it was invented. - -The advantage of the Administration Order over the individual collection -of debts is manifest, but the imperfections in the system are equally -manifest. The limit of £50, and the exorbitant Treasury fees to be paid -in priority to the dividend to creditors, are of themselves sufficient -to account for the failure of the system. Thus it is not surprising to -find that in many of the Courts this section of the Act is a dead letter, -and the Administration Order is unknown. There is, and I think rightly, -a wide discretion given to Judges of the County Courts who are supposed -to study the needs and wants of their particular localities, and minister -to these wants in a quasi-pastoral spirit. Without the active assistance -of Judges and Registrars such a system as this could not be either known -to—or understood by—the insolvent poor. Many Judges probably think the -system worthless, and in consequence it is not used. Thus in 1909, on -two circuits, 5 and 8, Bolton and Manchester, 821 orders were made, -while on five large London circuits, 40-44 inclusive, only 37 orders -were made. I have myself found a considerable increase in applications -for Administration Orders since I have encouraged debtors whose affairs -were in a hopeless state, to make their application, and taken occasion -to explain to debtors appearing on Judgment Summonses the provisions of -the section enabling them to apply. How hopeless is the condition of many -of the insolvent poor, and what they are reduced to by reckless credit -given to them by some classes of tradesmen may be seen from some of -the following cases extracted from the Administration Order Ledgers of -Manchester and Salford:— - - “M. No. 358.—Labourer; wife; 9 children; 18s. per week; 12 - creditors; 7 judgments; debts £40. 9s. 8d. Has nearly finished - paying these at 5s. in the £ by instalments of 6s. a month. The - Treasury got £3. 4s. Court fees on the 7 judgments, and £4 fees - on the Administration Order. - - “M. No. 399.—Labourer; 22s. a week; wife; 11 children, two - earning 5s. a week; 14 creditors; 10 judgments; debts £44. 16s. - 1d. Was paying 10s. in the £ at 10s. per month. Paid £6; order - then rescinded. Treasury taking £4. 8s. fees; creditors, £1. - 12s. The Treasury had previously had £3. 17s. Court fees on the - 10 judgments. - - “S. No. 429.—Railway Porter; 16s. 10d. a week; wife and 1 - child, aged three; 19 creditors; 13 of the creditors travelling - drapers; debts, £33. 10s. Order, 10s. in the £ at 5s. 6d. a - month. Before the Order was made he was, under the 9 judgments, - bound to pay 39s. 6d. a month, and liable to committal if he - failed. The Treasury had already had £3. 4s. 9d. Court fees - on the judgments, and will get a further £3. 6s. fees on the - Administration Order. - - “S. No. 551.—Labourer; wife and 6 children, two earning jointly - 10s. per week; wages, 18s. a week; 18 creditors, of whom - 11 were travelling drapers; 16 judgments; debts, £20. 10s. - 2d. Already liable to pay 35s. a week to different judgment - creditors. Order made, 10s. in the £ at 4s. a month. Court - fees already paid to Treasury £4. 14s. 3d. Under the Order they - will have another £2. In this case the State has added more - than 30 per cent. to the original indebtedness of the man in - the vain endeavour to make him do what he was unable to do, - _i.e._, pay his debts without the means to pay them. - - “S. No. 460.—Ostler; wife; no children; 21s. a week; 25 - creditors; 9 judgments; debts, £32. 7s. 6d.; 14 of the - creditors travelling drapers. Order, 10s. in the £ at 6s. per - month. Apart from the Order he was bound under the judgments - to pay 22s. a month. Here the Treasury have already had £2. - 8s. 6d. Court fees, and will get a further £3. 4s. fees on the - Order.” - -In the three last cases the insolvency was chiefly due to a careless -wife. The porter’s wife was quite young and an easy prey for the -travelling draper. - -From these cases it is at least clear that if such debtors are to be -left to their various creditors, a large portion of their time will be -spent in evading the service of Judgment Summonses or appearing in Court, -either by themselves, or more usually by wife and baby, to show cause -why they should not go to gaol. Without the assistance of some form of -bankruptcy and discharge their case is hopeless, and their future must be -one of chronic insolvency. - -One of the chief objections to the present system raised by creditors -is the exorbitant fees charged by the Treasury. Parliament enacted that -these fees should “not exceed” 2s. in the £ on the total amount of the -debt. The Treasury interpreted this to mean that there should always be -2s. in the £, whatever composition was paid, and ordered accordingly. -So, if a man’s total debts be £50, the Treasury draw £5, whether the -debtor pays 20s. in the £ or 2s. in the £, and draws this in priority -to creditors and whether the Order is fully carried out or not. As we -have seen, the Treasury have often, before the Order is made, drawn -considerable sums on judgments forming part of the Order, and creditors -contend, and I think rightly, that these fees are excessive. - -Some time ago I collected the views of the Judges on these fees, and -forwarded them to the Treasury. Speaking generally, they were adverse -to the fees, but the Treasury, although they have the power to mitigate -the fees, cannot see their way to do it. I put this matter in the -forefront of possible reforms, because it can be done by a stroke of the -departmental pen without legislation, and if done would do much to render -these orders more useful to—and therefore less unpopular with—creditors. -I have often pointed out to grumbling creditors that these fees were -probably not intended by Parliament to be exacted, for I have never -thought it part of my duty to apologise for the rapacity of a Government -department. And when I saw the figures for 1909, “Treasury income from -fees on Administration Orders £12,824, money paid to creditors £45,059,” -I could only concur in the view that it was little short of a scandal -that such an income should be drawn by any department out of so miserable -and helpless a class as the insolvent poor, especially when it is done at -the expense of those to whom they owed money. - -The Treasury, of course, have a departmental view perfectly sane and -satisfactory after its sort. If I understand the view aright it is -this:—These Orders do not pay their way according to our calculations. -There is an income of nearly £13,000 a year coming to us under an Act of -Parliament, and our duty is to take what is provided, asking no questions -for conscience sake. If one could get beyond the department to the -individuals composing it, and make them realise in the midst of their -great affairs that this sum of £13,000 a year, trumpery but acceptable, -at Whitehall, is a grievous tax in the cottages of the insolvent poor, -some reform would perhaps be made. Indeed, I cannot but think that the -departmental view of the small work of the County Court is altogether -wrong in principle, and that the time is at hand when Parliament should -enforce a more modern view of its duties on the department. The constant -cry is that the Courts do not pay. The answer is that they ought not -to be asked to do so. The toll-bar principle ought to be gradually -abolished, and the Courts of the country ought to be as free to Her -Majesty’s poorer subjects as the high roads. Nowhere is this more true -than in the County Court, where the fees throughout are exorbitant and -excessive, pressing with the greatest harshness on those who are already -over-burdened with debts. - -These and other matters have, however, been reported upon by -commissioners and mentioned in Parliament. The only immediate reform -that can be made is the reduction in Treasury fees. That can be done -forthwith and without legislation if Parliament desires it, and ought -to be done without delay. After that it will be time to put forward -a more satisfactory scheme of small bankruptcies, open to all weekly -wage-earners, whatever the amount of their debts, with an official -receiver responsible to the creditors and the Court. Parliament ought -at least to find time to carry out the recommendations of the Select -Committee of the House of Lords in their report on the working of the -Debtors’ Act, printed in 1893. The most important suggestion there made -was: “That the question of costs in respect of Judgment Summonses and -Orders of Commitment is one deserving serious consideration, and that it -would be advisable that a Departmental Committee of the Treasury should -carefully consider the matter as early as possible.” This question of -costs and fees in all small proceedings is one that wants an immediate -and searching investigation and reform of a not wholly departmental -character. - -Meanwhile faith, which will remove mountains, enables me to believe that -the Departmental Committee of the Treasury are giving it a wise and most -deliberate consideration. Hope also buoys me up to look forward to a time -when Parliament will amend the Statutes of Limitations in regard to small -debts, curtail imprisonment for debt, and enact at least as favourable -laws for the insolvent poor as exist for the insolvent rich. Charity, -meanwhile, compels me to grieve that so little is done to stop the -reckless credit which is offered to the poorer classes, and to urge the -consideration of such measures as may assist the insolvent poor, who of -all our fellow citizens seem to me to demand pity and sympathy, in place -of punishment, rigour, and harsh laws. - - - - -WHY BE AN AUTHOR? - - “Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a - weariness of the flesh.” - - _Ecclesiastes_ xii., 12. - - -The connecting of the making of books with study is an old world idea -that it is difficult for a latter-day reader to understand. A modern -world recognises that book-making in all its branches is a natural -pursuit for those of the unemployed who honestly strive to live by their -wits. But if the making of books was allowed to be a national nuisance in -the days of Solomon, much more must it be so to-day, when books are fast -ceasing to be saleable, and have to be given away with out-of-date or -up-to-date newspapers, pounds of tea, and other doubtful merchandise. - -If, therefore, the supply of authors could be mitigated, much of this -long-standing trouble might be abated; and it becomes a reasonable thing -for a citizen—especially one who has himself been guilty of some of the -minor literary misdemeanours—to inquire why authors become authors, -instead of following some useful trade, and what human motive it is that -drives people to authorship. I do not pretend that I have found the -answer to the question, “Why be an Author?” If I had I should have solved -one of the riddles of the universe. But I can, perhaps, set forth a few -suggestions upon the lines of which future scientists will be able to -pursue the problem to its ultimate solution. - -To make a rough attempt at the classification of the common motives of -authorship is a bold thing to do. Experimentally I should set down—“in -the order of going in,” to use a cricket phrase—the four following, -namely:— - - (1) Vanity, or conceit. - (2) Greed. - (3) The fun of the thing, - and - (4) Having a message to deliver. - -And first of vanity or conceit. How easy this is to diagnose in the -literary works of others; how impossible to admit, even for a moment, -that it is at all a permissible suggestion about the motive of our own -work. And yet if one will be honest with oneself, what is there in life -that ministers to the delightful pleasure of vanity so thoroughly and -satisfactorily as the sight of one’s first printed production. I remember -well the first book I ever published. It was, curiously enough, a Life -of Queen Elizabeth, a subject I returned to in later years. It was not a -large book—but then at the time I published it I was not a large person, -being only nine years old, and the physical act of writing was burdensome -to me; spelling also had more difficulties about it than perhaps it has -to-day. No, it was not a large volume: to be exact it contained two -pages demi octavo of rather large print. It was not however, intended -to be printed in book form at all. It was rather a first effort at -journalism, and was written for the pages of an excellent periodical -called _Little Folks_, which had offered a prize for the best life of -the Maiden Queen. The prize, no doubt, was, as these things often are, -carelessly adjudged to some budding author, who has probably never been -heard of since. Anyhow, I did not get it, and my MS. was returned,—you -send a stamped envelope if you want it returned, never forget that—mine -was returned “highly commended.” That Editor has saved himself a lot of -nasty abuse from literary historians of the next century by those two -words, “highly commended.” He made a mistake, no doubt, about the prize; -but I, who have had to give many hundred decisions in my later years—not -perhaps verdicts of such moment, but concerning smaller matters, where -right decision is equally advisable—know the difficulties of coming to a -true result, and have long ago readily forgiven him. Doubtless the poor -fellow did his best, and if he is still alive—more power to his elbow, if -he has gone - - Where the Rudyards cease from Kipling, - And the Haggards ride no more - -then—peace to his ashes. - -The world was not however to lose this masterpiece. I remember showing it -to my father when it came back in its stamped envelope, and he put it in -his pocket, gravely expressing a desire to read it. I am not sure that he -did read it, but he had it printed—at Guildford, I believe, when he was -away on circuit. - -I remember him placing the parcel in my hands on his return and my -delight in opening it, and my wild surprise at the discovery of the -contents, and the awed silence that came over my soul when I saw the -print on the pages and knew I was an author. I can hear my father’s -good-natured laugh over the affair, and my mother’s insistence on my -autograph on the front page “with the author’s compliments.” I spelt -compliment with an “e.” It is absurd having two ways of spelling one -word. Afterwards I have a dim remembrance of walking about on air for -a few days, and finding it difficult to sit on chairs for any length -of time, and quite impossible to learn lessons. All my spare time was -taken up by reading the great work in solitary corners, and