Personal Recollections of English Law Courts. Hawkins to cross-examine. " Dear me, that is very satisfactory. I only regret, my lord, and gentlemen of the jury, that we cannot adopt the same good custom in our courts." Then turning to the secretary, " Do you read the prayers?" " Yes, sir, I do." " I presume you adopt the usual formula, ' Let us pray '? " " Yes, sir." " Then you spell pray with an e, do you not? Prey." And there was Serjeant Ballantine, at whose feet Mr. I. L.Toole sat and studied the part of Serjeant Buzfuz, sending Ballantine a ticket for the first night. Ballantine had the gift of fixing a witness with one eye, while he winked at the jury with the other. I do not know which was the greater master of the art of cross-examination, Hawkins or Ballantine, but the latter was the more con summate actor. One more name, so bright yet so sad, Sir John Karslake; handsome Jack, the finest figure and the handsomest face at the bar. I speak lovingly of his great personal kind ness to myself at the very height of his career. I had briefed him in a case at the Guildhall, and as I was only very young at the time, and the case was of great impor tance to me, he had given me his promise that he would open it himself. He deserted a House of Lords case to keep his promise, and opened my case in a speech of forty minutes, to such excellent purpose that after his opening the enemy hauled down their flag and agreed to a verdict. I never saw him again till I met him one day not long after in Regent's Park, stone-blind, led by the hand by a small boy, and I am not ashamed to confess that the piteous sight completely unmanned me. He had left town in the best of health to spend his long vacation in Scotland; a sudden cold, caught on the mountains as he was deerstalking or shoot ing, flew to his eyes and left him totally blind. He had attained the top rung of the ladder, only one step more to the woolsack, when there fell on His devoted head the ter rible total eclipse. For some months he
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struggled on, hoping against hope, friendly hands leading him into his place in the house, and giving all the help that affection could give; but there are cases in which the grim old reaper with his sickle keen is the truest friend; and he came in mercy to bear poor Jack into the presence of Him who on earth gave sight to the blind. Dear, kindly, handsome Jack! no one who ever knew you has forgotten you. That Guildhall case of mine reminds me of another brilliant meteor which first flashed across the legal firmament at the end of the sixties, I. P. Benjamin. He was my junior in the case, which case concerned a South erner who had given me instructions to retain Benjamin. I had to take him on the inquiry to assess the damages. It was one of the first cases he handled in England, and he gave me a very useful lesson at the preliminary conference. After discussing with me the line he intended to adopt, he said : " There is one thing I want you to be particular about. I have my own way of cross-examining a witness, and you must be careful on no account to interrupt me. For instance, the other side will be bound to call S. as their witness, and to support their case Ire will have to lie. I want him to lie, I shall help him to lie. Now, he is a Yankee, and a much ' cuter' fellow than you; you must not let him see by your face that you know he is lying, or he will dry up too soon for my purposes." I was glad he gave me the hint. S. began by lying, timidly at first, then more positively, then more cir cumstantially, being adroitly helped thereto by Benjamin, till he was fixed tight, and could not lie himself back again. Then, and not till then, down came the bolt which shut him in the trap, and delivered him into our hands. In a very short time Benjamin rose to a high place at the bar, and must have made a large fortune, with nothing but his own genius to aid him. He had the reputation of being the best whist player at the bar. There were two other men who
