JUDICIAL MANNERS Then there is the grouchy judge, who growls most of the time like a bear just hibernated, or snarls at each demand upon his intellectual powers. Such a judge makes the law of slight regard to the public, and his court a chamber of horrors to the young lawyer. With him must be regretfully classed the judge who, though usually of manly manners, has occasional lapses into irritation: who throws papers from the Bench, and dashes down briefs declaring, "There's nothing in the case." With these, too, belong the judge whose opaque brain kindles with anger because he cannot under stand the point, and who, blaming his own density upon counsel, flares out at the inno cent occasion of his wrath. "If your honor please," says the attorney, "under the circumstances I must respect fully protest against a juror being with drawn, and the case continued, because . . ." "I don't care how much you protest," politely responds the judge, "/ propose to continue the case." Of course, the fault, as we have seen, is not always, or even generally, with the judge. There are more boobies at the Bar than boors upon the Bench. "Law," said the delightful Advocate Pleydell in Guy Mannering, " 's like laudanum; it's much more easy to use it as a quack does than to learn to apply it like a physician." Great is the judicial suffering from incompetence and lack of intelligence in attorneys. The temptation to sarcasm is almost irresistible. Yet, many judges are able to successfully resist it. Of a greatly beloved judge, recently deceased, it was justly said that he "scorned to test his wit against an incompetent attorney struggling with the difficulties of his case." "Law is not one of the exact sciences," meditated the late Judge Black, "and in judicial proceedings as in other uncertain affairs of this changing world, no man can tell what a day or an hour may bring forth."1 ' Cleveland etc. R.R.Co.v. Erie, 27 Pa. 384 (1836)
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It is true that the accuracy of its decrees are not demonstrable as a problem in mathematics; its ear is not always attuned to the "absolute pitch" of the music of the spheres. Yet justice and judgment pro ceed from the bosom of the Almighty Him self, and the judge for a little while exer cises in part this power. Too often it is justice not tempered with mercy. "Mercy," remarks Mitchell, C. J., in Scouten's App., 186 Pa. 279 (1898), "is not the prerogative of this court." But it was expressly conceded to be a prerogative of the court of first instance. It is trite to say that no power has ever been held for long by any man or body of men without being abused. That the judi cial power is no exception was to have been expected. Shakespeare wrote in the same breath of "the insolence of office, the law's delays." Not that we can justify Job in his sweeping condemnation : "The earth is given unto the hand of the wicked, he covereth the faces of the judges thereof, ' ' but surely judicial fallibility should be rec ognized, and the Bench, instead of sitting in splendid isolation, should expect and welcome fair criticism of their official acts. The aphorism, "An honest man is the noblest work of God," is the survival of a primitive standard of ethics. Mere honesty is not only not enough, it should be and is so common on the Bench and elsewhere as to be taken for granted. But how much higher an ideal is the just, conscientious, faithful, courteous gentleman, discharging as best he can the onerous duties of declar ing righteousness and enforcing judgment. All the inborn kindliness of disposition, all the advantages of careful training, all the dictates of that superb self-conquest of the strong, embodied in "noblesse oblige," all these go to the making of the ideal judge. As a man, strong, self-reliant and coura geous; as a citizen, pure and above reproach; as a judge, helpful, tactful, and considerate: behold, the upright lawgiver! Philadelphia, April, 1907.