marvelling -at the beauty of the language and the respectability of the spelling. -When I went for a walk in Kensington Gardens I shrank from the gaze of -the populace, much as a real grown-up author might do, who had lived at -the Isle of Man or Stratford-on-Avon. After a time I became normal again, -but the mischief was done: I had, in the seventeenth century phrase, -“commenced author.” - -Looking back at the matter from the cold, grey standpoint of a -grandfather, there is this to be said for my first book. It is out of -print. It is so rare that I doubt if an American millionaire could buy -one. The last copies of it that I saw fell out of an old desk many years -ago, and were made into paper boats by my children. Luckily I have plenty -more materials for paper boats for the next generation when they shall -need them. - -I have written down this little experience because, to my mind, it is -perhaps the one certain instance I can testify to, of a book being -written wholly and entirely from motives of vanity or conceit. The -prize did not attract me in the least; it was, I believe, a book of -religious tendency. There was no greed about the matter. I did not do it -for the love of the thing, for in those days I spent my spare time in -carpentering and producing pantomime in a toy theatre. As for any sense -of having a message to deliver that was absurd, because I copied the bulk -of it out of Little Arthur’s History of England, carefully paraphrasing -the language to hide from the over-curious the source of my authorities. -There is no doubt that this book was written and produced solely by the -author’s—and perhaps his parents’—strong sense of vanity and conceit. I -can speak about the author impersonally to-day for he seems to me such an -entirely different person from myself. - -I have asked many living writers whether they have ever knowingly written -anything purely from motives of vanity and conceit. They all answer me in -a pained and haughty negative. For myself, I rather glory in it. It is -good to have done something that nobody else has achieved. It is a big -thing to have written at least one book that does not lie on the shelves -of the British Museum, a book the original edition of which no gold can -buy, a book that has given, to one reader at least, moments of more -thrilling joy than any book that was ever printed. - -But although we may accept the statements of living authors, that -they never feel moved to authorship by vanity, yet if we look at the -records of those who are gone we shall find schools of literature whose -mainspring has been conceit. Of such are the French _Philosophes_ of the -reign of Louis XV. of whom Carlyle writes: “They invented simply nothing: -not one of man’s powers, is due to them; in all these respects the age of -Louis XV. is among the most barren of recorded ages. Indeed, the whole -trade of our _Philosophes_ was directly the opposite of invention: it -was not to produce that they stood there, but to criticise, to quarrel -with, to rend in pieces, what has been already produced;—a quite inferior -trade: sometimes a useful, but on the whole a mean trade; often the -fruit, and always the parent of meanness in every mind that permanently -follows it.” - -And indeed in all critics there must be a marrow of conceit stiffening -the backbone. Else how could they—who fell out of the ranks footsore on -the march to battle—come along so complacently when the fight is over, -to talk to the soldiers covered with the grime and sweat of their work, -and tell them how easily it might all have been done without soiling the -pipeclay. - -All critics however do not write merely from this motive. There are -many of course writing from the far higher motive of greed. Then there -are some few who do it for the rare fun of the thing—to enjoy the -intense annoyance it gives to foolish, sensitive artists—these are the -mud flingers and corner boys of the trade, and of course a few critics -have lived who played the game and knew it and brought a message of -heaven-sent sympathy to the artist. Maybe such a one exists to-day, -in some corner behind the clouds, struggling to let his rays shine -encouragement on honest endeavour. - -But apart from the writings of critics vanity and conceit have always -been strong motives of authors. They are found especially in schools -of literature, where the form is preferred to the substance. Take our -eighteenth century writers and read the story of their lives. Can it be -denied that they were a vain crowd? Even Swift, Pope and Addison—the -greatest of them—were not without it. As for the smaller fry, with their -degrading squabbles and jealousies—their very faces seem to me pitted -with the small-pox of conceit. And throughout this period you have one -symptom;—the writer exalting the letter above the spirit,—and when you -find that, it is invariably the indication of disease, and the disease is -vanity. - -This is not only the case in writing. It is so in nearly all pursuits. -When you begin to believe in technical excellence of form as an end -in itself, it is necessary to become to some extent narrow, vain and -conceited or you will not achieve your end. In those arts in which form -is more essential to the art than substance, vanity and conceit are more -commonly found. Thus actors, singers, dancers, and schoolmasters are -often not without vanity. You may notice, too, that the minor technical -pursuits of life produce a certain conceit. It is occasionally observable -in the semi-professional lawn-tennis amateur. In a lesser degree too by -many golfers the same vice is sometimes displayed, but more often in the -club-house and on the first tee than during the progress of the game. -When a man is deeply bunkered style becomes a secondary consideration. - -But generally speaking all writers who think literature an affair of -quantities, metres, syntax and grammatical gymnastics, all men who -reverence literary form rather than practical substance, are bound -to write in a spirit of vanity and conceit, which is the only petrol -that can push them along the weary road they have chosen. It oppresses -you to-day to find this spirit in nearly all the great writers of the -eighteenth century. How Oliver Goldsmith stands out amongst them as the -one great writer with a human heart; how we readers of to-day love him -and reverence him with an enthusiasm we cannot offer to Addison himself. - -But enough of conceit and vanity, let us turn to our second motive—a far -pleasanter and more everyday affair—greed. I should put Shakespeare -among the first and greatest whose motive was greed. I cannot imagine -anyone taking the trouble to write a play from any other motive, -certainly not from a lower motive. Shakespeare’s main desire in -life, if we may trust his biographers, was to become a landowner in -Warwickshire—possibly a county magistrate. What an ideal chairman -he would have made of a licensing bench. Would Mistress Quickly’s -license have been renewed? I doubt it. Shakespeare wrote plays for the -contemporary box office to make money out of them and thrive. As Mr. -Sidney Lee tells us he “stood rigorously by his rights in all business -relations.” There being in those days no law of copyright he borrowed -all he could from common stock, added to it the wonderful flavouring -of his own personality and served up the immortal dramatic soup which -nourishes us to-day. After this fashion of borrowing, if Emerson be -right, the Lord’s Prayer was made. The single phrases of which it is -composed were, he says, all in use at the time of our Lord in the -rabbinical forms. “He picked out the grains of gold.” It is the same if -you think of it with Æsop’s fables, the Iliad and the Arabian Nights, -which no single author produced. And so must all great work be done, -for we are nothing of ourselves and if we do not take freely of those -who are gone before we can do naught. But only those have the right to -borrow who can embroider some new and glorious pattern on the homely -stuff they appropriate. Shakespeare had no vanity and conceit; no doubt -he wrote for the fun of the thing, as all writers who are worth their -salt must do, possibly—though I for one doubt it—he knew of the message -he was delivering to the world; but that he wrote his plays primarily -for greed, the few records of his life that we possess seem to me to -prove beyond reasonable doubt. Unless, of course, you are mad enough -to believe Bacon wrote the plays. Then indeed the motive power of the -author was greed—greed of a baser sort than Shakespeare’s—for the great -Lord Chancellor never did anything that I know of, except a few trivial -scientific experiments, from any other motive. - -But when I speak of Shakespeare and greed, I speak as a modern and not -as an Elizabethan. Greed in Shakespeare’s day meant the greed of filthy -lucre, the insatiate greediness of evil desires. It was an insanitary -word in those days. But greed to-day means something quite otherwise. -When I speak of greed as the main motive of authorship I use the word, -not with any old-fashioned dictionary meaning, but in an up-to-date, -clear-sighted, clarion, socialist sense. You speak to-day—those of you -who are in the movement—of the greed of the capitalist, the greed of the -employer. In this way I speak of the greed of the author. The greed of -anyone to-day is the greed which urges him to endeavour to enrich himself -and provide for himself and his family by using his brains in producing -things. Incidentally he may employ a vast number of people with less -brains or no brains, incidentally he may ruin himself after he has used -his brains, and paid a large number of people in publishing the result -of his brain-work; but do not let us in an age of socialism gainsay that -it is pure greed to use your brains for the purpose of putting money -into your own pocket. It is true this kind of greed led to Columbus -discovering America—but if he had not done so how many fewer capitalists -there would have been. Sir Walter Raleigh, too, was a bad instance of a -man moved by greed; we cannot acquit Drake, or the great Lord Burghley -or even my own historical heroine the Maiden Queen herself. The greed -of Elizabethan England is a thing to shudder at, if you are a real -socialist, and Shakespeare, I fear, must be found guilty from a modern -standpoint of having written his plays from the simple motive power of -greed. - -I am the more certain of this for the only Shakespearean play of modern -times “What the Butler Saw,” was written, I am ashamed to say, from -similar motives. I happen to know that this is a play after Shakespeare’s -own heart. I learned it in a vision. I am not a believer in dreams -myself, but there must be something in some of them, and mine is worthy -of the consideration of the Psychical Research Society. It was after the -first night of the Butler in London, and after a somewhat prolonged and -interesting supper with some of those responsible for the production,—in -psychical research supper should always be confessed to,—that I had -a curious dream of the people who were present at the theatre. Many -who appeared had actually been present, others had not. Milton and -Oliver Cromwell, both came up to me and hoped it would not have a long -run—Wordsworth, I remember, wanted to know what the Butler really did -see, and Charles Lamb, winking at me, took him away to tell him. It was -then that Shakespeare came and patted me lightly on the shoulder, saying -“It’s all right, my young friend”—young of course from Shakespeare’s -point of view—“I couldn’t have done it better myself.” - -Many will wonder why this story has not long before this gone the -round of the press. The answer is that I am not a business man. I once -mentioned the dream to a spiritualist, who said that there was no -evidence that it was the shade of Shakespeare—it might have been the -astral body of one of the inhabitants of the Isle of Man. I replied that -then we should have heard of it long ago. - -As an instance of dramatic justice it is interesting to know that the -production of this play costs its authors money. Incidentally it made -money for others, actors, actresses, scene-shifters, proprietors of -theatres, dramatic critics and the like, to the tune of tens of thousands -of pounds. Some day when I publish the play, as I hope to do, I will set -out in detail its financial side, which is quite as amusing as the play -itself. But the main point, which from a socialist point of view is so -entirely satisfactory, is that the brain-workers who wrote it, and the -capitalist who produced it lost over it; but that it provided work and -bread and cheese for a large number of people who might otherwise have -filled the ranks of the unemployed. It is a fitting termination to the -work of an author whose motive power is greed. The only fear is that if -this were always to happen, there might come a time when there would be a -shortage of authors ready to supply food and wages for others at a cost -to themselves. Personally, I do not think this is all likely to occur, -for authors seem to me a class of persons who will always be actuated by -vanity, and a greed of so unintelligent and unbusinesslike a character -that they will go on writing for others, rather than themselves to the -end of time. I in no way regret the results of “What the Butler Saw.” I -fear my greed is of a very poor commercial standard. I had plenty of fun -for my money. It is something to have written a masterpiece, and it is -something better to have seen it beautifully acted. I am very poor at -taking the amusements of life seriously, and even when playing golf I -often find myself looking at the scenery instead of at the ball. Indeed, -I am not sure that I did write “What the Butler Saw,” from any really -high sense of greed, and that may account for its having turned on me and -bitten me financially. I have more than a half belief that I wrote it for -the fun of the thing. - -And this brings me to my third motive of authorship, writing for the -fun of the things. All the best writing in the world—short of the very -highest and most sacred work—is done for the fun of the thing. Some -people prefer the phrase the love of the thing, and say it is the love -of the beautiful, or the love of mischief, or the love of romance that -moves them to writing. But I prefer to call it writing for the fun of the -thing, because that describes to me exactly what I mean. All games should -be played in this spirit, and writing is a far less serious game with -most of us than games like bridge or chess or golf or cricket. - -Charles Marriott—not the national novelist of our high seas, but Marriott -the modern—who has a gracious gift of hinting great ideas in simple -phrases and never shouts them at you, so that if you are a deaf reader -you do not always get the best out of him—Marriott says in “The Remnant”: -“Quite in the beginning, when men went out to kill their enemies or their -dinner, there was always one man who wanted to stay, at home and talk -to the women, and make rhymes and scratch pictures on bones.” There are -two great truths in this. One is that the first author was an artist. He -scratched pictures on bones long before he made rhymes. Of course he did -it for the fun of the thing. There could be no other reason, the motives -of vanity and greed were not open to him. There was no publisher in the -cave-dwellers’ days to seize his bones, and pay him a royalty on them, -and build a big cave for himself out of the proceeds of the speculation, -whilst the bone-scratcher slept in the open. I think a cave-artist had a -good time. He enjoyed his life in his own way, and I believe got better -food for his work than many an artist of to-day. But modern artists have -forgotten the great truth that to paint well you must paint for the fun -of the thing, as the cave-man scratched his bones, and as children draw -to-day if you give them paper and pencil, and don’t look on and worry -them. Few artists now paint for the fun of the thing without vanity or -greed, but when they do they sometimes find an echo in the shape of -a patron as mad as themselves, who buys pictures for the fun of the -thing, and not because the critics tell him that this or that is good. -The recent McCullough collection at Burlington House was worth showing -despite the sneers of the superior persons, because it was an honest -collection of what one man had really liked. What annoyed the critics was -that a man had bought the pictures because he loved them, and not because -he had been told he ought to love them. - -And then there is another great truth in what Marriott says. The -cave-artist stayed at home to make rhymes and pictures for the women -whilst the men went out to get the dinner. How few writers remember that -the real judges of literature are and must be the women of the country. -Women necessarily fill the churches and lecture halls, and the lending -libraries, and the theatres, and the picture galleries—only in music -halls do men predominate. It is for women primarily that all literature -and art are made to-day, just as they were in the cave-dweller’s time. -To follow out this interesting theme and account scientifically for the -phenomenon would take a longer essay than this. Moreover, one would run -up against the problem of the women who want to vote and many other -dangerous questions. The cave-dwellers really knew all about it. The men -went out to get the dinner in those days merely because there were no -shops in Cave Street—but the researches of all professors show that even -in those days the women ordered the dinner. And the voice that orders the -dinner, and the hand that rocks the cradle will always rule the world. - -If you want to test the value of writing for the fun of the thing in -relation to the work produced take the case of Southey. Southey was, -among the many mansions of literature of his day, the most eligible -mansion of all. He was a most erudite and superior literary man. But -though what he wrote was important and well paid for when he wrote it, -to-day the world has no use for it. But once in a way Southey wrote -a story for the fun of the thing and it will live for ever. I refer -of course to “The Three Bears.” Southey, strange to say, wrote that -wonderful story. He invented the immortal three, the Great Huge Bear with -his great rough gruff voice, and the Middle Bear with his middle voice, -and the Little Small Wee Bear with his little small wee voice. And such -a work of genius is it that already it is stolen and altered and the name -of the author is almost unknown. And just because he wrote it for the fun -of the thing it will go on living as long as there are children in the -world to tell it to. Porthos, Athos, and Aramis, Dumas’ three musketeers, -may vanish into oblivion, but the three bears will be a folk-lore story -when the affairs of this century are a prehistoric myth. - -Remember too, Southey’s companion, Wordsworth, the “respectable poet” -as De Quincey unkindly called him. Did he ever write anything for the -fun of the thing? Had he any fun in him to write with? Wordsworth serves -his purpose to-day, no doubt. He is there for professors of English -literature to profess. He is there for serious-minded uncles to present -as a birthday gift, in one volume bound in whole morocco, floral back -and sides, gilt roll, gilt edges, price sixteen shillings and sixpence, -to sedate nieces. But do the sedate nieces read his poetry? As Sam -Weller says: “I don’t think.” Coleridge again, when you set aside the -few poems that he did write for the fun of the thing, presents the -somewhat mournful spectacle of a literary man spending a literary life -doing literary work. You read of him starting this periodical and that -periodical, roaming about England in search of subscribers under the -impression that he had a message to deliver; when, sad to say, all the -while he was ringing his bell and shouting “Pies to sell” the tray on -his head was empty of any useful food for mankind. - -Compare these great names with that of their humble companion, Charles -Lamb. He never wrote an essay or a letter except for the fun of the -thing. He had to go down to an office day by day and do his task. He -might have kept pigeons or done a little gardening or played billiards, -but he preferred to read books and to go to plays and write about things -he loved. Not that his hobby was in its nature a higher thing to him than -another man’s, but it was his naturally, and he simply wrote because -he enjoyed writing, in the same way that he drank because he enjoyed -drinking. And what is the result? Southey has departed into the shadows, -when you take Wordsworth off the young lady’s shelves you have to blow -the dust off the top of the volume, and Coleridge is only to be found -in school poetry books which are carefully compiled by economic editors -of poems which are non-copyright. But Charles Lamb has more friends and -lovers to-day than he had in his own lifetime. He wrote for the fun of -the thing and the fun remains with us to-day, bounteous and joyful, -bubbling over with humour and delight, and overflowing with affection and -respect for everything that is best in human nature. - -And perhaps part of what I mean by writing for the fun of the thing is -to be found in a phrase that used to be uttered about writings that they -“touch your heart.” It is a curious old-fashioned phrase. It would -be interesting to enquire what it is that keeps a book alive through -after-generations. I think that this capacity of “touching the heart” -has much to do with it. Shakespeare, Dickens and Goldsmith had this -quality; so in a different way had Izaak Walton and Samuel Pepys. It may -be that this magic power is the salt that keeps a man’s writings sweet -among the varied temperatures of thought through which they survive. -Qualities of brain and intellect vary century by century, but what we -call the heart of man is the same to-day as it was when King David wrote -his psalms. Therefore, unless our writings appeal to the heart it is -impossible for them to attain everlasting life. Much of the literature -of to-day is, I fear, as Touchstone says—“damned like an ill-roasted -egg all on one side.” For the fashion of the hour is to despise the -heart and to sneer at the simple folk whose hearts still beat in harmony -with the silly domestic notions of love and honour and charity and -family life. To-day who would be a writer must write for the brains and -intellects of the learned—meaning by the learned those who have passed -sufficient examinations to render it unnecessary they should ever think -for themselves again. And even this is outdone by the new school who -pride themselves that the brain is as old-fashioned an audience for the -author as the heart, that the proper portion in the twentieth century is -the liver. If a book stirs the bile of all decent people it is to-day a -popular success. So unintelligent a view do some take of the movement -that they try to throw opprobrium upon it by the use of the epithet -“yellow” as in the phrase “Yellow Press”: whereas, yellow among the -inner brotherhood is the holy colour as typical of the movement as it -is of jaundice itself. Personally, I should like to send many of our -great novelists and playwrights of to-day to Harrogate for the season. -I believe that a course of ten ounce doses of the “strong sulphur,” at -that charming watering place would diminish the risk for them of a far -longer course of far stronger sulphur in the hereafter. Their writings -may have a vogue for a time and after all their position in literature -will not be decided by anything I say, or anything their friendly and -scholarly critics say, except in so far as we are atoms of the general -mob of mankind whose taste is final. For as Newman said: “Scholars are -the tribunal of Erudition, but of Taste the educated but unlearned public -is the only right judge.” - -But before I deal with the last motive of authorship which I suggest, let -me say a few words about an entirely different answer to the question -I am putting “Why be an Author?” There are wise men who declare that a -man is an author from pre-destination; because he cannot help himself, -because he is built that way. In other words that to be an author is a -habit like drink or gambling. I can see that if this theory gains ground, -libraries are going to have a rough time of it in the future. No doubt -there are people—like myself—who waste a great deal of time in reading -and writing which might be better used by digging in the garden, or -cleaning the boots. As education proceeds upon the lines of to-day this -bad habit will grow more popular. Young folk will take to spending their -evenings, and even their Sundays, in libraries and meeting together over -books as they do over football. Older folks will imbibe books much as -they imbibe beer. Respectable employers of labour will see the danger of -it—indeed, many of them to-day are clamouring against plays and fiction -and other literary products as evil in themselves. They will, I think, -rightly begin by persuasion. They will form Blue Ribbon Societies and a -United Kingdom Alliance for the total suppression of the Book Trade. Then -will come, in the natural order of things, a Licensing Bench to license -libraries. On this no magistrate will sit who has ever written a book, or -been connected with the publishing trade, but magistrates who are total -abstainers from reading and writing will properly form a majority of the -tribunal. And in the city of Manchester, which is a city of Libraries, -which library will they close first? I should say the Ryland’s Library. -For there is a seductive beauty about its surroundings, and the books it -gives you to drink are of such wondrous flavour and served in such rare -goblets, that to the poor erring man, who like myself is not a teetotaler -among books, the temptation to leave his worldly duties and forget -his tasks among its luxurious pleasures, is one that wise magistrates -will not permit. Then, too, the landlord—I mean the librarian—is such -a kind-hearted fellow. Always ready to give you another—and nothing to -pay. Charles Lamb would never have got to the East India Office if the -Ryland’s Library had been in his path. For my part I always used to -approach my County Court in Quay Street from the other side, saying to -myself as I crossed Deansgate, “Lead us not into temptation.” - -Do not think that this idea of a future licensing authority for -literature is by any means a fanciful one. We have seen a Yorkshire town -council turning Fielding’s works out of a free library to their own -eternal disgrace, and a Library Committee in Manchester boycotting Mr. -Wells. Already Town Councils decide what sort of plays we may go and see, -and what sort of dances are good for us, and absolutely settle for us -what we are to drink in between the acts, putting all the whisky on one -side of the street and all the soda on the other. When, therefore, the -town council mind wakes up to the fact that from a respectable employer -of labour point of view the author habit is as dangerous a habit as the -drink habit, the licensing system will most certainly extend. And I feel -sure when things progress and authors themselves are made to take out -licenses I shall run a serious risk—unless I mend my ways—of having my -license endorsed. - -But for my own part, I do not believe in an author habit any more than I -greatly believe in a drink habit. Given sanity I believe a man can keep -off authorship if he tries. I never seriously tried, but I think I could -stop, if I wished to, even now. And there would be a danger in any system -of state or municipal control of authors that you might hinder or prevent -the author who has a message to deliver. Surely there are enough amateur -censors to bully and destroy the man with a message without setting the -Town Council at him. And the man with a message after all is the only man -who can plead justification to the indictment “Why be an Author?” - -Of course there are messages and messages; purely business and temporary -messages, and heaven-sent messages of eternal import to mankind. Of -temporary messages, sermons, and scientific treatises should be published -by telegraph, lest the message become stale news before it reaches its -destination. All books written by craftsmen and schoolmen to impart -knowledge are instances of books written by people who have messages to -deliver. Lamb calls some of them _biblia a biblia_—books that are no -books. In a sense he is right, the more so because this class of book is -generally written by an author, wholly unable to explain the very limited -message he sets out to deliver. Reading a text-book is too often like -listening to a stutterer over the telephone. You know that he knows what -he has to say, but he can’t get it over the wires to your receiver. Some -literary gift is required even to write a school book. One must have -knowledge, power of arrangement, and the gift of imparting knowledge to -the ignorant. This last quality depends, I believe, in a great measure -on the capacity in the writer to conceive the depth of ignorance in his -probable readers. - -He must have the rare faculty of putting himself in the students’ place. -I do not myself remember a single good school book—but that may be due -to my youthful inattention, rather than any critical insight in early -life. On the other hand, I can name three books which I regard as models -of the kind of message-literature I am speaking about; books that told -me clearly and admirably everything I wanted to know about the subjects -they dealt with. These books are, Dr. Abbott’s “How to write clearly,” -Sir James Fitzjames Stephen’s “Law of Evidence,” and Mr. H. Paton’s -“Etching Drypoint and Mezzotint.” The last book I regard as a model of -what a practical treatise on a craft should be. Although himself an -etcher of experience and great ability, he is able to follow the mind of -the ignorant and its possible questions, so accurately, that he provides -answers to the questions that arise from time to time in the mind of the -duffer bent on making an etching on a copper plate. I have never seen the -process done, but with the aid of this book I have made many etchings—and -what I have done other duffers can do. I do not say these etchings of -mine are masterpieces, but I do say that the book so delivers its -message that the most ignorant may hear and understand. Mr. Justice -Stephen’s book on Evidence is a most wonderful piece of codification. The -English Law of Evidence has about as near relation to the real facts of -life as the rules of the game of Poker. It is one of those things that -must be learned more or less by heart, there is no sense or principle -in it. Until Mr Justice Stephen published his book the law was a chaos -of undigested decisions; since the publication it has been as orderly a -science as a game of chess. It has still no reality about it, but the -moves and gambits and openings are analysed and can be learned. As to -Dr. Abbott’s “How to write clearly,” let no one think evil of the work -on account of anything I have written, any more than Mr. Paton’s volume -should be judged by the artistic quality of my etchings. - -As to the greater messages of life which we have had delivered to us by -the hands of the great authors, these are as I have suggested, the real -answer to the question, “Why be an Author?” The writings of men like S. -Paul and the author of the Book of Job and S. Augustine, and in our own -day, of Thomas Carlyle and Charles Dickens, all seem to me to have been -written in reply to some such command as was given to S. Paul himself to -whom it was said: “Arise and go into the City and it shall be _told_ thee -what thou must do.” The writer who has a message to deliver is generally -told what it is and he never, I think, fails to deliver it. He does not -need motives of vanity or greed—nor is there any question of writing for -the fun of the thing—he is told by some force beyond and outside him what -he must do, and he does. He is a happy messenger boy sent on his errand -by the Great Postmaster, whose messages he delivers. - -There are many names we all instinctively remember of writers who seem -to have had messages to deliver to ourselves, and whose messages we -have received with thankfulness, and I trust, humility. It is wonderful -sometimes to remember how these messengers have been upheld in their -service through dangers and difficulty, and protected against the hatred, -malice and uncharitableness of the official ecclesiastical post-boys who -claim a monopoly of all moral letter carrying. Take as an instance the -author of the Book of Job. It has always been a marvel to me how he ran -his message through the cordon of the infidelity and ignorance by which -the holy places of his time were surrounded, and landed his book safely -and soundly into the centre of the literature of the world. I suppose the -creed of the author of the Book of Job was, as Froude puts it, “that the -sun shines alike on good and evil, and that the victims of a fallen tower -are not greater offenders than their neighbours.” That was a new message -then, and very few believe it in their hearts now. Most of us have a -secret notion that riches are the right reward of goodness, and poverty -the appropriate punishment of evil. It must have required a stout heart -to pen that message when the Book of Job was written, and a fearless -heart to face the publication of it among the orthodox literature of the -time. - -I do not know if attention has ever been drawn to the point, but the -author of the Book of Job has always settled for me the literary -righteousness of the happy ending. Job, you know—as every hero of every -story-book ought to—lives happily ever afterwards. The Lord gave him -twice as much as he had before, his friends each gave him a piece of -money and a ring of gold, and he finished up with fourteen thousand sheep -and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand -she-asses, not to mention seven sons and three daughters—“So Job died, -being old and full of days.” - -Now-a-days, when every story we read or play we see is deliberately -formed to leave us more unhappy than it found us, is it not pleasant -to those, who like myself do not believe in the dismal Jemmy school of -writers, to remember that the author of the Book of Job “went solid” for -the happy ending? I have no doubt the dramatic critic of the Babylon -Guardian “went solid” for him, and called him a low down, despicable -person—but the critics, if any, have disappeared—the author, too, has -disappeared—only his message remains, and will always remain until it is -no longer necessary to us. And one reason that it remains is, because -he was a big enough author to know that if you write for mankind you -must not despise mankind, you must not sneer in your hearts at the very -people you are writing for, but you must write for them in a spirit -of love and affection, and respect, even to the respecting of their -little weaknesses, and you must remember that one of the weaknesses of -mankind—if it be a weakness—is the child-like love of a story which -begins with “Once upon a time,” and ends with everyone living happily -ever afterwards. - -I have not answered the question, “Why be an author?” because as I -said in the beginning I do not know the answer. In so far as there is -an answer, it is given, I think, in the words of the prophet, Thomas -Carlyle. He is reassuring himself that the work of a writer is after -all as real and sensible and practical a work as that of any smith or -carpenter. “Hast thou not a Brain?” he says to himself, “furnished with -some glimmerings of light; and three fingers to hold a pen withal? Never -since Aaron’s Rod went out of practice, or even before it, was there -such a wonder-working Tool: greater than all recorded miracles have -been performed by Pens. For strangely in this so solid-seeming World, -which nevertheless is in continual restless flux, it is appointed that -_Sound_ to appearance the most fleeting, should be the most continuing of -all things. The WORD is well said to be omnipotent in this world; man, -thereby divine, can create as by a Fiat. Awake, arise! Speak forth what -is in thee; what God has given thee, what the Devil shall not take away. -Higher task than that of Priesthood was allotted to no man: wert thou but -the meanest in that sacred Hierarchy, is it not honour enough therein to -spend and be spent?” - -That, if any, is the answer to the question, “Why be an Author?” - - - - -WHICH WAY IS THE TIDE? - - “O call back yesterday, bid time return.” - - _Richard II._ iii., 2. - - -Dozing in a railway carriage on a journey to Wales I listened dreamily -to the faint echoes of an argument between a gentleman of the old school -who contended that the country was going to the dogs, and a younger -enthusiast who was optimistic as to the present and future of our race. -It was at Deganwy that the older man, who had, I thought, somewhat the -worst of the argument, pointed to the sea and said, with the air of one -who uttered a new thought, that it was impossible for those who stood -on the shore to say at the moment which way the tide was setting. The -younger man accepted the stale simile with the courteous reverence that -is the debt we willingly pay to age when we know that we know better. - -A few days afterwards a friend handed me a copy of an old newspaper. -His wife had discovered it with other of its fellows during the Spring -cleaning. “The things,” she said in her practical way, “were harbouring -dirt.” But from my point of view they were also harbouring history, and -turning over the single sheet it occurred to me that it might help one to -a conclusion about the ever interesting problem “which way is the tide?” -The newspaper was, to be exact, the _Manchester Guardian_, of Saturday, -January 24th, 1824, No. 143 of Vol. IV. The price was sevenpence or seven -and sixpence a quarter if paid in advance, and eight shillings on credit. -In the matter of price the tide was clearly with the moderns. There was -an excellent wood-cut on the front page, a semi-advertisement—as I took -it—of Messrs. David Bellhouse and Sons, of Eagle Quay, Oxford Road, who -“respectfully informed the public that they have commenced carriers of -timber by water betwixt Liverpool and Manchester” by means of a paddle -steam tug “The Eagle,” with a funnel, the height of its mast and a huge -square sail and two Union Jacks, one floating at the masthead and the -other astern, and accompanying rafts of timber following the tug. In -another column Fredk. and Chas. Barry, sworn brokers, of Vine Street, -America Square, London, advertise that the fine fast sailing new brig, -Walworth Castle, 240 tons, A.1. coppered, I. Wrentmore, Commander, will -sail for Vera Cruz from London, and had only room for about fifty tons -of goods. Certainly in the matter of the carriage of goods at sea and -by canal we seem to have made progress. When you come to the matter of -passenger traffic, it is interesting to read of “The Telegraph,” which -leaves every afternoon at 3.30 for London through Macclesfield, Leek, -Derby, Leicester, and Northampton to the White Horse, Fetter Lane. In -the same column we read of the “North Briton” and “Robert Burns,” which -leave every morning at 4.30, and run through Chorley, Preston, Lancaster, -Kendal, and Carlisle, to the Buck Inn, Glasgow, and the splendid service -of six coaches to Liverpool, starting at intervals from 5 a.m. to 5.30 -in the evening. This column of coach advertisements is fine picturesque -reading, but it is a little old-fashioned by the side of a sixpenny -Bradshaw of to-day. - -Again, if we turn to the report of the Salford Epiphany Quarter Sessions, -Thomas Starkie, Esquire, Chairman, we have much to be thankful for in -latter-day records. It must be remembered of course that the Sessions -of to-day are more frequent, and different Sessions are held in small -areas. Still, in January, 1824, there were no less than 240 prisoners, a -number far in excess of anything we read of to-day. Nearly all the cases -seem to have been cases of stealing, and there were few acquittals. The -sentences were terrible, and only those who remember sentences given by -some of the minor tribunals in comparatively recent years can credit the -fact that such sentences were passed by humane and thoughtful men, in -what was genuinely believed to be the interest of society. A long list -of sentences begins thus: “Transported for life, William Thomas (16), -for stealing one pocket handkerchief.” Lower down we find that Thomas -Kinsey (21), for stealing thirty pieces of cotton cloth, gets off with -transportation for fourteen years. The number of young people that -are transported for small thefts is astonishing. Martha Jowett (30), -for stealing a purse; John Webster (19) and John Drinkwater (24), for -stealing a gun; Martha Myers (16), for stealing wearing apparel, and -Mary Mason (24), for stealing a purse, are all among the list of those -transported for seven years. More aristocratic sinners had a better -chance of acquittal, and the receivers of the Birmingham notes stolen -from the Balloon coach were respited because the jury found that the -receiving “was elsewhere than in the County of Lancaster,” and counsel -successfully contended that they must be discharged. Certainly in these -matters the tide has flowed towards less crime and more humanity to -prisoners since 1824. - -But whereas human institutions seem to have improved, human nature seems -to have been much as it is to-day. Dr. Lamert—the predecessor of many -twentieth century quacks—is at No. 68 Piccadilly, ready to be consulted -about and to cure “all diseases incidental to the human frame,” and -has his testimonials and affidavits as to the success of his treatment -almost in the very language in which we can read them to-day. “The -greatest discovery in the memory of man is universally allowed to be -the celebrated Cordial Balm of Rakasiri,” whose name is “blown on the -bottle” and whose properties will cure any disease from “headache to -consumptions.” “Smith’s Genuine Leamington Salts are confidently offered -to the public under the recommendation of Dr. Kerr, Northampton,” and -other eminent medical men, whilst from Mottershead and other chemists -you can obtain Black Currant Lozenges “in which are concentrated all the -well-known virtues of that fruit.” In this backwater of life the tide -seems to be running, if at all, the other way. In the matter of gambling, -too, it would be hard to say whether State lotteries, well protected -from private imitations, were worse for our morals than free trade in -bookmaking, coupled by uncertain and unequally worked police supervision. -In the paper before me, “T. Bish, of the Old State Lottery Office, 4 -Cornhill, respectfully reminds his best friends the public that the State -lottery begins the 19th of next month.” There are to be seven £20,000 -prizes and many others, and “in the very last Lottery Bish shared and -sold 18,564, a prize of £20,000, 1379 a prize of £10,000, and several -other capitals.” Bish of 1824 was but one evil more or less honest in -his dealings and controlled by the State. Bish of 1911 is a legion of -bookmakers, more or less dishonest and wholly uncontrolled. Still I am -far from saying things are not better so, and even here could we discern -it clearly the tide may be flowing the right way. - -In the interest taken in art and literature it would be hard to say that -we do not see signs of earnestness and enthusiasm in this one newspaper -of 1824 that it would be hard to find in a single copy of a journal -of to-day. The people of Liverpool are sinking sectarian differences -and starting a mechanics and apprentices’ library, and already have -1,500 volumes. It is true that the whole thing was done very much on -the lines of the gospel according to Mr. Barlow and Mr. Fairchild, but -it was being done with enthusiasm. The elder Mr. Gladstone sent ten -pounds and a letter of “correct ideas,” which was read to the meeting, -but unfortunately we shall never read the “correct ideas” which were -“basketed” by the then subeditor. The Library was to contain no works -of controversial theology or politics, and the _Liverpool Advertiser_ -sees with regret that “Egan’s Sporting Anecdotes” was amongst a number -of volumes contributed by an American gentleman. The Pharisee, we must -admit, is with us to-day, and even in well governed cities sometimes -finds a place on Library Committees. But here is another announcement -in this wonderful number of the newspaper which lovers of art will read -with pious interest. “There is to be a General Meeting of the Governors -of the Manchester Institution, to consider a report to be submitted with -reference to the building and to the general welfare of the Institution.” -Below this is printed “amounts already advertised £14,610,” and then -follows a list of between thirty and forty new hereditary members -subscribing forty guineas apiece. - -A hundred years hence a newspaper of our own day will be unearthed -to tell future generations of a City Council refusing supplies for -continuing the great work that these city fathers started with their own -monies. Could we to-day from a far richer Manchester and far wealthier -citizens obtain hereditary subscribers at forty guineas apiece for a -new theatre or opera house or art gallery, if such were required in -Manchester? It is at least doubtful. - -Two other announcements that cannot rightly be evidence of human -progress, but which may make us worthily envious of the good old days -that are gone:—at the Theatre Royal, Mr. Matthews is playing in “The -Road to Ruin” and the musical farce of “The Bee Hive,” and on Wednesday -he will have a benefit with three musical farces including “The Review.” -It would be worth owning one of Mr. Wells’s time machines to take the -chance of dropping into Manchester in 1824, if only to go to the Royal -and see the show. And here is another echo of glad tidings. “We have been -informed that the author of Waverley has contracted with his bookseller -to furnish him with three novels a year for three years, and that he is -to have ten thousand pounds a year for the supply, and that four novels -have actually been delivered as per contract.” - -When one reads an announcement such as that, and thinks of the joy of -unpacking the parcel of books when it arrives, and cutting and reading -three new masterpieces a year hot from the press, the novel reader of -to-day may be excused if he sighs over a golden age that will never -return. Nevertheless, man cannot live by Waverley novels alone; and what -is this we read a little lower down the column? “Average price of corn -from the returns received in the week ending January 10: - - Wheat, 57s. 4d.” - -Of a truth in essential things the tide has flowed steadily in the right -direction since this year of 1824, and is not on the turn—as yet. - - - - -KISSING THE BOOK.[4] - - “The evidence you shall give to the Court touching the matter - in question shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing - but the truth—So help you God.” - - _The Oath._ - - -When the clerk in an English Court of Justice administers the usual oath, -he finishes with the words “Kiss the Book,” spoken in an imperative mood, -and if the witness shows any hesitation in carrying out the unsavoury -ceremony, he does his best to compel performance. The imperative mood -of the clerk has not, to my thinking, any legal sanction. Kissing the -Book is not, and never has been, as far as I can learn, a necessary -legal incident of the oath of a Christian witness or juror. Why, then, -does the twentieth-century Englishman kiss the Book by way of assuring -his fellow-citizens that he is not going to lie if he can help it? The -answer is probably akin to the answer given to the question: “Why does -a dog walk round and round in a circle before he flings himself upon -the hearth-rug?” Naturalists tell us that it is because the wild dog of -prehistoric days made his bed in the contemporary grass of the forest -after that fashion. Both man and dog are victims of hereditary habit. -Probably the majority of men and dogs never consider for a moment how -they came by the habit. But when, as in the case of kissing the Book, the -habit is so insanitary, superstitious and objectionable, it is worth a -few moments to consider its history, origin, and practical purpose, and -then to further consider whether mankind is not old enough to give it up, -and whether we should not make an effort at reform in the healthy spirit -that a growing schoolboy approaches the manly problem of ceasing to bite -his nails. - -In a modern English Encyclopædia of Law it is suggested that the habit -of kissing the Book did not become recognised in the English Courts -until the middle of the seventeenth century, and that it only became -general in the latter part of the eighteenth century. For my part, I -cannot subscribe to that view. It is true that there is very little -direct authority in any ancient law book on practice which enables one to -say what the practice was. But that is because the old lawyers did not -consider “kissing the Book” essential to the oath, and the practice was -so universally followed that there was no need to describe it. - -Shakespeare wrote “The Tempest” about 1613. He gives Stephano, when -offering Caliban the bottle, these lines: “Come, swear to this; kiss the -book:—I will furnish it anon with new contents:—swear. (_Gives Caliban -drink._)” And a few lines later on Caliban says, “I’ll kiss thy foot; -I’ll swear myself thy subject.” To me, reading the scene to-day, and -bearing in mind that it was a low-comedy scene written to amuse the -groundlings, the conclusion is irresistible that Shakespeare drew his -simile from the common stock of everyday affairs, and that the idea of -kissing the Book was as familiar to the average playgoer at the Globe or -the Curtain as it is to-day to the pittite at His Majesty’s. Beaumont and -Fletcher, too, in _Women Pleased_, II, vi, have the lines: “Oaths I swear -to you ... and kiss the book, too”; and no doubt, if diligent search were -made in the Elizabethan writers other such popular references could be -found. - -Samuel Butler, who, we must remember, was clerk to Sir Samuel Luke, of -Bedfordshire, and other Puritan Justices of the Peace, and therefore had -administered the oath many hundreds of times prior to the Restoration, -has the following passage in “Hudibras” concerning a perjurer:— - - “Can make the Gospel serve his turn, - And helps him out; to be forsworn; - When ’tis laid hands upon and kiss’d; - To be betrayed and sold like Christ.” - -This is, I think, conclusive that in 1660, in the common form of oath, -the practice was for the witness to lay the hand upon the Book and -afterwards to kiss it. - -Fleetwood, the Recorder of London, writing to Lord Burghley, describing -Serjeant Anderson taking his seat as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas -in 1582, notes that: “Then the clarke of the corone, Powle, did read -hym his oathe, and after, he himself read the oathe of the supremacie, -and so kist the booke.” This, of course, was a ceremonial oath, but it -throws light upon the custom. Although the direct references to kissing -the Book are few and far between, several interesting specimens are given -in _Notes and Queries_ from early Irish records, showing that oaths were -taken both upon holy relics and upon the Holy Gospels, _corporaliter -tacta et deosculata_, in the time of Henry VI., and that in the reign of -Edward I. kissing the Book was an incident of the official oath of the -Exchequer. It is possible that a close study of the records of a Catholic -country would throw light upon the origin of kissing the Book, which, -from a Protestant point of view, is doubtless as superstitious a custom -as kissing relics or the Pope’s toe or a crucifix. It was said by John -Coltus, the Archbishop of Armagh, in 1397, that the English introduced -the custom of swearing on the Holy Evangelists into Ireland, and that -in earlier days the Irish resorted to croziers, bells, and other sacred -reliquaries to give solemnity to their declarations. That kissing the -Book is directly evolved from the superstitious but reverential worship -of holy relics can scarcely be doubted. When Harold pledged his solemn -oath to William the Conqueror, we learn in the old French _Roman de Rou_ -how William piled up a reliquary with holy bodies and put a pall over -them to conceal them, and, having persuaded Harold to take the oath -upon these hidden relics, he afterwards showed Harold what he had done, -and _Heraut forment s’espoanta_, Harold was sadly alarmed. Curious, but -interesting, is the form of oath here described. Harold first of all _suz -sa main tendi_, held his hand over the reliquary, then he repeated the -words of his oath, and then _li sainz beisiez_ kissed the relics. It is -almost the same ceremony that we have to-day, and in the same order. The -Book is held in the hand, the words of the oath are repeated, and then -the Book is kissed. - -The Rev. James Tyler, in his interesting book on oaths, quotes an -eleventh-century oath of Ingeltrude, wife of Boston, that she swore to -Pope Nicholas, as one of the earliest examples of kissing the Book. It -runs thus: “I, Ingeltrude, swear to my Lord Nicholas, the chief Pontiff -and universal Pope, by the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and these -four Evangelists of Christ our God which I hold in my hands and kiss with -my mouth.” This early example of the habit shows that kissing the Book -was contemporaneous with kissing bells, crucifixes and relics, and that -the religious origin of the custom is similar. In the Roman Catholic -ritual the priest still kisses the Gospel after he has read it, and I -have been told that this is done in some Anglican churches. It is curious -that the ceremony should survive in the law courts and have died out in -most of the churches. But in these things the average man violently -strains at gnats and complacently swallows camels. The Roman ceremony -of kissing the Book—which is done reverently by the priest as part of a -religious ceremony—would distress a Protestant, who watches the kissing -of the same Book in a modern police court without the least sign of moral -or mental disturbance. - -Of the ultimate origin of kissing as a sign and pledge of truth much -could be written, and it would be an interesting task to trace the -history of the ceremonial kiss to its earliest source. The perjury of -Judas was signed by a kiss, and Jacob deceived his father with the same -pledge of faith. So also false, fleeting, perjured Clarence swears to -his brother: “In sign of truth I kiss your highness’ hand.” The kiss -as a pledge or symbol of truth is probably as old in the world as the -degraded ceremony of spitting on a coin for luck, and is what students of -folk-lore call a saliva custom, the origin of which seems to have been -a desire on the part of the devotee for a union with the divine or holy -thing. - -So much for the ancient origin of the kissing portion of this ceremony. -It is shown to be of superstitious if not idolatrous origin, and I hope -to show beyond doubt that in the view of English lawyers it is not, and -never has been, an essential part of the English Christian oath. That -is to say, an English Christian has a legal right to take the oath by -merely laying his hand upon the Book, and the act of kissing the Book -afterwards is a work of supererogation, and of no legal force or effect -whatever. - -No lawyer that I know of has ever suggested that a witness or juror must -kiss the Book. Nor, on the contrary, has any lawyer sought to forbid a -man to kiss the Book. I take it that any reverent and decent use of the -Book as a voluntary addition to the oath would be allowed. The general -rule of English law is that all witnesses ought to be sworn according to -the peculiar ceremonies of their own religion, or in such manner as they -deem binding on their consciences. If, therefore, a Christian wishes to -kiss the Book he may do so, but the only formality that need be legally -observed is the laying of hands upon the Book. As Lord Hale says, “the -regular oath as is allowed by the laws of England is _Tactis sacrosanctis -Dei Evangeliis_.” Lord Coke, too, says “It is called a corporal oath -because he toucheth with his hand some part of the Holy Scripture.” -Modern antiquarians have sought to show that the word corporal was used -in connection with the ritual of an oath, and referred to the “Corporale -Linteum” on which the sacred Elements were placed, and by which they were -covered. Some suggest that the word comes from the Romans, and draws a -distinction between an oath taken in person and by proxy. But for my part -I think Lord Coke knew as much about it as any of his scholarly critics, -and is not far wrong when he says a corporal oath is an oath in which a -man touches the Book. - -This form of oath was practised by the Greeks and Romans, and is of great -antiquity. Hannibal, when only nine years old, was called upon by his -father to swear eternal enmity to Rome by laying his hand on the sacred -things. Livy, in describing it, uses the words _tactis sacris_, the very -expression that passed into the University and other oaths of modern -England. Izaak Walton, in his “Life of Hooker,” sets down a bold but -affectionate sermon preached to Queen Elizabeth by Archbishop Whitgift, -in which he reminds the Queen that at her coronation she had promised to -maintain the Church lands, and then he adds: “You yourself have testified -openly to God at the holy altar by laying your hands on the Bible, then -lying upon it.” - -That this is the real form of an English Christian oath, and that kissing -the Book is purely a voluntary ceremony is, I think, made clear in a -curious little volume, entitled, “The Clerk of Assize, Judges Marshall -and Cryer, being the true Manner and Form of the Proceedings at the -Assizes and General Goale Delivery, both in the Crown Court and Nisi -Prius Court. By T.W.” This was printed for Timothy Twyford in 1660, and -sold at his shop within the Inner Temple Gate. It is probably the book -Pepys refers to when he notes in his diary: “So away back again home, -reading all the way the book of the collection of oaths in the several -offices of this nation which is worth a man’s reading.” - -I am quite of Pepys’ opinion, and a man may read it after two hundred -and fifty years with as much profit as Pepys did. It is a quaint little -book, and in the preface T. W. writes that “the Government of this nation -being now happily brought into its ancient and right course, and that the -proceedings in Courts of Justice to be in the King’s name, and in Latine -and Court-hand (the good old way), I have set forth and published the -small Manuel,” for the benefit of the new officers who may here “find all -such Oaths and Words as are by them to be administered.” In the rubric -attached to the jurors’ oath is the following:—“Note that every juror -must lay his hand on the Book and look towards the prisoners.” In the -same way in the oath to the foreman of the grand jury, T. W. writes: “The -foreman must lay his hand on the Book.” - -Although it seems probable that kissing the Book was customary at this -date, T. W. would, I think, certainly have pointed out that it was -necessary if he had so considered it, and the absence of any reference -to kissing the Book in a “manuel” published for the very purpose of -explaining to the ignorant the correct manner in which to administer the -oath, shows that the author did not consider that part of the ceremony a -necessary one. The references to the form of oath in old law books are -very few. There is a case reported, in “the good old way” of law French, -in Siderfin, an ancient law reporter, in Michaelmas Term, 1657. Dr. Owen, -Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, refused to take the oath _en le usual manner -per laying son main dexter sur le Lieur et per baseront ceo apres_. The -doctor merely lifted up his right hand, and the jury, being in doubt, -asked Chief Justice Glin whether it was really an oath. The Chief Justice -said, “that in his judgment he had taken as strong an oath as any other -witness, but said if he was to be sworn himself he would lay his right -hand upon the Book.” There is another curious decision upon the necessity -of kissing the Book mentioned in Walker’s “History of Independency,” in -the account of the trial of Colonel Morrice, who held Pontefract Castle -for the King. The colonel wished to challenge one Brooke, foreman of the -jury, and his professed enemy, but the Court held, probably rightly, that -the challenge came too late, as Brooke was sworn already. “Brooke being -asked the question whether he were sworn or no, replied ‘he had not yet -kissed the Book.’ The Court answered that was but a ceremony.” - -The whole matter was very much discussed in 1744, when, in a well-known -case, lawyers argued at interminable length as to whether it were -possible for a person professing the Gentoo religion to take an oath in -an English court. Sir Dudley Rider, the Attorney-General, says in his -argument “kissing the Book is no more than a sign, and not essential to -the oath.” He seems to think that touching the Book is not essential; -but the true view seems to be laid down by Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, -who says that the outward act is not essential to the oath, but there -must be some external act to make it a corporal act. That is to say, that -the kind of external act done may be left to the taste and fancy of the -person taking the oath. The laying the hand on the Book is convenient, -and is the recognised form, but a salute or act of reverence towards the -Book would be sufficient, as Dr. Owen’s case seems to show. - -Apart altogether from the forms and ceremonies of oaths, it is surely -well worth considering whether the practice of oath-taking in courts -of justice should not be discontinued. Although many good and learned -men have argued with great ability that a man taking an oath does not -imprecate the Divine vengeance upon himself if his evidence is false, yet -the whole history and practice of oath-taking is adverse to their amiable -and well-meaning philosophy. The gist of an oath is, and always has been, -that the swearer calls upon the Almighty to inflict punishment upon him -here or hereafter if he is false to his oath. In early days oaths were -only taken upon solemn occasions, and in a solemn manner. In modern life -they have been multiplied, and become so common that little attention -is paid to them. Even in this country prior to Elizabeth there was no -statute punishing perjury, and the oath was the only safeguard there -was against the offence. The statute then passed shows of what little -use the oath was even in those days as a preventive of perjury. But then -few people could give testimony in courts, and there may have been some -semblance of a religious ceremony in the affair. To-day that is gone, and -necessarily gone. - -All writers who have seriously considered the matter condemn the -multiplicity of oaths on trivial occasions as taking away from the -ceremony any practical value it may have. Selden, in Cromwell’s day, -says: “Now oaths are so frequent they should be taken like pills, -swallowed whole; if you chew them you will find them bitter; if you -think what you swear, ’twill hardly go down.” What would he think of our -progress to-day in this matter? Defoe, at a later date, lays down the -principle that “the making of oaths familiar is certainly a great piece -of indiscretion in a Government, and multiplying of oaths in many cases -is multiplying perjuries.” England has been called “a land of oaths,” and -familiarity with oath-taking has always bred contempt of the oath. In the -old days of the Custom House oaths it is said that “there were houses of -resort where persons were always to be found ready at a moment’s warning -to take any oath required; the signal of the business for which they were -needed was this inquiry: ‘Any damned soul here?’” - -Without suggesting that there is a great amount of perjury in English -courts, for Englishmen respect the law and have a wholesome dread -of indictments, we cannot pride ourselves on a system that uses what -ought to be a very solemn ceremony on every trumpery occasion. In the -County Courts alone a million oaths at least must be taken every year -in England. And upon what trifling, foolish matters are men and women -invited by the State to make a presumptuous prayer to the Almighty to -withdraw from them His help and protection if they shall speak falsely. - -Two women, for instance, have a dispute over the fit of a bodice; each is -full of passion and prejudice, and quite unlikely to speak the truth, the -whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Is it fair to ask them to take -an oath that they will do so, and, in the language of Chaucer, to swear -“in truth, in doom and in righteousness,” about so trivial a matter? Or, -again, in an arbitration under the Lands Clauses Act, is it fitting that -six land surveyors should condemn themselves to eternal penalties when -everyone knows that, like the barristers engaged in the arbitrations, -they are paid for services of an argumentative character rather than as -witnesses of mere fact? As Viscount Sherbrooke said in an excellent essay -on the oath, written at the time of the Bradlaugh case, “If you believe -in God it is a blasphemy; if not, it is a hollow and shameless cheat.” - -Any practical, worldly scheme to prevent perjury is of more use than a -religious oath, and one might quote many historical instances in proof -of this. Two widely apart in circumstance and period will show my -meaning. The Ministers of Honorius on a certain occasion swore by the -head of the Emperor, a very ancient form of oath. (Joseph, it may be -remembered, swore “by the life of Pharaoh,” and Helen swore by the head -of Menelaus.) The same Ministers, says Gibbon, “were heard to declare -that if they had only invoked the name of the Deity they would consult -the public safety (by going back on their word), and trust their souls -to the mercy of Heaven; but they had touched in solemn ceremony that -august seal of majesty and wisdom, and the violation of that oath would -expose them to the temporal penalties of sacrilege and rebellion.” In -like manner I remember a Jew, annoyed by apparent disbelief of his oath, -saying before me in a moment of irritation, “I have sworn by Jehovah that -every word I say is true, but I will go further than that: I will put -down ten pounds in cash, and it may be taken away from me if what I say -is not true.” What sane man will say that the oath, as an oath, is of -practical use when for centuries we find instances such as these of the -way it is regarded by the person by whom it is taken. But it will be said -that if a man pleases he can to-day affirm. Undoubtedly that is so, but -the average Englishman has a horror of making a fuss in a public place, -especially about a matter of everyday usage. The other day I suggested -to a man who was suffering from cancer in the tongue that he might take -the Scotch oath instead of kissing the Book. He did it reluctantly, as -I thought. Once, too I made the same suggestion to a witness at Quarter -Sessions who was in a horrible state of disease, but he preferred to kiss -the Book—which was afterwards destroyed. - -The average man is like the average schoolboy, and would any day rather -do “the right thing” than to do what is right. All of us have not the -courage of Mrs. Maden, who was refused justice in a Lancashire county -court as late as 1863 because she honestly stated her views on matters -of religion. As Baron Bramwell pointed out in deciding the case, the -judgment he was giving involved the absurdity of ascertaining the fact -of Mrs. Maden’s disbelief by accepting her own statement of it, and then -ruling that she was a person incompetent to speak the truth. Truly no -precedent in English law can be over-ruled by its own inherent folly. - -Later on, too, in our own time, we can remember the fate of Mr. Bradlaugh -in his struggles with Courts and Parliament, and we can read in history -the stories of George Fox and Margaret Fell. The cynic may say that these -people made a great deal of fuss about a very unimportant matter; but, -after all, the attitude of George Fox on the question of the oath was a -very noble one. - - “Will you take the oath of allegiance, George Fox?” asks the - Judge in the Court of Lancaster Castle. - - _George Fox_: “I never took an oath in my life.” - - _Judge_: “Will you swear or no?” - - _George Fox_: “Christ commands we must not swear at all; and - the apostle: and whether I must obey God, or man, judge thee, I - put it to thee.” - -And having read many volumes of man’s answer to George Fox, I am content -for my part to think he still has the best of it, and that “Swear not at -all” is as much a commandment as “Thou shalt not steal,” or “Sell all -that thou hast and give to the poor.” Whether in a work-a-day world of -timid people, who cling to the bad habits of their prehistoric ancestry, -it is possible to live up to the ideals of these commandments is quite -another matter, and I should be the last in the world to throw stones at -others in this matter. - -I must confess that on the few occasions I have given evidence I have -dutifully “kissed the Book” like any other witness. Whether I should do -so again I am not so sure. Probably literary pride would overcome the -natural shyness of my disposition, and I should propose to read what I -have written here to a long-suffering judge, and claim as of right to -take the oath “tactis sanctis,” with no ceremony of kissing. - -For the more I see of the ceremony the more it jars upon me as a mere -matter of reverence to holy things, and the more I read of the matter the -more convinced I am of its superstitious origin. When, too, I feel sure -that it is of no practical purpose and is as useless as it is insanitary, -I begin to think that the hour is approaching when we may, without -impiety to the shades of our ancestors, adopt some more reasonable -ceremony of commencing our evidence in the law courts than that of -kissing the Book. - - - - -A WELSH RECTOR OF THE LAST CENTURY. - - “E’en children follow’d with endearing wile, - And pluck’d his gown to share the good man’s smile.” - - —_Oliver Goldsmith._ - - -“I must tell you this indeed,” as the Reverend John Hopkins, Rector of -Rhoscolyn, always began his stories; but I wish I could tell you what -I have to tell in his own delightful accent. For the form of words, “I -must tell you this indeed,” was only, I think, a trick of speech he used -in order to give himself time to translate his Welsh thought into the -English tongue, and his English tongue, when it spoke, gave something of -the rhythm and music of the Welsh to the foreign language he was using. -His was a curious Welsh accent, unlike any I have heard. For though he -had lived in the pure and bracing atmosphere of Anglesey—where, as in -all the Welsh counties I have been in, they assure me the most classical -Welsh is spoken—yet the rector did not speak with the Anglesey tongue, -being a South Wales man himself, a “Hwntw” in the phrase of the North, or -“man from beyond.” And the beyond he had sprung from was, I believe, in -the neighbourhood of Merthyr. He was a son of the soil and of the school -of Lampeter, and—the rectory of Rhoscolyn being in the gift of the -Bishop of Llandaff—he had, when I first knew him, been sent some twenty -years ago to minister on this out-of-way rock, and there he remained to -the day of his death. The rector’s duties included ministering in two -distant chapels, Llanfair-yn-Neubwll and Llanfihangel-y-Traeth, which -was performed by deputy, but wholly or partly at his cost. In the days -of Elizabeth, the whole of the duties were performed for ten pounds five -shillings; nowadays, I believe, the living is worth nearly two hundred -pounds. - -But though, as I said, there was the song in his words that there is in -all right-spoken Welsh, and the high note lovingly dwelt on towards the -end of the sentence, which only a Welshman can produce without effort, -yet I am not artist enough to describe to you in words the difference of -the rector’s speech from that of his neighbours, only, “I must tell you -this indeed,” that so it was and always is, I am told, with the “men from -beyond.” - -The Rector of Rhoscolyn was a bachelor, a man of stout build and middle -stature. He had the air of a Friar Tuck about him. His eyes were merry -and kindly. If he had changed his long rusty black coat and clerical hat -for a cassock and cowl, he would have been a monk after Dendy Sadler’s -own heart. He loved his pipe and his glass, when the day’s work was done, -and the talk of books and men, with those who had lived in the outer -world, was to him the rarest and most delightful of pleasures. He was -outspoken, simple, and generous, an earnest believer in his creed and his -Church, a lover of music, and above and beyond all, a man who attracted -to himself animals and little children as if by instinct, and gained -their love as only those who suffer them to come without affectation -can do. He seemed, as far as I could see, to have no enemies. I think -it was a weakness in his character—a Christian weakness—that he shrank -from causing annoyance or hurt to anyone’s susceptibilities. I was his -neighbour for some seven summer weeks, and five evenings out of seven -we smoked our pipes together, and he poured out to very willing ears -the tales of his lonely parish, but I scarce remember an unkindly story -among them all. If there was a tale that he feared might give pain in the -repetition, it was always prefaced by a smile of great candour, and as he -began, “I must tell you this indeed,” he placed his fore-finger on his -broad nostril and said in a sly merry whisper, with a great rolling of -the letter “r”: “This is _inter-r-r nos_.” That is why some of his best -stories cannot be set down here. - -But, to understand the man and his ways, you must know how and where he -lived. For the surroundings and the man were as if Nature had designed -the one for the other, and he was as much in his place in his rectory, -on the side of the Mynydd Rhoscolyn, as the Sarn Cromlech is on the -slopes of Cefnamlwch. Rhoscolyn is a typical Anglesey parish. No doubt, -when Mona was one of the Fortunate Islands, it had a Druid temple and a -Druid priest, and if the latter had come back to the site of his temple -he would have found little of change. A church, a plâs, a post-office, a -rectory, a life-boat, and a few farmhouses in sheltered corners; but the -rest is as it always was. The eternal rocks, the restless waves rushing -up into the black water caves, the steep cliffs crumbling a little day by -day, the cruel, sharp island rocks hidden at high water and marked by the -spray and swirl of the tide as it sinks away from the shore, the purple -heather and yellow gorse clothing the cliffs to the edge of the sky, the -samphire finding a fearful footway between earth and sea, and, above all, -the wild bees humming their eternal summer song, and the fresh breezes, -always pure, always sweet, always sweeping backwards and forwards across -the promontory. Those things were there in the day of the Druids and they -are there to-day. - -And in Roman times Rhoscolyn was of more note than it is now, for some -say that the name of it is derived from a Roman column that was placed -here to signify the utmost bounds of Roman victories. Whether this be -true or not, we have in the name Bodiar—which is still the squire’s -house—the governor’s habitation, and in the neighbouring Prieddfod the -Præsidii Locus; or, at least, this is what antiquaries tell us, and it -is comfortable to believe these things. Telford and his new road thrust -Rhoscolyn further away from civilisation, and the railway brought it no -nearer as it sneaked into Holyhead, across the Traeth-y-grubyn, behind -the shelter of the road embankment. For Holyhead is on an island, and -the old main road, with that instinct for the line of least resistance -which in old highways tends to such picturesque results, kept south of -the wide marsh and crossed the water at Four Mile Bridge—Rhyd-y-bont -Pennant calls it, and he rode over it, and knew at least as much of Wales -as an ordnance surveyor of to-day. There you can see the most beautiful -sunset views of the Holyhead Mountain, at the head of the open water, -when the tide is high; and if you turn your back to the town, you will -find Rhoscolyn within a couple of miles of Four Mile Bridge and six miles -south of Holyhead. - -The rectory stands on the slope of the Rhoscolyn Mountain—there are no -hills in Wales to speak of, for we speak of them all as mountains. It -is four-square, whitewashed, and has a slate roof. There are no trees -round it. The only trees in Rhoscolyn are an imported plantation at the -plâs. There are a few thorn bushes in the hedgerows, but the wind has -carved them into finger-posts, pointing consistently eastward, and they -scarcely look like trees at all. The rectory is surrounded by substantial -farm buildings, for the rector is a farmer. His old mare, Polly, and -the low gig are well-known figures in Holyhead market, and he tells you -with a farmer’s pride that all through the winter his evening supper is -oatmeal porridge and milk, the produce of his own farming. He had no -relish, he told me, for oatmeal that was bought at a shop, for he had a -countryman’s delight and belief in the home-made. His was a good herd of -cows, and he knew each by name, and, like all true Welshmen, could call -them to him as he walked through his fields. Different Welsh districts -seem to have different calls for their cattle, and the real Nevin call, -for instance, is another thing altogether from the Rhoscolyn call. These -things are a mystery, and are well understood by the cows themselves, who -will shake their heads contemptuously at the Saxon imitator. - -The church is a pretty modern building, with a belfry, standing on an -eminence away from other buildings. The post-office where I was living -is its nearest neighbour. There are no streets in Rhoscolyn, nor has it -any centre square. It is a parish rather than a village, and its few -hundred inhabitants live in scattered farms and cottages. There are -generally a few artist visitors, for Rhoscolyn is almost another Sark -for the rock-painter, and one or two families find summer homes in the -neighbouring farms. There is bathing out of your tent, which you leave -on the grass at the edge of the tiny bay, at the mercy of the winds and -the little black bullocks that roam about in the flat marshes inland. -There are rambles among the cliffs and the heather. An ideal place for a -holiday for those who really want a holiday and are content with oxygen -and rest. - -I think, perhaps, I should have found seven weeks of Rhoscolyn more than -enough, if it had not been for the rector. I had met him casually on -an earlier visit, and looked forward to meeting him again. One evening, -soon after I had arrived, I was walking for some distance behind him. He -was in company with a Nonconformist minister, and at a turn in the road -the two parted very amicably with a kindly shake of the hand. It is not -always so in Wales. I ventured, when I got up to the rector, to make some -remark to this effect. He did not at that time know whether or not I had -any ecclesiastical leanings, and with great simplicity he remarked, “I -must tell you this indeed, Judge Parry: we must be charitable, you know, -even to Dissenters.” I have often wondered whether the phrase would be -acceptable to the authorities if it were inserted in the Welsh Church -Catechism. As it was uttered and acted upon by the Rector of Rhoscolyn, -it could give offence to no one who had the least charity and sense of -humour. - -The post-office was between the rectory and the outer world, and so the -rector came in that evening, and many another evening afterwards, and -I was always glad to hear the heavy scrunch of his boots on the loose -gravel in the front of the door. Seated in an armchair with a pipe, he -would proceed to discourse at length of the affairs of the world and his -parish with great simplicity and humour. - -The recent Disestablishment Bill of Mr. Asquith had troubled him very -much. “I must tell you this,” he said: “it has given rise to a great -deal of ill-feeling. Very wicked things have been said indeed, and the -pulpit has been used in chapels on the Liberal side.” - -I was glad to meet a clergyman of the Church of England in Wales who -did not approve of this use of the pulpit, and asked him the kind of -thing that had happened. “I must tell you this indeed, though you will -hardly believe it,” he began. “There was a preacher at the Calvinistic -Methodist Chapel at Llan——, who, on the eve of the election, told his -congregation this. He said he had once been at a hanging—I suppose,” said -the rector with a pleasant smile, “that was the hanging of a late member -of his congregation, but I do not know—and he went on to say it had been -a terrible ordeal for him, and had made him very sick and ill. But he -told his congregation quite solemnly that, if he knew any of them on the -morrow were going to vote for the Conservatives, he would not only go to -his hanging with pleasure, but he would be there to pull his legs.” - -I am afraid I was more amused than shocked, for he added quickly, “I must -tell you it was terrible, and it sounds very much worse in Welsh indeed.” - -I dare say the story had little foundation in fact; but, like all these -election stories, each side firmly believes them for the moment, and as -the rector said, “it makes it very difficult not to be angry.” - -The bitterness of the election seemed, however, to have quite passed -away. By nature, the Welshman is Conservative, almost to the point of -bigotry. This is particularly noticeable in his methods of agriculture, -horticulture, and sanitation. When he is emancipated, and, like the Jew -and the Catholic, his grievance is gone, it will be very interesting to -note his further political development. - -The rector was a great theologian, and enforced his views with liberal -quotations from the Greek Testament, which he could recite in great -quantity. He took a simple pride in his knowledge of the Greek, and used -it on occasions, I must say, in a somewhat unsportsmanlike manner. He had -much sympathy with the Baptists, and was an upholder of the ceremony of -total immersion. He told me, more in sorrow than in anger, of the wicked -outburst of a Particular Baptist whom he had encountered in a third-class -carriage between Holyhead and Bangor. - -“I must tell you this, Judge Parry—for you know I have a great weakness -for the Baptists, and I should see no objection to the ceremony of total -immersion being performed in our Church; well, to-day I met an old -gentleman, a grave reverend man, with a white beard, in the train, and -he asked me what views I had about baptism. Well, I told him, and then I -found he wanted to speak very evil things about the ceremony of baptism -in the English Church. So I quoted the Greek Testament to him to explain -it, and I could see he did not understand it, so then I quoted a whole -chapter to the fellow in Greek, and he got in a terrible rage and jumped -up and shook his fist in my face, and said, ‘I will tell you what you -are! You are nothing but a damned sprinkler. That’s what you are!’ Dear -me, it was terrible for a reverend old gentleman with a white beard to -use such language to a rector, was it not?” - -I asked him if he had ever performed a ceremony of total immersion as a -minister of the Church of England, and he told me he had not, but he was -very near it on one occasion. “I must tell you this,” he continued; “it -was when I was curate in Glamorganshire, a fellow, named Evan Jones, came -to me and wanted to be baptized. Well, I knew he was a poacher and a bad -fellow, and a Presbyterian, but he said he had never been baptized, so I -said I would baptize him. - -“‘But I want to be baptized like the Baptists do it,’ says he. - -“‘Total immersion, you mean,’ says I. ‘Well, I will do it then for you, -if my vicar will let me.’ - -“‘Where will you do it?’ asked Evan. - -“‘It would be good to do it at the pond in the middle of the village on a -Saturday afternoon, when the school children are there to see, and we can -have a hymn,’ said I. - -“Well, Evan did not like that idea at all, and wanted me to go up to a -pool on the hills by a little bridge on the old mountain road; and I did -not care to go up the hills with him alone, for he was a bad fellow. -But he did not want anyone to come with us, for his wife objected to him -being baptized, and he was afraid she might get to hear of it and cause -a disturbance. Well, I decided it was my duty to go with the fellow, and -I told him I would do so if my vicar would allow me. Now my vicar was a -very shrewd, wise old man, and I was very eager to do this if it was for -the good of the Church, so I went to him at once. - -“‘What is it, Hopkins, my boy?’ he said, looking up from a sermon he was -writing. - -“‘Evan Jones wants to be baptized.’ - -“‘Who is Evan Jones?’ asked the vicar. - -“‘He is a poacher and a Presbyterian, and has never been baptized,’ I -said. - -“‘Well baptize him then,’ said the vicar. - -“‘But he wants to be immersed.’ - -“‘Oh, indeed,’ cries the vicar; ‘Well, why not? Immerse him, if you like.’ - -“‘But he wants me to go up on the hills and baptize him all alone in the -pool by the bridge.’ - -“‘What does he want that for?’ - -“‘I don’t know,’ said I. - -“‘But I do,’ said the vicar. ‘He will just be drowning you in the pool, -and we shall have all the Dissenters going about saying Hopkins fell in -the pool late at night, when he was coming home drunk, and that will be a -very bad thing for the Church. No, I will have none of it at all.’ - -“‘But what shall I tell him then?’ I asked. - -“‘Tell him to go to—the Presbyterians,’ says the vicar, and I knew well -what he meant.” - -You rarely saw the rector going through the lanes without a few of the -children of the parish at his heels. For they all loved him. He stuffed -the pockets of his long black coat with sweets, and was never in too -much of a hurry to have a chat with his young parishioners and hear the -news of their families, and listen to the recital of a text from the -Welsh Bible. He knew even more of his Welsh Bible by heart than his Greek -Testament and would correct the least slips in the recital. But when the -text was said, it was duly rewarded by bull’s-eyes and toffee, and a few -kindly words of encouragement. I heard that, when he was dying, several -of the shyest and wildest lads in the place used to haunt the rectory for -news of their friend, and when the end came they would not believe that -he was gone until they saw the coffin being carried from the house, and -then they burst into a dismal howl of mourning and despair. Certainly, -the Rector of Rhoscolyn was a friend to all the children under his care. - -He did not shine as an English preacher, for to him it always remained a -foreign language, though he was a great student of the English classics -and always seeking to improve his English. Milton was a favourite author. -His idea of winter happiness was to draw by the fire after his porridge -supper and read Milton. As a Welsh preacher he was sought after and I -have heard the chanting song of his eloquence through the open windows -of the church, as I sat upon the hillside, many fields away, on a still -summer evening. He read the service in English fairly well, with some -curious tricks of pronunciation, and I remember that we “hurried and -strayed from thy ways” rather than “erred,” which in these modern days -sounded a very reasonable reading. But in a sermon, the foreign tongue -with which he wrestled bravely and visibly sometimes threw him, and one -still remembers with a smile phrases such as “I must tell you this, said -St. Peter,” and “Excuse me”—another favourite form of words to gain time -for translation—“Excuse me, but we are all mortal.” I think, in the use -of the last phrase, there was an expression of his constant desire not to -give pain, and perhaps a feeling that the well-dressed West-End English -congregation that filled his little church from many miles round in -the summer holidays were unused to hear these home truths in their own -elegant tongue. - -But the great charm of the service was the welcome he gave you. The Welsh -service was ended, and the English service started at half-past eleven. -The rector stood at the door of his church in a prehistoric but very -square and dignified top-hat, shaking hands with all as they arrived. He -used to scandalise the stricter brethren somewhat by his greeting to me. -“Good morning Judge Parry, I am glad to see you. I saw you going down to -bathe. I was afraid you would not be back in time for church. How was -the water this morning?” - -I think he was—like many another good man—at his very best in his own -home. Many a visitor to Rhoscolyn will have taken part in one of his -picnic cricket matches. We played in a field in front of the rectory, -from which the grass had been recently mown with scythes. The pitch was -of the nature of rough stubble; but as everyone played between the ages -of two and seventy, without restraint of sex, there was, of course, no -swift bowling, and the science of the game as we play it in the east was -neither wanted nor missed. For there was great excitement and enthusiasm, -and the heartiest cheering when the rector thundered across from wicket -to wicket, and this was redoubled when, at length—having been technically -out on several occasions—he gave up his bat from sheer fatigue, and -hurried off to look after the preparations for his tea. His anxiety -that the buns should arrive in time from Holyhead, and that the butter -should be put on thickly, and that the tea should be well-brewed, makes -his feasts more memorable to me than many an important banquet I have -assisted at. - -But in his own study, when two or three were gathered together, he was -even more at ease and at home. He had never been a rich man, and had -always been a lover of books, and his shelves were crowded with the most -unkempt collection of dear friends that ever a book-lover had gathered -together. Bindings were in many cases conspicuous by their absence, and -in a series of volumes one or two were often missing. These were bargains -he had picked up on some of his rare visits to English towns. The most of -his books were theological, and many were Welsh; but the English classics -were well represented. There were no decorative books. Favourite volumes -were placed lengthways on the shelves instead of upright, with slips of -paper in them, so that the passages he wished to read again could be -readily found. He was, I fancy, a slow reader and a thoughtful one. I was -often astonished at the passages from Milton and Shakespeare he could -quote. These he translated in thought, he told me, into Welsh, to get -their real meaning into his mind. - -I have heard say that he was eloquent in extempore prayer, and I can well -believe it. He used to be very indignant over the alleged shortcomings -of some of the Nonconformists in this respect. “I must tell you this -indeed,” he said: “there are fellows who will repeat the most beautiful -passages of our beautiful Prayer-book in a chapel, and pretend to the -poor people it is extempore prayer. I wonder what they think! Do they -think God has never heard our Prayer-book at all?” Then he would speak -with great respect of the powers of extempore prayer of some of the -great Welsh Nonconformist divines, but he always wound up in a spirit -of sportsmanlike churchmanship rather than boasting: “Excuse me, but I -think I could pray extempore against any of them.” - -One of the sights of the rectory was the kitchen. It was a bright example -of cleanliness, comfort, and hospitable warmth. In it was the only -musical instrument in the house, an harmonium, and here, of an evening, -the rector came to play over the Welsh hymns which he and his servants -loved to sing. The rector was always rather in fear of his housekeeper -and spoke of her with the affectionate awe that a capable domestic -rightly inspires in a confirmed old bachelor. I have no doubt that his -habit of friendliness with all the children of the parish who visited the -rectory freely, and at their own moments, made dirt and trouble for the -household authorities, whose views of children were more practical than -the rector’s, and born of a wider and different experience of their ways -and habits. - -I remember him telling me, one Sunday evening, a story that, I think, -must have been very characteristic of the man and his methods with the -little ones about his gate. The story arose quite naturally, and he told -it with pleasure, but without the least suspicion that it was in any way -a story to his own credit. - -“Did you see that young fellow at the church door this morning with a -top-hat and a black coat, and a gold watch-chain?” he asked. - -“I did not notice him,” I said. - -“Dear me! I must tell you this,” he said. “Have I never told you of -‘Schoni-bach’?” - -The name “Schoni-bach”—the “Sch” was soft, and the “o” moderately -long—was, I felt sure, a Welsh equivalent for Little Johnny, and I waited -with interest to hear more about him. - -“It is a long time ago,” continued the rector, “since Schoni’s father -died. You know the thatched cottage on the shore! Well, he lived there. -He was the strongest man in the parish, and he could get underneath a -cart, a big farm cart, and lift it on his back. On market day, he would -go to Holyhead and make bets he could lift a cart, and he would win a lot -of money, as much as half-a-crown or three shillings sometimes. But he -was not a temperate man, and one day he had been drinking in Holyhead, -and they got him to lift a cart, when he slipped, and the cart broke -his back, and he died. Well, his widow had three little children, and -Schoni-bach was the eldest. And they wanted her to go to the workhouse, -but she would not go. And they were very poor, for she was not strong, -poor woman, and there was very little work for her to do, and the little -children were often starving. They were wild, naked, shy little things, -and would never come near anyone. The poor mother had frightened them by -telling them that they would be taken to the workhouse, and if a stranger -came near the house, they ran up to the mountain-side and hid among the -heather. However, one day I found little Schoni on the hillside near -the rectory. He looked very thin and starved, so I brought him down the -hill, and gave him a slice of bread and some butter-milk, and he ate it -like a dog, I tell you. I told him to come down again, but I was out -next day, and he came with his wet, bare feet into the kitchen, and my -housekeeper sent him off, I think. However, the day after, I was writing -my sermon, and there came a tap at my own side-door—a very gentle, little -tap—and I went to the door, and there was Schoni-bach, a little ragged, -yellow-haired urchin with bare feet. So I went round to the kitchen, and -got a loaf and some butter-milk, for the housekeeper was in the laundry, -and the coast was clear. So I asked him where his little brother and -sister were, and he went behind the laurel bush and dragged them out. -For there they were in hiding all the time, more like little wild foxes -than children. Well, indeed, after that, Schoni-bach would always bring -them down and tap at my side-door, and he always found out when the -housekeeper was away; but how he did it I don’t know. He must often have -been lying hid about the house, waiting for an hour or more, but he was -good friends with my dog, Gelert, who never barked at him at all. But he -was very frightened of the housekeeper, who had scolded him for his dirty -feet. - -“Well, in the summer, they did not come so often, for there were -bilberries and blackberries to gather, and more chances of work and food, -and before winter came Schoni’s uncle, who was a farmer in Canada, sent -for him and paid his passage out, and a little after that he sent for his -mother and the other children, and so they went away, and a very good -thing it was, too, for all of them. - -“Well, all this was many years ago. And last Thursday I was writing my -sermon, and I heard old Gel start up and growl, and there was quite a -gentle little tap at my side-door. I went to the door, for my housekeeper -was out, and there was a big fellow with a top-hat and a black coat, and -a gold watch-chain. I knew what he would be after, so I said to him, ‘It -is no use coming here to sell cattle spice and patent foods and gold -watches, for we don’t want them, indeed, in Rhoscolyn!’ - -“The fellow laughed a bit, and said: ‘Don’t you know me, Mr. Hopkins?’ - -“‘Not a bit of it,’ I said. - -“‘I have often knocked at this door before,’ he said. - -“‘I don’t believe you, indeed,’ I replied. - -“‘Well, it is true,’ he said. And he looked straight at me, and I -looked at him, and then I began to see him again just a little ragged, -yellow-haired boy, and I cried out: ‘It is Schoni-bach! Little Schoni -come back!’ And I must tell you this, that I was so full of joy to see -him again, I could have fallen on his neck and wept. Dear me, but I was -glad to see him yet alive!” - -The rector sighed to think of the old days, and then went on; “Yes, that -was little Schoni outside the church this morning. He was a great fellow -among all the young men there, indeed. ‘What do you think of Canada, -Schoni?’ they kept asking him. And all he did was to keep his hands in -his pockets and rattle his money. That made them stare, I can tell you. -Schoni-bach, with a black coat and a top-hat, and a gold watch-chain, and -his hands in his pockets rattling his money. That was something for these -fellows who have stayed at home to see, wasn’t it? Schoni-bach rattling -his money—or, perhaps, it was only a bunch of keys. He was always a smart -lad, was Schoni-bach.” - -These stories of the old rector’s seem very colourless without the -music of his accent, the constant pauses for the whiff of the tobacco, -and the kindly smile that accompanied them. To those who never knew -him, any written portrait of the man must give but a faint echo of his -personality; but to the many English visitors, artists, sportsmen, and -others, who have found their way beyond the Four Mile Bridge to the -ultimate corner of Anglesey, and there been made welcome by the rector, -these recollections will, I doubt not, call to mind the memory of a kind -friend, and a holiday made the brighter by his cheerful hospitality. -Characters such as his seem to grow rarer day by day. Few men of his -energy and enthusiasm would remain nowadays for a quarter of a century in -so narrow a sphere, content with such a simple life. But the Reverend -John Hopkins was more than content—he was happy. He had sprung from the -people, and was by nature a farmer, and to live upon the land was to -him to be at home. But, above all things, he was enthusiastic in his -ministry. His qualities are set out without flattery on a bronze tablet -that his friends erected in the church he loved so well: - -“A servant of God, in true simplicity of soul, he loved books, music, -and happy human faces, but his chief delight was in the services of the -Church.” - -I have written what I remember of the man, and not of the priest, and -though I should have no right to chronicle or criticise his ministerial -career, I saw enough of him to understand that the keynote to the -cheerfulness and simplicity of his character is sounded in the text that -the friends amongst his congregation have chosen for his memorial: - -“Llawenychais pan ddywedent wrthyf: Awn i dy’r Arglwydd.” - -“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.” - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] This was written prior to The Oaths Act 1909. - -[2] The figures of 1909 are given because in June, 1911, when this was -revised, no later figures were then published. - -[3] In 1883, 43,344 warrants of commitment were issued; and, in 1909, -136,630 warrants of commitment were issued. - -[4] This was published in April 1909. The Oaths Act 1909, 9 Edw. vii. c -39 abolished the practice of kissing the book. - - - - -WORKS BY HIS HONOUR JUDGE EDWARD ABBOTT PARRY - - -Letters From Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple. - -Crown 8vo. Illustrated. 350 pp. Price 6s. - -Presentation Edition, White Vellum, 6s. net. - -“We trust the new and beautiful issue of an ever-fragrant book will -give it yet more readers and lovers than it has had before.”—_Pall Mall -Gazette._ - -May be obtained from SHERRATT & HUGHES, 33 Soho Square, London, W. 34 -Cross Street, Manchester. - -Or all Booksellers. - - -_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ - -Katawampus: Its Treatment and Cure. - -Second Edition, 96 pages, Cloth. 3s. 6d. - -“One of the very best books of the season.”—_The World._ - -“The book is one of rare drollery, and the verses and pictures are -capital of their kind.”—_Saturday Review._ - -“A truly delightful little book, ...”—_Pall Mall Gazette._ - - -_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._ - -Katawampus Kanticles. - -Music by Sir J. F. Bridge, Mus. 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